Testemunho sobre o enterro de Alex Vallauri

Last testimony of Alex Valauri



It comes to an end this report (more than a biography) and I feel the same emptiness sensation that struck me in the evening of March 27th, 1987. The last image of this incredible human being whose life was a continuous sowing of optimism and generosity, will not be that of an infinite abyss in which a trajectory comes to an end, but that of the artist ahead of his generation that has made a city smile; that of nocturnal acrobat that made us believe that a new day should be greeted with applauses.



In this biography in which I compiled and remembered the many moments lived by and with Alex, I ended up bringing him back to my daily life. Telling his last trail would be reviving the terrible pain of his loss. I accepted then, the gentile offers of my daughter Flávia Rota-Rossi e Mello, at that time, a 20 year old young woman, to take care of the epilogue.



In the morning of Alex’s funeral you could feel the typical São Paulo´s autumn cold. My uncles (Alex´s parents) and my mother decided not to go because they were exhausted. I went with my father and Claudia (Alex’s sister).Used to Parity’s funerals cozy and familiar, I found it strange the long granite flooring hall that shined at the light of neon. The solemn and imposing coffin had nothing to do with the warmth of life within it.



The cold seemed more intense, but I slowly warmed myself up at the hugs of so many friends as they would arrive, many of them in a deep silent cry. Guta and Kiko started hanging the 5.000 tsurus (origami birds made by Alex’s friends as part of a traditional Japanese custom based on the belief that they would save him from disease) among the flowers and the very coffin were someone had lined some used spray cans with coagulated colored drops on its surface. Friends and artists put tickets, drawings, several origami made chains, showing their tenderness in a very special way.

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But in the middle of that improvised ritual, the most remarkable memory I have was that of a telephone quarter with a note that said: “To Alex with love. For whenever you need and want to communicate with us.” This telephone quarter became for me like a symbol of life that overcame death. A symbol of immortality of spirit. The coffin had lost

Its circumspection, now with its own identity: it had become one of Alex’s studios. The art party on the streets hadn’t finished. As Mauricio Villaça said: “We will continue alexandrizing”



After seeing the installation that Alex’s friends had improvised someone from a nearby wake said: “The person inside this coffin must have been an example of happiness”. We left for Vila Alpina, where the body would be cremated. There were many cars heading to Consolação Street tunnel on Paulista Avenue that leads to Rebouças Avenue and Dr. Arnaldo Avenue, the place where, due to graffiti artists, had become the biggest graffiti art gallery of the city. Those anonymous street artists welcomed the procession while the origami birds flew happily from the cars windows. A mix of deep pain and happiness spread among everybody.