Naked, au naturel, just like babies are brought to the world, was how Antonio Manuel put in practice what the critic Mario Pedrosa defines as ‘the experimental exercise of freedom’, when the subject is art. And for sure, this is a new version of our national flag - note how proudly and civilly the artist exhibits his impudent ‘mast’ while he holds another in his hand, both duly pointing upwards in the direction of Heaven - and indeed an original version of all national flags, before the creation of nations, before the creation of flags, at the very moment of the creation of Man. ‘Madam, I’m Adam’, so the palindrome goes, and no matter the direction of the reading, the work keeps saying: ‘there is no rule as there is no wrong as there is no right, for the primordial nation I inhabit is Paradise’.


And again, it’s Mario Pedrosa who says, in a conversation with the artist and commenting on his strip tease in the now duly consecrated space of the museum:

An act like yours, an action in itself, is a legitimate action of communication, for the authentic communication does not happen by means of any media. It is not the medium that communicates; it’s the fact itself, the fundamental and irreducible unity of Man that communicates with the Other. Its is this relationship - the essential communication which lies at the bottom of all things - which gives constitution to the authentic Cultural Revolution, total, totally against the establishment. ÖBy not fitting and by being refused, you showed that life is greater than regulations. ÖThe artist is the World. The artist is Reality. The artist is Nature.

Life is greater than regulations, and still, From Adversity We Live (Hélio Oiticica). Exposed as an aesthetic object - and as an ethical subject - the artist’s body asks us to contemplate it with due love and care. The artist is Reality, and still - and in reality - the artist’s body is chased, persecuted, expelled. The artist proudly raises his masts and his flags, but the parapet of the museum is edgy, and as unstable and risky as a tight rope. Our acrobatic experimental exercises of freedom do cost us dear.

Brazil, 1970s. Oh, those were the times! and oh, that was the place! Remember how I began? And you must be asking: has Milton gone totally crazy, or has too much power been given to his imagination? For, up to now, I have been describing what may seem to you like a terrible time and a terrible place to be! Well, not really. The 1970s in Brazil were great times, and we had lots of fun; only, the various modulations of sex, drugs and rock & roll did cost us dear. However, believe me - podes crer - for this kind of negotiations, we never really stopped producing the currency.