ANTONI MUNTADAS AT SESC: THE LIMITS OF PUBLIC SPACE
The Spanish artist known for challenging socio-cultural conventions and exploring the power relations embedded in urban imagery and text presents the exhibition Muntadas Lugar Público in Brazil.
The installation by Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, 1942) invites the public to reflect on the boundaries and transformations of shared spaces. In a context of increasing privatization and surveillance, the artist intervenes in the Conviviality Area at Sesc Pompeia to question urban transformations and the gradual weakening of access to collective spaces.
Located in the western zone of São Paulo, Brazil, Sesc Pompeia was originally an old factory that shut down between 1973 and 1977. After its architectural transformation led by the Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, the space became not only a cultural, sports, and leisure center but also a convergence point reflecting the city’s historical shifts.
Muntadas’ exhibition aligns with this context of transformation and dialogue between past and present, evoking the architect’s original intentions. His work highlights how urban and public spaces have increasingly been marked by divisions, surveillance, and control, to the detriment of citizens and communities.
For the artist, as the privatization of public areas such as streets, squares, and parks continues to grow, the question of what is truly “public” becomes more and more relevant. In this light, he raises an essential inquiry: who really occupies public space?
Curated by Diego Matos, the project at Sesc Pompeia features a site-specific intervention in the Conviviality Area: visual and textual works, along with architectural elements, designed to explore the meanings of “public”—as both an audience and a space—while prompting reflection on contemporary urban spaces and the concepts of leisure and the public sphere.
Muntadas Lugar Público will be on view until August 10, 2025, at Sesc Pompeia, located in Água Branca, R. Clélia 93, São Paulo (Brazil).
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