Rodin in Brasil

Street art in Belo Horizonte

To walk the  busy backstreets of a Brasilian city is a true test of nerves and navigational skills. It is easy to get lost. Street iconography and buildings merge into a seamless sensory cacophony. Labyrinths of blind alleys, dangling nests of overhead cables, and rows of mysterious metal shutters, mingle with dense clouds of charcoaled meat, crushed sweet passion fruit, and earthquake bursts of bass heavy funk. Disorientation is common. Anything can happen. The melted black candle wax and corn husks on the street corner indicate that someone has been cursed. I turn into the next street and am confronted by an image of a bald, middle-aged man, clearly perturbed with furrowed brow. It feels as if I’m gazing into a mirror. Like a demented version of Rodin’s Thinker, the man is clearly agonising over something. It could be a about a lost love, but judging by his expression it appears far more likely that he is contemplating Armageddon.