Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage
The School of Visual Arts (Escola de Artes Visuais - EAV) of Parque Lage offers courses aiming at the development of artists, curators, researchers and other people interested in establishing or deepening their contact with art.
History
Created by Rubens Gerchman in 1975 to substitute the Institute of Fine Arts, the School is set in a mansion built in eclectic style, protected as a historic and environmental patrimony by IPHAN, an official federal agency. Projected by the architect Mário Vodrei, in the 1920s, the residence of the Brazilian shipbuilder Henrique Lage and his wife, Gabriela Bezanzoni, an Italian lyric singer, has been influenced by the cultural effervescence derived from its open school model – a place where new aesthetic conceptions were carried on by Gerchman.
In this multidisciplinary atmosphere, artists and important intellectuals have met for more than 30 years. Remarkable events have taken place here, such as the art exhibition "Como vai você, Geração 80?", opened in 1984, the "Rock Brasil" series of shows, the staging of well-known plays such as Shakespeare's "The Tempest", which transformed the School into an important pole of cultural resistance during the years of the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as during the country's process of redemocratization.
The School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage represents an outstanding reference to the arts, a patrimony that belongs not only to Rio de Janeiro, but also to Brazil.