The Municipality of Salvador, through the Gregório de Mattos Foundation, inaugurated the first stage of the project “RUA – Roteiro Urbano de Arte” (Urban Map of Art), which transformed the Comércio neighbourhood into an open-air gallery, displaying works, installations and interventions made by 8 contemporary visual artists.
Curated by Daniel Rangel, the idea is to honor historical masters and visual artists who, with their work, contributed to the construction of the visual imagery in Bahia, Brazil. On Francisco Gonçalves Street is the sculpture “Juntó“, developed by our represented artist Ayrson Heráclito. The word “juntó” refers to the second orisha or the people’s deputy orisha, responsible for our balance and for accompanying the main orishas that rule our heads.
Heráclito’s work is a tribute to the Bahia-born sculptor, priest and writer Mestre Didi. According to Rangel, “the sensation of suspension and elevation caused by the scale of the work is formally related to the eguns, entities with which Mestre Didi was related, with the Xaxará de Obaluaiyê (his “juntó”) and the Oxé placed on the “head” of the sculpture, referring directly to Xangô, who was his ruler orisha. The meeting of Mestre Didi and Ayrson Heráclito is made possible through an aesthetic and conceptual perception that intersects in the temporal circularity as seen in a “xirê”, a ritual of candomblé that connects humans and deities“.