A ARTE DO BRASIL / The art of Brazil

Arte brasileira � j� uma alcunha consagrada. Tal chave interpretativa, se n�o � mote declarado de in�meros discursos, tampouco se furta de amplamente permear em subterr�neo muitas das abordagens. Este texto prop�e explorar, em alguma medida, o� parecimento da concep��o e seus desdobramentos em nossa tradi��o cr�tico-historiogr�fica.Palavras-chaveArte brasileira. Historiografia da arte. Cr�tica de arte.�Abstract�Brazilian art is an established concept. As such, the idea ? understood as an interpretative key ? is not only a motto explicitly repeated in uncounted speeches, neither is it far from being largely permeating many theoretical approaches. This paper explores the appearance of Brazilian art as a concept and its consequences in our critical-historiographical tradition.Keywords:Brazilian art. Art historiography. Art criticism.

To Open the Mouth, to Show the Tongue: Anthropophagic Gestures in Brazilian Art

This essay seeks to articulate a detailed reading through two anatomical selections – the mouth and tongue—in Brazilian art from the end of the 1960s. The reading is part of a shift in the matrix of Oswald de Andrade’s “Anthropophagic Manifesto,” originally published in the Revista de Antropofagia in 1928, whose interpretations spread in Brazil during the second half of the 20th century. This study mobilises elements of the manifesto and its resonance in the works of artists such as Anna Maria Maiolino, Lygia Pape, Paulo Bruscky, and Lenora de Barros.

Forging the “New” in Contemporary Art in Brazil, 1960s and 1970s

The history of exhibitions in Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s provides a key reference point for understanding how artistic vanguards and contemporary art unfolded in direct relationship to social and political contexts. The seminal exhibitions during these pivotal decades elucidate how the contemporary in Brazilian art stages and reframes conceptions of the “new” vis-à-vis the art object. The exhibitions in question trace the development of Ferreira Gullar’s não-objeto (non-object, 1959) and its path toward the idea-based artwork, an impulse that was prevalent throughout the 1960s in the United States and Europe as well. Inaugurated by the emergence of Brasília, Brazil’s new capital city in the formerly barren hinterlands of the state of Goiás, the 1960s witnessed a new model of artistic practice that pushed the boundaries between art and life, actively seeking out the participation of the viewer. This is most evidenced in the canonical work of artists Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. By the 1970s, challenges to the utopian undertakings from the previous decades had become imbricated with political activism, as artists and intellectuals alike pronounced a commitment to the quest for democracy after the military coup of 1964. The 1970s also witnessed heightened artistic engagement with new information and communication technologies, including the use of video equipment and computers. Constructing the history of Brazil’s contemporary art via the most important moments of its display will not only historically and politically contextualize some of the groundbreaking artists and artworks of these two decades, but also introduce readers to the challenges that these artworks posed to the more traditional methods of institutional display and the criteria used to interpret them.

External Shocks in the Art Markets: How Did the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Brazilian Art Markets React to COVID-19 Global Pandemic? Data Analysis and Strategies to Overcome the Crisis

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and the restrictions imposed by the social distance and the enforced confinement, are having an impact on the art markets globally. The aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of an external shock in the primary art market, using three countries as a case study: Portugal, Spain, and Brazil. These geographies have in common being at the margins in the art market’s main art hubs. It is intended to analyze how agents are responding to the new context, according to the data gathered within the gallery sector. The methods applied in the research are a combination of surveys carried out by the authors, field-based observation, along with an academic literature review, complemented by international and national reports analysis. The study’s main findings allow us to characterize the art market as a very resilient sector that energetically responded to the crisis, able to adapt and overcome challenges imposed by the new pandemic situation. Contemporary art galleries expanded digital activities, kept participating in art fairs hybrid models, continued to focus on internationalization, and pointed to the strengthening of public policies towards the sector and partnerships as key strategies to overcome the crisis.

Todo cubo branco tem um quê de Casa Grande: racialização, montagem e histórias da arte brasileira | Every white cube has a bit of Casa Grande: racialization, filmic montage and Brazilian art history

O presente texto é resultado de uma palestra proferida no 29º Encontro da Associação Nacional de Pesquisadores em Artes Plásticas (Anpap) em 02 de outubro de 2020, na mesa Desconstruir a Hegemonia nas Artes Brasileiras ?. O tom coloquial por vezes adotado no texto reflete a especificidade em que foi produzido. A partir da noção de racialização, o autor discute o caráter racista da história, teoria e crítica da arte brasileira, a centralidade das exposições em seu caráter de montagem na escrita de histórias insubmissas da arte produzida no país. Aponta ainda provocações sobre a atuação de curadores não negros diante do reconhecimento da noção de lugar de fala.

