Carnival | In the countryside, on the street, on the avenue

CARNIVAL | IN THE COUNTRYSIDE, ON THE STREET, ON THE AVENUE

From the countryside to the largest cities, Carnival reinvents every space it passes through. The celebration reshapes hierarchies, brings people together, and transforms everyday paths into territories of celebration. Tradition, improvisation, and spectacle coexist in an experience defined by music, color, and exuberance, where the popular and the monumental continually enrich one another.

The works presented in this section reveal many different carnivals. In Di Cavalcanti’s work, the celebration is inseparable from the intensity of the streets and their characters. Marcel Gautherot’s photographs of the crowds in Salvador reveal the power of collective occupation. Heitor dos Prazeres depicts community samba in the sugarcane fields; Bajado turns to the processions of Olinda; Maria Auxiliadora creates festive scenes animated by movement and ornamentation; and Sergio Vidal captures the urban vitality of other possible carnivals. In every image, gestures, rhythms, and adornments reveal forms of identity rooted in different regions and social contexts across Brazil.

In the work of Beatriz Milhazes, Carnival appears not merely as a theme, but as a visual language. Her compositions organize layers of forms and colors that evoke the festival’s sensory power.

The automobile also takes part in this carnival logic. In Adalton Fernandes Lopes’s scale model, the Marquês de Sapucaí is filled with carnival floats — large mobile structures on wheels. In the record of the launch of the Fiat Palio, symbols of the automotive industry inspire Mangueira’s samba-enredo, costumes, and parade adornments.

ARTWORKS

Dália Púrpura (Purple Dahlia)
Beatriz Milhazes, 2015
Woodcut and screenprint
Courtesy of the artist and Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro

Açúcar (Sugar)
Beatriz Milhazes, 2010
Woodcut and screenprint
Courtesy of the artist and Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro

Cena carnavalesca (Carnival Scene)
Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, 1930
Oil on canvas
Private Collection, courtesy of Danielian

Festa (Celebration)
Bajado, 1979
Oil on Eucatex board
Marcio Gobbi Collection

É Carnaval… (It’s Carnival…)
Bajado, 1974
Acrylic on Eucatex board
Marcio Gobbi Collection

O urso amigo?… (The Friendly Bear?…)
Bajado, 1985
Oil on Eucatex board
Marcio Gobbi Collection

Escola de Samba Unidos da Mangueira (Unidos da Mangueira Samba School)
Maria Auxiliadora, 1968
Oil and collage on canvas
Conrado Mesquita Collection

Parque de diversões (Amusement Park)
Agostinho Batista de Freitas, 1969
Oil on canvas
Santander Collection

Circo Batuta (Batuta Circus)
Agostinho Batista de Freitas, 1978
Oil on canvas
Renan Quevedo Collection

Sambistas no canavial (Samba Dancers in the Sugarcane Field)
Heitor dos Prazeres, 1965
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Galeria Almeida & Dale

Boêmia (Bohemia)
Sergio Vidal, 2013
Oil on canvas
Marcio Gobbi Collection

Carnaval (Carnival)
Marcel Gautherot, 1960–1968
Photographic reproduction
Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Sapucaí
Adalton Fernandes Lopes, 2004
Scale model
Irapoan Cavalcanti Collection

VIDEO

Lançamento do novo Fiat Palio — primeira reestilização — com integrantes da Escola de Samba Estação Primeira de Mangueira
(Launch of the New Fiat Palio — First Redesign — Featuring Members of the Estação Primeira de Mangueira Samba School)
Zeppelin Hangar, Rio de Janeiro
2000
Promotional video
Running time: 1’34”
Fiat Collection

ECHOES OF CARNIVAL (INSTALLATION)

This sound installation invites the body to enter the rhythm of Carnival. Before it can be understood, it must be felt: sound moves through you, vibrates, and calls the body into motion.

At each listening point, beats, voices, and wind instruments spread through the space, awakening memories, footsteps, and movement. Revelry is not something you simply watch — it happens in the body, fills the ground beneath your feet, runs down your skin, and transforms everyone who becomes part of the celebration.

This is an immersive experience: a suspended moment in which encounter becomes dance, and visitors surrender to the collective flow of joy.