Brazilian Art in the Twentieth Century

Isobel Whitelegg

Although the focus of this brief history is the twentieth century, periods prior to this have had a consistent influence, aesthetically and theoretically, on modern and contemporary art; most notably the baroque. Indeed the rediscovery of the baroque poet and artist, a model that was used to resist conservatism and the widespread influence of French Positivism, became a vital component of the iconoclastic Semana de Arte Moderna. This event is widely regarded as a catalyst for the eventual acceptance of modern art in Brazil, and was interdisciplinary in character, driven by literature and encompassing both theatre and the visual arts. Flávio de Carvalho, (engineer, architect, painter, scenographer and writer) exemplified the Brazilian modernist model of the total artist. Flávio founded the Club Pro-Arte Moderna (1932) and organised the Salões de Maio (1937-39) an annual exhibition of modern art in São Paulo.

While Europe suffered the aftermath of WW2, the economy of Brazil boomed and there was a drive towards modernising the architecture of the country's principal cities. Outstanding modern museums were built in both Rio and São Paulo, and in 1951 the São Paulo Bienal was launched, establishing a lasting centre for contemporary art. A focus on abstraction was set by the first Bienal, at which the prize for best work was awarded to Swiss Ulm-school concretist Max Bill. Despite the strong constructivist orientation set by the Bienal, movements in abstraction continued to be deeply heterodox, with differences created by the different environments within which artists worked and collaborated, and many artists of prior generations successfully incorporating Concretist language into their work. In São Paulo many of the key artists associated with Concretist movement Ruptura also worked in industrial design and communication theory, and this made a current of experimentation with new technological media one characteristic of the city's production. The influential presence of the concrete poetry movement in the city also encouraged an exploration of relationships between the verbal and the visual. Rio Concretist group Frente, members of which were to form the Neoconcretist group in 1957, were also deeply rooted in abstraction. Like São Paulo artists they were informed by phenomenological thought and their emphasis was often on the ethical implications of artistic practice.

Brazil was governed by military rule between 1964 and 1981. Violent police control, which extended its reach into extreme censorship of the arts, reached its peak in 1968, and many of Brazil's artists of the fifties and sixties left the country temporarily in the early seventies. However, despite extreme financial instability and the absence of any consistency in institutional support, a younger generation continued to live and work in the country. This generation includes those who took part in the landmark 'Nova Objetividade Brasileira' (New Brazilian Objectivity) exhibition in 1967, such as Rubens Gerchman, Ana Maria Maiolino and Glauco Rodrigues.

The heterodox and experimental nature of Brazil's approach towards abstract painting in the fifties and sixties meant that the medium was not pushed towards crisis, as may be said of the apotheosis reached by Greenbergian modernism in New York. If Brazilian art can be defined or characterised today, it would be appropriate to point towards its openness towards different media, including painting as much as the now traditional contemporary categories of video and installation. Typically, Brazilian artists are reluctant to privilege the conceptual over the materially effective, but display a consistent success in achieving equanimity between idea and form, concept and imagination, as is exemplified by the work of Nelson Augusto, Waltercio Caldas, Jac Leirner, Cildo Meireles, Daniel Senise and Carlos Zilio.