Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo — Attraction in Região Imediata de São Paulo

…………There are loads of free parking on the grounds of this museum and on top of it there are manned security gates. When we visited here it was a public holiday in Sao Paulo so it was very full. The building is modern and very big and nice. Lots of contemporary art to see although not been art experts we enjoyed what was on display most-lii sculptures of one or other sorts. The children visiting here today real-lii enjoy the giant size furry cat on display on the ground floor. There is a big restaurant inside the museum on the mezzanine floor and a bigger one in the center of the top floor. There are about seven floors of different art exhibitions taking place at one time but our time was limited so we just walk up two floors and took the left to the eight floor the top of the building. The panoramic-views which are to be observed here on the top of the buildings out-look areas north, south, east and west are just awesome and breathtaking-lii beautiful, the city below with it’s free-way networks, the tall buildings all to one side of Sao Paulo, the obelisk in the distance and also the Ibirapuera Park all 158 hectares. This is a must visit venue when in Sao Paulo. Most local guides will bring you here and if you are on your own make a point of coming around here and spend enough time to try to see everything and entree is free...

Only go if you're a fan of contemporary, alternative art, because that's what most of the work in display is about. You will find some traditional artists, like Anita Malfatti, Picasso and Tarsila do Amaral, but the rest of the paintings and sculptures didn't really suit my taste. Some floors are just straight up dull and the work distasteful if you're not into the kind of art that looks like a few objects and paint were just thrown on the canvas or on the floor. I did find some pieces and exhibits to be compelling and thought provoking, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I took away one star for the annoying behavior on the part of security. Mask mandates have been lifted, but the museum still upholds compulsory mask use even though my family and I were pretty much alone on most of the floors. If you take off your mask for one second, just to take a picture, staff comes to tell you to put it back on, so obnoxious and authoritarian. I wouldn't say that ruined the experience, but it was super annoying and...

It's hard to say much about the Museum because when we visited two of the exhibition spaces were empty. We saw two small exhibits on one floor and neither was "contemporary." One was of a curated collection of 20th century protest art - mostly photography and collage. It was interesting in that it was global and covered many different instances of resistance to genocide and oppression. It was pretty heady and needed more commentary or context. The second exhibit of typography and the use of the typewriter as a musical instrument had a 1970s early performance art, surrealist quality and featured a live typewriter performance. Neither show was particularly moving and left me feeling like the museums curation was too intellectual and not visually or emotionally stimulating enough...