Religion, Art and Politics in the Public Controversy of Igrejinha da Pampulha

Abstract

The article focuses on the early years of the cultural biography of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, located in Pampulha, Belo Horizonte – MG. The “Igrejinha da Pampulha” is part of a plan of urban modernization conceived in the early 1940s by the then-mayor of the state capital, Juscelino Kubitschek, giving rise to the Pampulha Architectural Complex. Designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, and decorated mainly by the artist Candido Portinari, the building is not accepted by the local religious authorities, establishing a public controversy between supporters and critics of their consecration. The interest that anchors this analysis lies in the way the building grounds, condenses and stimulates consortia between religious, artistic and political dimensions, while its creators, critics and defenders oscillate between, on the one hand, support of such associations and, on the other, the defense of the distinctions between the same dimensions, both to support as to criticize them. This is therefore a case where what is at stake is the constant tension of the modern paradigm of separation and autonomy of religious, artistic and political bodies.