The Continuous Writing of the Verse 

A collection that revitalizes memory. An exhibition that unveils the musical practice through the use  of writing: manuscripts are everywhere, and it is through this vein that words transform into sounds  and verses, through familiar letters and those that are new to the public. 

How to approach the myth, bring it to the earthly plane, and involve it in the web of possibilities  that escape banality? This exhibition presents objects that are records of awards, newspaper articles,  musical instruments: things that calm the minds seeking traces of presence within the memory of  media-related objects. After all, we are dealing with the persona of Renato Russo. However, it was  not the craving for objectification that motivated this project. The exhibition does not follow a linear  thread that orderly arranges data from one end to the other. It is understood that the creative process —moment of the inception and development of ideas—is everywhere; it cannot be confined within  the limits of the medium, tied to one or another attempt, hostage to a single interpretive parameter. 

These places, in Renato's universe, have long been found in books about sexuality, spirituality,  musical genres, philosophy, astrology; in records, showing preferences for punk, rock, opera, Italian  folk songs; and in films, spanning aesthetics from the horror genre—produced by Hammer Films— to Almodóvar. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), the Swiss writer who joins the chorus of voices  alongside the French painter Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), and British mathematician, philosopher,  and sociologist Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), serve as catalysts for the creation of the heteronym  Renato Russo & Eric Russell—a character who drives his desire for musical expression and is part  of the imaginary band titled 42nd Street Band—emerging at the peak of a restless adolescent boy’s  life, a voracious reader and listener of books and records, and still, Renato Manfredini Júnior. 

The freedom to experiment was exercised from then on, in the 1970s, specifically in 1975; a blend  of ideas without commitment to finish or conclusion. At this point, we detect the beginning of a  written output that borders on obsession, where series of musical tracks, genealogies of the band  members, tour schedules, and interviews are gathered. But the writing seeks more space and goes in  search of other stories, whether fiction or parts of real events: phrases and sonnets scatter across the  pages of school notebooks, their covers, diaries, loose sheets, in the form of notes, letters, and cards. 

One must accept the disjointedness as an integral part of this material, which is sometimes  accompanied by a clue: a date, an "under libra," a production reminder for a show; it can even be 

cryptic. As with the numerous versions of the same song. Examples include "Metal contra as  nuvens" from 1991, or "Há tempos", from 1989. The manuscripts were the embryo from which a  vast musical repertoire emerged, registering not only the influences already mentioned but also the  exchange of ideas with friends, from the partners of Aborto Elétrico—Fê Lemos and Flávio Lemos —to those from Legião Urbana during its existence—Dado Villa-Lobos, Marcelo Bonfá, Paraná,  Paulo Paulista, and Renato Rocha—and so many others—contemporaries of his time in Brasília and  Rio de Janeiro, musicians from other bands, other musical genres, as well as dancers, actors,  filmmakers, and producers who actively participated in cultural movements. 

In a world where a piece of cotton must become silk, where perfumes take the place of essentials,  the manuscripts and drawings, part of galleries of characters or casual scribbles on the pages of  mundane and everyday mediums like notebooks, are the raw material of what has become public— versions of a world in expansion. They hold stories that speak of teenage anxieties, existential  conflicts, outcries about the lack of ethics in social relationships, or messages that reveal an  incessant search for love, like when he writes: "My heart awaits greater riches. My heart is tense,  irritated. Elusive and tired. It is rough, crude, poor. Miserable." 

The fluctuations of life and its diversities were exposed as they are: part of an extensive and  oscillating spectrum, sometimes full of questions, sometimes full of affirmations, and the songs  embodied these feelings: those that seemed to deliver teachings, interpreted as a manifesto for  urgent causes involving gender issues, social class conflicts, economic chaos, and disarmament, and  those with a strong sentimental charge, more lyrical, and even spiritual. The thread that connected  the points, the scribbles, the symbols, and the words in the notebooks and papers generated a long  process of recording ideas that were not finalized with a knot that seals the end of the story with the  closure of life. 

Among Renato's manuscripts, there are unpublished projects—mostly sketches for theater plays and  films. Like the theater play, completed and dated 1982, A Verdadeira Organização do Desespero,  conceived in the format of a Greek tragedy, inspired by Aeschylus; or the unfinished A Visita de Mr.  Green: Pantomima Cega em Dez Pedaços para Cinco Atrizes. There is also the screenplay for the  film The Film, set in Brasília, which includes, among the characters, Dado, Bonfá, and Renato  Rocha, and the idea of filming the novel O Bom Crioulo by Adolfo Caminha (1867–1897), a  naturalist writer, published in 1895—his last and most recent project. 

Forever, writing functions as a core, a hub of expression and a theme for revelation. As it is  inscribed on one of the pieces of paper from his precious collection: "To be a writer becomes me."