[3] In 1952, he spent six months in Angola “where he discovered the African culture.”[2] He then moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1955.
His teachers included Onofre Penteado, Abelardo Zaluar, Mário Barata and Ítalo Campofiorito.
[2] Artur Barrio is an extreme example of the development of art that took place during his early career.
His process, his vision and his materials all meld in a form of Situationist art where his pieces become more than installations but also a part of the reality in which they exist.
Items such as coffee grinds overwhelm the nose while blood or meat produce a gut reaction.
Artur Barrio changes the normal familiar surroundings and attempts to transport the visitor (participant), possibly through a little discomfort, to a place where everything needs to be more deeply examined.
In 1970 he created Situação…DEFL…+s+…ruas…Abril…(Unleashing confusion on the streets…Situation) consisting of “the placement of five hundred plastic bags containing blood, nails, dung, waste, and other debris in downtown Rio during the peak of the dictatorship’s repression”[5] At the time of his (Situation T/T1) it was not uncommon for people to disappear.
“Autonomous para-police forces (Death Squads) took on the work of “social cleansing”, eliminating delinquents, the marginalized and street children.” [2] His bloody packages question the status of those that have disappeared and bring into focus the “socially apprehensible possibilities of” [2] governments and other institutions.
He then strategically placed these "blood-stained rags (trouxas ensanguentadas) in a park to provoke public reactions before police arrived.
He has used a variety of perishable materials like blood, nails, saliva, hair, urine, excrement, bones, toilet paper, tampons, used cotton, film negatives and other items.
[7] However, his attitude is not the main reason that Artur Barrio is now working within the larger established art community.
Barrio still “views curators and institutions … as completely superfluous to requirements for works of art and exhibitions.