The month of November arrives with many parties to celebrate black ancestry at the Museu do Pontal, in Barra da Tijuca, in Rio. This weekend, children will have fun with storyteller Paulinha Cavalcanti, in African taleswhich are narratives from the African continent interspersed with a lot of music.
With music and enchantment, this Saturday (1st), at 4pmthe counter will show, in Dark Wordsoral traditions based on African legends, fables and myths. “The narratives reveal wisdom, values and imagery from different cultures, transmitted from generation to generation, through speech, music and gesture”, according to the event organizers.
On Sunday (2), at 4pmit will be the turn of writer, teacher and also accountant Anamô Soares who, in Negras Palavras, will carry out activities with children and teenagers, based on literature by black authors. The program includes music and visits to a library with 50 titles. The objective is to encourage children and young people to read songs and stories from the popular songbook.
Exhibitions
The theme of black ancestry is also present in the three exhibitions that the Pontal Museum will open the following weekend. The exhibitions completely changed the space, which now hosts a series of parties, with various cultural events such as sambas, maracatus, folias, reisados, jongos, bois-bumbá and carimbós.
On Saturday (8), at 3pmthe collective exhibition will open Parties, Sambas and Other Carnivalswhich will remain at the museum for a year, composed of works by more than 60 artists from 10 states, having debuted in 2023, at Sesc Casa Verde, in São Paulo. In 2024, it was presented at the Centro Cultural Bienal das Amazônias, in Belém, and now arrives in Rio curated by directors Angela Mascelani and Lucas Van de Beuque.
Organized into thematic islands, the exhibition is made up of sculptures, photographs and paintings with texts by guest authors. This edition features young talents, including Guilherme Kid, Manuela Navas and Elian Almeida.
One of the artists is Juan Pablo, visual and performance, who was born and raised in Vila Nova Aliança, in Bangu, west of the city. It features paintings and copper wire sculptures, which reflect funk dances and batte-bolas, very common in its region.
Visual and performance artist Rona, from the Pretos Forros community, in Lins, in the north of Rio, created two works for the museum. One of them will be displayed in the foyerinviting the public to a festive and playful journey.
There will also be tributes to musicians portrayed in paintings, photographs and sculptures. The highlights are Cartola, Dona Ivone Lara, Martinho da Vila and Pixinguinha, through the eyes of photographer Walter Firmo; Elian Almeida, by Ismael Silva; Paulo Moura, by Sergio Vidal; Luiz Gonzaga, in a sculpture by Adalton Lopes; Dona Onete, in photo by Walda Marques; and Mestre Damasceno, through the lens of Luiz Braga.
Sergio Vidal
In two galleries on the mezzanine, it will be inaugurated on Sunday (9), at 3pmthe exhibition Sérgio Vidal, in the batucadas of life. It is the first retrospective of the artist’s work, who is 80 years old and is in full swing. Vidal’s works can be seen in Brazilian museums such as Masp, Pinacoteca, Museu AfroBrasil, MAR and, abroad, at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, in the United States.
Work by Sérgio Vidal, Museu do Pontal. Photo – João Liberato/Disclosure
Vidal’s paintings are influenced by the Brazilian composer and painter Heitor dos Prazeres and show, according to executive director Lucas Van de Beuque, “the records of everyday life, mainly in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro”. In more than 30 works, the public will be able to learn about the artist’s career.
Vidal was born in Gamboa, the port region of Rio, on January 15, 1945, but he spent his childhood and part of his adult life in Bonsucesso, in the north zone. The idea of becoming a painter came about on a visit to the studio of Heitor dos Prazeres, whom he met through his son, Heitorzinho, his friend at school.
Self-taught, he worked in secret. Only after the death of Heitor dos Prazeres did he find the courage to show his paintings to his friend Heitorzinho, who opened the doors to the world of art for Vidal. After living in São Paulo, where he met artists such as Gildemberg, R.Griot, Aloysio Zaluar, Holmes Neves, Fernando V. da Silva, Di Cavalcanti, Delson Pitanga and Rubens Gerchman, the artist currently lives in Pedra de Guaratiba, with his wife, Leila de Sousa Neto, with whom he has lived for 50 years.
Naná Vasconcelos
The exhibition Naná Vasconcelos occupation – an immersive experience, with sound and visual stimuli – brings photographs, documents, interviews, objects and instruments. It is an excerpt from the exhibition held by Itaú Cultural in 2024, in São Paulo. With his characteristic berimbau, an instrument marked by Afro-Brazilian culture, the artist mixes sounds with jazz and other rhythms.
The inauguration will be on November 9th, with the presence of Patrícia Vasconcelos, the musician’s widow, at the show It’s on the Wheel, in honor of the percussionist, at 4:30 pm. The presentations are by Lui Coimbra, who accompanied Naná in several shows; Carlos Malta; Bernardo Aguiar, Aline Paes and Negadeza. According to the curators, the exhibition is an opportunity to get to know a little more about the artist who always repeated “I am the Brazil that Brazil does not know”.
The executive director of the Museu do Pontal, Lucas Van de Beuque, said that the space works on Afro culture all year round and it will be present in presentations and exhibitions.
“It will be present in the three exhibitions that we are opening on the 8th and 9th of November, with a big festival, also with this very important point, which is Afro-Brazilian culture”, he told Brazil Agencyalso highlighting that a publication will be launched on the 100 years of samba schools.
The Museum’s director, Angela Mascelani, stated that the program on the 8th and 9th opens the Portal Museum to the great Brazilian festivals, to the Afro-diasporic movement and its consequences.
Angela added that the workshops will work on the issue of ancestry, as the festivals highlighted in the exhibition were saved and preserved orally, transmitted through gestures and ways of doing things.
“These are pieces that were not recorded with photographs and, therefore, arrived through life practices. The maracatu, the jongo, the caxambu, the bumba meu boi are festivals that are always present at the Pontal Museum. The articulation, in this month of November 2025, is with a country crossed by black heritages, by recovery, and by thinking about these heritages and what they constitute and give us, as a Brazilian society, and how much they help us to articulate social organization”, he told Brazil Agency.
Festival
The opening of the festivities will be with a festival that will feature singer Mart’nália and 20 other attractions, including Terreiro de CriouloJongo da Serrinha, show group from the Unidos de Vila Isabel samba school, Olokun Drums and It’s on the Wheel. To facilitate public movement, free vans will leave from Jardim Oceânico and Terminal Alvorada, in Barra da Tijuca.
Singer Mart’nalia, will perform at the Pontal Museum. Photo: Nil Caniné/Disclosure
The director also highlighted the value of the samba schools represented in the program.
“It is very important to talk about samba schools as spaces not only for sociability, for the formation of identity, but schools of life, schools where you learn to have discipline, organization and expertise in various areas, because they are spaces for developing talent.”
The Pontal Museum is considered the largest and most significant museum of popular art in the country. The collection, formed over 45 years of research and travel across the country by French designer Jacques Van de Beuque, has more than 9,000 pieces by 300 Brazilian artists, produced from the 20th century onwards.
“It is a particular moment to celebrate the museum’s four years of also celebrating Afro-Brazilian culture both this weekend and the following weekends”, highlighted Lucas Van de Beuque.
