São Paulo, Brazil, 1979

São Paulo, Brazil, 1982

Created by Hudinilson Jr (1957-2013), Mario Ramiro (1957) and Rafael França (1957-1991), the group 3Nós3 appears in the midst of a new generation of artists and groups of the 1970s who proposed the occupation and appropriation of the city spaces. 3Nós3, created in 1979, saw the city as an active surface for intervention, and carried out a series of interventions in the
city of São Paulo, the most notorious being the Ensacamento action – where public monuments of the city were illegally hooded with plastic bags on the night of 27 of April of 1979. The group also carried out actions where it criticized the institutionalization of the art spaces (X-Galeria – symbolic seal of art galleries of the city, with a big “X” made with tape, accompanied by a ticket affixed at the entrance door with the message: “What is inside stays, what is outside expands”) – and actions made in between streets, blocking the cars with extensive bands of colored plastic.

Along with the urban actions, 3Nós3 had as its premise to occupy the media space. The occupation of the mass media, the records generated by the press, as well as the photographic documents and publications made by the group, were always planned by the artists as an integral part of the interventions.

After the group ended in 1982, each of the artists followed their own trajectory. However, retrospective exhibitions on 3Nós3 were recently held at institutions such as Reina Sofia Arts Museum, Madrid, São Paulo Cultural Center, Itaú Cultural, Kunsthalle Kassel and Moore Institute, Leeds, England.