Selaron Steps

Brief information

The Selarón Steps remained an urban staircase while also becoming the personal work of a single artist. Its official name is Manuel Carneiro Street: it is not a museum object on a pedestal, but a route between Lapa and Santa Teresa. Selarón lived in a house on this staircase and, in 1990, began turning it into a work of art.

The scale here matters not in itself, but as a trace of persistent daily work: 125 meters and 215 steps were gradually covered with tiles, painted ceramic tiles, and small plates. At first, the artist bought materials with money from selling his drawings; later, tourists began bringing tiles. That is why the staircase reads as something that grew from one idea, yet was assembled from many other people’s contributions.

What to Notice First

You can compare three types of details: ordinary tiles, ceramic tiles painted by Selarón, and small plates brought by people from all over the world. It is important to look at them not as random variegation, but as material that the artist found and incorporated into the work as it was already growing. The order in which they were laid was connected to his own ideas, so the surface of the staircase shows not only the accumulation of objects, but also continual selection.

It is also worth separately noticing the recurring motif in his drawings: pregnant women and the artist himself in the same image. This strange and specific subject helps one understand the decorative inserts differently. They do not simply adorn the steps, but remind us that the staircase was a personal project for Selarón, one he considered unfinished until his own death.