The Mystical Mind as a Divine Artist: Visions, Artistic Production, Creation of Images through Empathy (original) (raw)

Alterité et Art Contemporain : Une Étude De Deux Expositions Internationales

2012

The exhibition Magiciens de la Terre (Paris, 1989) is a landmark of a new look, in Europe, from the traditional art scene to the “art of the other”. In Brazil, in 1998,the exhibition Antropofagia , the 24th Sao Paulo Biennial, proposed a theme that articulatedthe local and the global cultures.We willtry, from the analysis of speeches announced by both exhibitions, understand the strategies carried out by the international art scene in the reproduction of a certain notion of globalization and multiculturalism in contemporary art.

Art beyond the horizon | Pivô São Paulo | 29-30 September 2018

Art beyond the horizon proposes a critical reflection on the intersections of artistic, aesthetic and political practice to rethink notions relevant to future directions of contemporary art. In recent years contemporary art has been subject to a series of theoretical and practical incursions from both within and without that call into question its models of practice and the structures that sustain them, the hegemony of a geographically located canon of works and the porous nature of art’s autonomy itself. In both institutional and extra institutional spaces, there has been a proliferation of artistic and curatorial projects that propose public space as a sphere of activity and the artistic work as a post-material experience. Accompanying this shift in focus that gestures towards dimensions of sociality, works that directly challenge the contemporary art systems of hegemonic countries have gained greater visibility, proposing unexpected pathways to engage with traditional architectures and putting forward artistic practice as a means of knowledge production. In parallel, theoretical propositions have emerged that put forward artistic practices as ‘ways of doing’, which intervene in the general order of daily life while also identifying a consequent oscillation between the inevitability of art’s insertion in society and its desire for autonomy. Importantly, these recent directions are intrinsic but also extrinsic: they are situated simultaneously on the inside and the outside of existing paradigms, but even if originating from an exterior position, they still seek to act upon that interior position as a whole. Such transit means that these issues play out in a liminal and contested field, so how might we understand the relationship between artistic practice and activist intervention, particularly with regard to urban space? Do such practices foster new modes of critical and creative thinking in their interaction with dimensions of sociality? How might the reconfiguration of Eurocentric canons be proposed as a result, if that is at all possible? Is it the case that we can make such a division between dependence and autonomy, art and society? And to where do these new directions point, what might lie beyond the horizon of contemporary art in its current incarnation? With contributions by Wura Ogunji, Jonas Tinius, Laymert Garcia dos Santos, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, Catalina Lozano, Pedro Cesarino, Luiza Crosman, Bruno de Almeida, Isabella Rjeille, Juliana Caffé, Yudi Rafel, André Mesquita and Virginia de Medeiros amongst others. Organized by Alex Flynn (Durham University), hosted by Pivô in cooperation with the Goethe Institut São Paulo.

Motion: Migrations - 35 th World Congress CIHA - Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art

CIHA, 2023

Since the first manifestations of its genre, art historical texts try to understand the artistic processes of creativity as a process of migration; inventions are understood as mobile processes. The development of the figure of an artist or of a style can be seen as a complex process of migrating individuals or concepts. Migration has also been understood through its historical, political and socio-economic aspects. In addition to this, it has been a fundamental aspect of the human experience since the beginning of the Modern Age, i.e., since the times of the circumnavigation of the world, which provoked displacements of large population groups across all the continents. Even before the creation of art history as a scholarly discipline in the 19th century, art and culture have been construed through the exchange of objects, concepts and practices among a variety of territories and societies around the globe, not only between Europe and their colonies and vice versa, but also between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula or India, or Asia and the Americas. European mass emigration to the Americas, that started in the 19th century and continued throughout the 20th century as a forced migration related to the two World Wars and the many other violent conflicts around the globe, reaches an unprecedented level in the 21st century, when humankind faces new challenges brought about by different forms of transit of peoples, ideas and images.

Art's agency and art history - Edited by Robin Osborne & Jeremy Tanner

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2009

have been redefined as territories of Afro-Brazilian culture, semi-public spaces becoming places of mediation through which the axé (power, vital force) is transformed into a 'cultural value'. He insists that objects of cultural value must be known, seen, and reproduced, but in Candomblé you are not allowed to see or depict these objects. The question, therefore, is how to transform secret values into cultural values so that they become public. Sansi defines this process as the outcome of extended interaction between intellectuals and Candomblé leaders during the course of a century. Anthropologists, writers, and painters, some of whom became practitioners (and vice versa), combined the changing attitudes of both those in power and practitioners, including a definite hierarchy in which Candomblé Ketu is the accepted model, emphasizing its 'pure African' cults, while all other manifestations are neglected or even rejected. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus on modern art and Afro-Brazilian culture. During the Vargas regime's search for nationalism, 'progress' and an 'authentic' Brazilian culture emerged. The popular became exotic and was given a political role. During the dictatorship, artistic elites were recognized and acknowledged as representing Afro-Brazilian art, corresponding to the accepted Candomblé houses. All others were considered as mere 'popular' artists who created works for tourists. Sansi stresses the contradiction between the innovations of contemporary modern art and the standard, hierarchic, 'traditional' concept of Afro-Brazilian art. The Orixás of Tororó exemplifies the complexity of these changes. This is a public monument, the purpose of which was to glorify African-Brazilian culture but at the same time symbolize the secret world of the orixás and the axé. Pentecostals' recent attacks see the monument and Candomblé as fetishism, the devil's work, and attempt to shake the perception of Candomblé as symbolizing national identity. The concluding chapter, 'Re-appropriations of Afro-Brazilian culture', claims that while Candomblé has now attained official recognition, religious people who once were its practitioners dispute its credibility when they turn to Protestantism. Sansi concludes that the Afro-Brazilian cultural renaissance is characterized by the 'objectification of new, unprecedented cultural values attached to objects' (p. 188). Values have changed and will continue to change, opening a route to new conflicts and transformations of values. Book reviews 175

Indigenous Arts in Brazil: Aesthetics, Cosmology and Politics

Arts in the Margins of World Encounters, 2021

The chapter is part of the book "Arts in the Margins of World Encounters", edited by Willemijn de Jong, Eriko Aoki and John Clammer. It begins by presenting general information on the indigenous peoples living in Brazil today. Then, it gives an overview of their artistic forms, pointing out the singularities and, at the same time, raising issues or practices common to some of them. For example it looks at ephemerality. Most people do not keep the pieces, masks, or adornments after having used them in rituals. Out of context, they are no longer effective, valuable, or even safe. This can generate tensions when indigenous items are transformed into museum artefacts. Further the text analyses the ubiquity of graphism. The compositions are based on repetitive or alternate geometric patterns printed on different surfaces. They may serve as a code for reading social distinctions––there are specific graphisms for each phase of the life cycle or for belonging to clans and moieties; but they may also serve as a link with the world of invisible beings. The chapter also deals with the agency of images and objects, in the sense that they can act on humans and trigger effects. Moreover, synaesthesia is considered, in that several artistic languages are combined. Finally, the chapter addresses the relative invisibility of indigenous arts in Brazil, both in museums and in the art market, while at the same time signalling the emergence, in recent years, of some contemporary indigenous artists, who combine individual poetic research with political and cultural activism.