Constructing an avant-garde : art in Brazil, 1949-1979

249 Pages·2013·16.35 MB·English

by  Martins

C onstructing an Avant-Garde
Art in Brazil
1949–1979
Sérgio B. Martins
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Constructing an Avant-Garde

© 2013 Sérgio B. Martins
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martins, Sérgio B., 1977–
Constructing an avant-garde : art in Brazil, 1949–1979 /
Sérgio B. Martins.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01926-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)  1. Art,
Brazilian—20th century. 2. Arts—Experimental methods—
History—20th century. I. Title.
N6655.M378 2013
709.81´09045—dc23
2012046924

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Para Nina

Contents
1
Acknowledgments ix
2 Introduction 1
(Non-)Objects 17
The Constructive 51
3
Taking Positions 81
Enigmages 119
4
White on White 161
Coda: Radical Present 183
5
Notes 197
Index 229
6

Acknowledgments
My research would not have been possible without the financial support I have received ix
throughout my graduate studies at University College London. Therefore, I would like
to thank the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Graduate School of
University College London, and the University College London Department of History

of Art.
I also thank these individuals and institutions who have helped my research in
various essential ways: César Oiticica Filho and Ariane Figueiredo at the Projeto Hélio
Oiticica; Elizabeth Varella at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro; the staff at
Daros Latinamerica and Casa Daros, in particular Melanie Zgraggen; Guilherme Bueno
and Marcia Muller at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói; the library staff at the
Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo; and Ana Paula Marques at the Arquivo Histórico
Wanda Svevo (Fundação Bienal de São Paulo). I am especially grateful to Antonio Dias,
Cildo Meireles, Ferreira Gullar, Antonio Manuel, and Renata Lucas for their generosity
and availability.
I am thrilled to work with the MIT Press. I am thankful to Justin Kehoe, Matthew
Abbate, Julia Collins, and Margarita Encomienda for their work, and especially to
Roger Conover for his enthusiasm about my project and for his thoughtful suggestions.
An abridged version of chapter 5 was published in Object 11. I am thankful to the
journal editors and to my anonymous reviewers for their thorough and very useful com-
ments on my draft. Parts of chapters 1 and 2 were published respectively in numbers
105 and 114 of Third Text. The latter was a special issue on Brazilian art that I had the
honor of guest-editing. This experience has informed my book in many meaningful
ways, and I am thankful to Rasheed Araeen and Richard Appignanesi for giving me
this unique opportunity.
My thanks to Michael Newman and Dawn Ades for having been thorough and
critical examiners; their response was a first and important step in the process of trans-
forming my dissertation into a book. I then benefited from the patience and insight of
Michael Asbury, Ed Krcma, Steven Gambardella, Frederico Coelho, Milena Tomic, and
Kaira Cabañas, who offered to read parts of my manuscript and whose brilliant feedback
was simply invaluable. These were not random choices of readers, for they are also
friends on whose sincerity and intellectual sharpness I felt I could always count; and