GRECO-GOIANO_EN — BARRANCO

GRECO-GOIANO
by Barranco AteliêMay 14, 2025 – June 28, 2025.

Não vou negar: Artes visuais, território e música sertaneja
(I won’t deny it: Visual arts, territory, and country music).
Cultural Center of the Federal University of Goiás (CCUFG).
Group Exhibition.
Curated by Paulo Duarte-Feitoza.

Greco-Goiano is a site-specific work created by Barranco Ateliê (Valdson Ramos, Joardo Filho, and Talles Lopes) for the exhibition "Não vou negar: Artes visuais, território e música sertaneja" (I Won’t Deny It: Visual Arts, Territory, and Country Music), curated by Paulo Duarte-Feitoza at the UFG Cultural Center (CCUFG) in Goiânia.

"A wildly popular country (sertanejo) singer, Gusttavo Lima became an emblematic figure of conservatism in Brazil, especially after publicly declaring his support for then-President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. Among others, the event was attended by singers Leonardo, Zezé Di Camargo, Marrone, Chitãozinho, Sula Miranda, and Fernando (of the duo with Sorocaba). Gusttavo Lima’s image, associated with ostentation and traditionalist values, finds one of its symbolic landmarks in his residence in Goiás.

It is this building that inspires the work Grego-Goiano, presented by Barranco Ateliê. So-called Greco-Goiano architecture—a neoclassical style inspired by Greco-Roman culture—continues to emerge in the Cerrado in various forms. Among these variations, the façade of one of the singer’s residences, replete with columns, stands out for its monumental scale and contrast with the local landscape, accentuated by its widespread circulation on the social media accounts of the singer, his family, and his fans. The appreciation for classical architecture, often touted by conservatives as a symbol of order, hierarchy, and grandeur, stands in opposition to contemporary styles, which these groups view as a threat to tradition and morality."

Paulo Duarte-Feitoza
Excerpt from the curatorial text for the exhibition .

About the Exhibition

The relationship between art, territory, memory, and popular culture is the central theme of the exhibition Não vou negar: Artes visuais, território e música sertaneja (I won’t deny it: Visual arts, territory, and country music), which opened on May 13, 2025, at the Cultural Center of the Federal University of Goiás (CCUFG). Borrowing its title (Não vou negar) from the well-known song by Zezé Di Camargo & Luciano, the exhibition brings together works by 30 artists, most of whom are based in Goiás, including established and emerging names, both living and deceased, composing a broad portrait of artistic production interwoven with the sounds and contradictions of sertanejo music. Highlights include works by renowned artists such as Siron Franco, Antônio Poteiro, Nazareno Confaloni, and Octo Marques, as well as talents from the new generation, such as Benedito Ferreira, Emilliano Freitas, Cássia Nunes, and Verônica Santana.

The exhibition is curated by Paulo Duarte-Feitoza, a researcher and professor at the School of Visual Arts at the Federal University of Goiás, whose research focuses on the intersections between contemporary art, visual culture, and intangible heritage. The exhibition proposes a visual journey that engages with the world of sertanejo music—from its rural roots to its most contemporary expressions—as an aesthetic language and a symbolic device that questions the ideas of territory, belonging, and identity. According to the curator, “The cultural significance of sertanejo music in Goiás and Brazil is undeniable, and this exhibition seeks to examine it without idealization or contempt, but critically. The exhibition aims to demystify the stereotypes surrounding the genre. We want to highlight its power as an artistic language that mobilizes senses, expresses contradictions, and traverses different fields of symbolic production, including contemporary art.”