Long Roots Of Formalism In Brazil

Luiz Renato Martins teaches art history at the Visual Arts Department of the University of São Paulo, working also as a researcher associated to the Economical History postgraduate programme at USP. As a visitor, he lectured in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Spain, France, UK and USA universities, and has published books and articles on modern art, film and the contemporary global crisis’s issues.Dr Juan Grigera is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow based at University College London Institute of Americas. His research focuses on the political economy of Latin America, particularly Brazil and Argentina and has been a visiting lecturer in Argentina, Brazil, Belgium and USA.

• AcknowledgementsCreditsIntroductionAlex PottsFrom Formation to Dismantling1 Strategies of Occupying Space in Brazil, from Tarsila to Oiticica2 ‘Free Form’: Brazilian Mode of Abstraction or a Malaise in History3 All This Geometry, Where Does It Come from, Where Does It Go?4 Trees of Brazil5 The Situation of Art and the ‘Pensée Unique’6 Formation and Dismantling of a Brazilian Visual SystemFrom Dismantling to Struggle7 From the Debate about Formation to Strike as Formation8 The Indignity of São Paulo9 Art against the GrainAgainst Formalism: Art, History and Criticism10 Work, Art and History: A Counterpoint between Periphery and Centre11 Notes on Modernisation, from the Periphery: On David Craven’s ‘Alternative Modernism’12 Art as Work (Interview)13 International Benefit Society of Friends of Form and Bulletin on the Brazilian DivisionIndex of Artworks CitedBibliographyIndex

"Martins’ deeply engaged and richly informed reflections on the particularities of the Brazilian situation analyse the vicissitudes of artistic and architectural modernism as it took shape in Brazil in the mid-twentieth century, and its subsequent replacement by an apolitical formalist aestheticism in the postmodern age of neoliberal capitalism."Alex Potts, Max Loehr Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan