ESSAY BY JEAN GALARD

 

The Opera of Stones, by Denise Milan and Marco Antônio Guimarães, has the ambition and the solemnness of a myth of origin. The work is proposed to us as evident conviction force. What kind of conviction? Belief? Invention? Wisdom? Faith? How compliant can one be to a myth created under such degree of conviction?

Art might not have existed without the possibility of unbelievable belief, which is to say, of hosting different, concurrently mental and emotional levels. The ability to think and feel at different levels does not necessarily result in cultural mestizage. It is rather the possibility of moving between quite distinctive cultures- the opposite of hybrid, eclectic, superficial culture. The Opera of Stones is a good illustration of the freedom we are given to constantly move from one level to another.

 

Jean Galard is an Essayist, Dr Galard was also a Professor of Aesthetics at the University of São Paulo, at São Paulo, Brazil. He has chaired a number of cultural institutions, among them the Centre Culturel Franco-Nigérien, at Niamey, Nigeria; The Maison Descartes, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; The Institut Français d’Amérique Latine, in Mexico; the Association Dialogue Entre Les Cultures, in Paris, France. He was the Louvre Museum Cultural Director from 1987 through 2002.