Open House: reclaiming public art spaces as an arena and a communal house

Abstract

This paper presents the context of the exhibition "COSMOCOCA CC5 (versão privê)” (COSMOCOCA CC5 Hendrix War (private version), which took place in 2023 at the Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the collective artistic intervention "Open House”, that temporarily occupied the aforementioned exhibition. I aim to challenge the dichotomy between public and private and to engage in the debate surrounding the maintenance and updating of experimental artworks in museums and cultural centres. The goal is to reflect on how this intervention in the oeuvre of two canonical Brazilian artists, Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida, created a critical and relational space for a discussion of the role of institutions and the nature of exhibition spaces that deal with the realization of posthumous works, especially works whose conceptual outlines are extensively documented. This paper positions itself as a joint operation with the artistic intervention, raising questions related to the creation and maintenance of limits and protocols in the execution and development of artworks, particularly regarding direct activation by the public.