Even in death, unsilenced: Afro-Brazilian art as identity fortification instruments among medicine students

RESUMO Assolada pela violência e pela discriminação racial, a população negra integra os piores índices de vulnerabilidade à violência e indicadores de saúde. A Política Nacional de Saúde Integral da População Negra reconhece o racismo enquanto central na produção de iniquidades, mas não é capaz de superar a influência das teorias eugênicas no campo de saúde. Embora sejam parte expressiva dos profissionais da saúde, mulheres negras continuam encarando a inexpressiva produção de conhecimento sobre sua própria saúde. Questionando essa realidade excludente, este relato de experiência teve o objetivo de explorar a utilização da técnica de estêncil como instrumento de resistência para construção identitária e demarcação de território por alunas e alunos de medicina atingidos por processos de marginalização. Utilizando-se de materiais comuns ao cotidiano de profissionais de saúde, foi possível retratar diferentes imagens relevantes para a luta das minorias e para a identidade pessoal dos participantes. A partir da cultura negra, essa oficina atuou como centro de ensino e de mobilização social, possibilitando a criação de instrumentos de resistência e autoafirmação.

Toward a Common Configurative Impulse

Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa’s theorization of art’s affective power, whereby the relational contract with the spectator is neither rational nor purely visual but is infused with feeling, was decisive for understandings of geometric abstraction as expressive in the 1950s. “Toward a Common Configurative Impulse” turns to another modernism, nestled alongside the geometric ones that would come to define the aesthetic of artists associated with Concrete Art in these years. Beyond Concrete Art, Pedrosa’s modernism also encompassed the creative production of diverse practitioners, among them, popular artists, self-taught artists and psychiatric patients (the latter is the subject of my book Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art). With this in mind, this essay tracks the historical and discursive origins for such an inclusive modernism and how Pedrosa’s embrace of different artistic subjectivities calls for a necessary shift in the historiography of Brazilian modernism at mid-century.

Notas sobre a abstração informal na historiografia da arte no Brasil.

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar elementos da inscrição do abstracionismo informal na tensão entre o moderno e o contemporâneo na historiografia da arte no Brasil. Embora parte dessa fortuna crítica identifique na abstração uma persistência por parte de alguns artistas em utilizar do paradigma moderno para responder a questões contemporâneas, outros artistas parecem aludir ao abstracionismo informal, experimentando-se e incorporando processos abstratos em outras linguagens e poéticas. Deste modo, propomos contribuir para a necessária revisão do processo de historicização do abstracionismo no Brasil a partir da reflexão sobre alguns aspectos da exposição “Oito décadas da abstração informal”, realizada em 2018 no MASP, a fim de problematizar noções sobre o abstrato na contemporaneidade. AbstractThis article aims to analyze the elements of the informal abstraction inscription in the tension between the modern and the contemporary in Brazilian art historiography. Although part of the critical fortune identifies the persistence of using a modern paradigm in abstraction in order to answer to contemporary questions, other artists such as Leda Catunda, Luiz Aquila and Tatiana Blass allude to informal abstractionism, experimenting with it and incorporating abstract processes in other languages and poetics. Therefore, we propose a contribution to the revision of the historicization process of abstractionism in Brazil investigating aspects of the exhibition “Eight decades of informal abstraction”, held in 2018 at MASP, in order to call into question the main notions about the abstract in a contemporary approach.

O PAPEL DO MERCADO NA LEGITIMAÇÃO ARTÍSTICA E ALGUNS REFLEXOS PARA HISTÓRIAS DA ARTE EM CONSTRUÇÃO / The role of the market for artistic legitimation and some reflexes for art histories under construction

O mundo contemporâneo apresenta uma série de desafios para o sistema da arte. Mudanças econômicas, sociais, culturais e organizacionais na década passada produziram um mercado global de arte cuja influência já atinge desde a produção artística à programação de importantes instituições. O número de museus privados cresce, enquanto instituições públicas não possuem verba para investir em novas aquisições para suas coleções. Nesse cenário, nos perguntamos: em 50 ou 100 anos, o que estará legitimado nas coleções institucionais referentes à atualidade? Onde estarão as obras mais significativas dos artistas brasileiros contemporâneos? Quem serão os artistas brasileiros mais reconhecidos? Quais critérios estéticos estão sendo legitimados através dos mecanismos dessa nova institucionalização no Brasil? Quais narrativas acompanharão a historicizacão da arte contemporânea brasileira? Que papel o mercado e os colecionadores privados têm desempenhado na definição de histórias da arte em construção?Palavras-chave: Mercado de arte; Legitimação; Papel do colecionador; História da arte; Arte brasileira.Abstract:The contemporary world presents a series of challenges for the art system. Economic, social, cultural and organizational changes in the past decade have produced a global art market whose influence already reaches from artistic production to the programming of important institutions. The number of private museums grows, while public institutions do not have funds to invest in new acquisitions for their collections. In this scenario, we ask ourselves: in 50 or 100 years, what will be legitimized in the institutional collections for today? Where are the most significant works by contemporary Brazilian artists? Who will be the most recognized Brazilian artists? What aesthetic criteria are being legitimized through the mechanisms of this new institutionalization in Brazil? Which narratives will accompany the historicization of contemporary Brazilian art? What role have the market and private collectors been playing in shaping art histories under construction?Keywords: Art market; Legitimation; Collector's role; Art history; Brazilian art.