Art Systems
Brazil and the 1970s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2798126 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dária Gorete Jaremtchuk, Dária Jaremtchuk (0000-0002-8161-9045, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 180-181 |
| Publication date | 2017-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00182168-3727755 |
| OpenAlex | W2582835054 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
In the book Art Systems: Brazil and the 1970s, Elena Shtromberg builds a theoretical framework for studying a group of Brazilian artworks from the 1970s. Her analyses differ from the traditional interpretive model that emphasizes authoritarian abuse by the military regime. Even considering that the dictatorship is an inescapable issue for those assessing the art production of the 1970s, the author in this case does not treat it as the only issue, subjecting artistic works from this time to diverse perspectives of analysis and focusing on their overlap with various systems of communication, exchange, and representation. In doing so, she offers a unique frame for studying the dictatorship in Brazil, riddled with nuances and paradoxical, contradictory situations.Shtromberg grounds her discussion on four such systems: currency, newspaper, television, and maps. This choice is justified by her understanding of the various roles that such systems have played in shaping not only the cultural landscape of Brazilian art but also the everyday lives of Brazilian people. Even though Shtromberg expands upon each of these systems in separate chapters, they all have to be viewed as overlapping because, as the author claims, the economy, media, technology, and geography actively circumscribe the artistic mode of production in tandem, not separately. After all, art itself is an open system, a complex organism imbricated in an interwoven “network of relationships.” Therefore, even if Shtromberg's selection of concepts, themes, and artistic productions is arbitrary, the choices successfully fulfill her proposed goal.In spite of being intended for art historians and the specialized academic community, this book is also accessible to all those who are interested in Brazilian cultural and art history, thanks to its clear structure. It contributes significantly to its field by providing both absolutely exquisite, detailed analyses and an extensive number of documentary sources from the 1970s and numerous testimonials collected over years of research. Some insights that stand out include the parallel drawn between the alternative press and some works by artists who used newspapers not only as materials but also as their means of production. Shtromberg shows that, despite censorship, graphic and textual operations opened alternative channels and have been means for dissenting voices to emerge and be known. However, Shtromberg also stresses the importance of the alternative press, and especially O Pasquim, as generators of humor and strategies for parody within the context of repression. The uniqueness of Shtromberg's interpretation lies in her view of these artworks as carriers of the modus operandi of the alternative press, a fact that has received little consideration in Brazilian art historiography.Additionally, in the chapter on maps the author examines artworks that, by refusing to use cartographic materials as “neatly ordered documents,” design heterogeneous and critical pictures of places (p. 153). Topics such as borders and identities, indigenous people and migrants, and the colonial past and the military dictatorship intersect in the poetry of artists and are thoroughly interpreted by Shtromberg. The result is a complex picture of Brazilian reality, riddled with violence and injustice, from which Brazilian works of art emerge critically and reactively.Shtromberg centers her analysis of video art almost exclusively in relation to the communications system that was expanding most rapidly at that time: television. Although these relationships are based on the theoretical framework proposed, one cannot fail to mention that many video artworks were filmed performances designed to be displayed in art shows. In such cases, their use would be more directly associated with the reproductive potential of the video apparatus. The reader might also question the place in art history of the works discussed in the book. In the case of the rapprochement between Cildo Meireles and Paulo Miranda, for example, even though both deal with similar issues regarding currency and the excising of artistic actions from the art circuit, the artists have contributed unequally to the genealogy of contemporary art.More generously, Shtromberg's final reflections incorporate a number of authors who have contributed to Brazilian art historiography. Perhaps she could have done this more frequently throughout the book, which would have allowed the reader to understand that Brazilian artists, besides being linked strongly with their historical and social environment, also belonged to the art circuit and were joined by their interlocutors. After all, even if the existing art historiography in Brazil is predominantly monographic in character and dedicated to catalog essays, as the author says, one cannot deny that a significant theoretical body of scholarship has already been constituted
Aesthetics · Art · Authoritarianism · Contemporary art · Currency · Democracy · Dictatorship · Epistemology · Linguistics · Media studies · Newspaper · Performance art · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Brazilian cultural history and politics · History · History, Culture, and Society · Law
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |