ARTH 474
Brazilian Art in the 20th Century: Aesthetics, Internationalism, Utopia
Last Offered Spring 2018
Division I Writing Skills
This course is not offered in the current catalog

In 1924 the modernist poet Oswald de Andrade radically called for Brazilians to engage in cultural “anthropophagy”–to cannibalize from European modernist ideas and synthesize these with local aesthetic and cultural values. Toward the mid-20th century, the narrative of Brazilian art was marked by the desire on part of artists and intellectuals to problematize its place in Latin America, and vis-à-vis the European avant-gardes. They did so with a strong utopian perspective, developing aesthetic strategies to confront and transcend Brazil’s underdevelopment. Yet ideas around nationalism, internationalism, and utopia shifted dramatically when a military dictatorship came to power between 1964 and 1985. How did artists and intellectuals rethink the role of aesthetics in such critical sociopolitical conditions? How did these terms shift again after Brazil returned to democracy, and soon aggressively entered an increasingly globalized economic system? Our seminar will delve into these complex relationships for a comprehensive understanding of the development of modern and contemporary Brazilian art. This is a Writing Intensive course, and there are no prerequisites to enroll.