Page 96 - ARTE!Brasileiros #58

ENGLISH VERSION DEMOCRACY AND REPARATION

this genocidal gesture, the consequences of which In representing the discourse that we are all equal, oppressed populations. Its title ironically stamps: Republic
persist more than a hundred years after that theatre they expropriate us. I see ethnography as part of (racial democracy) (2015). And, adding tension to the
of liberation symptomatically acclaimed even today by and as an example of the garnering of the power image with a text, Lauriano inscribes at the bottom of
our Bandeirante politicians, namely, the enactment of of these elites applied through a scienti”c method. the map of Brazil a verse from the “Hino à Proclamação da
the Lei Áurea. […] If we are not going to change anything, let us República” [Anthem of the Proclamation of the Republic],
at least inhabit the ruins of coloniality and survive a true monument to oblivion, since its lyrics (written by
musa miChelle mattiuzzi: inhabiting the ruins some encounters. […] Darken with my blackness. Medeiros de Albuquerque) asserts: “Nós nem cremos
of Coloniality […] Know how to inhabit and revive the ruins of this que escravos outrora / Tenha havido em tão nobre País… /
It would be impossible to present other attempts to Afro-Atlantic plurality. (2018, 607–609) Hoje o rubro lampejo da aurora / Acha irmãos, não tiranos
build the narrative about the history of Black art in Brazil hostis” [We do not even believe that slaves once / Existed
here. In terms of conceptualisation, none in the 20th We can think of these “nal words of Mattiuzzi’s text as in such a noble country… / Today the red light of dawn /
century have been as radical as the formulations of Abdias a follow-up and epistemic trail of the works by afro- Brings brothers to mind, not hostile tyrants]. This text was
Nascimento, although sometimes his treatment of the descendants that have been done in the last 20 years written in 1889, only one year, therefore, after the of”cial
subject falls into a kind of condescending hagiography in the Afro-Atlantic context, Brazilian or otherwise. Her “abolition” of the system of slavery. Abolition is revealed,
of artists. I mention just two more works. courage in deconstructing Tarsila’s famous work is a as we read with Abdias Nascimento (2016), as a way of
Art historian Roberto Conduru has an introductory gesture that fortunately we can also “nd in other artists. In annihilation, death and the politics of oblivion. Lauriano
book aimed at schools, but no less interesting for that, the art of this century in Brazil, artists and agents of the art has other important works done with pemba on a Black
full of information – the 2007 Arte afrobrasileira. In it he world are increasingly noticing the relationship between background that draw the contours of the map of Brazil
doesn’t limit himself to Afro-descendant artists, nor modernity, modernism and colonialism. The modernist to rethink these limits from a decolonial point of view. I
does he align himself with a decolonial reading of the “white cube” is a hygienist prison that corresponds to the recall here his impressive Invasão, etnocídio, democracia
issue, contenting himself rather with making a more model of the proclaimed “autonomy” of the arts. I recall racial e apropriação cultural [Invasion, ethnocide, racial
school-based art history. As for the 2013 book Black art here only the works of artists Clara Ianni and Lais Myhrra, democracy and cultural appropriation] of 2017, which was in
in Brazil. Expressions of Identity by Kimberly L. Cleveland, who have shown the violence of the Brazilian modernist the aforementioned exhibition Agora somos todxs Negrxs?
though it does not break with the Brazilian tradition, which project in some of their works in recent years: O instante What goes on in these exhibitions and curatorships,
has its origin in the ideology of “racial democracy,” of interminável (2015) and Projeto Gameleira, 1971 (2014) by and with this proliferation of negrx artists? First and
considering the concept of Black and Afro-Brazilian art Myhrra and Forma livre (2013) and Do !gurativismo ao foremost, the rupture of the complicity between the
artists who are not of African descent, gives this subject abstracionismo (2017) by Ianni. These two artists are aesthetic device and the colonial device. You can
a great deal of thought, bringing the huge contribution not part of the production of Afro-descendant art, but no longer speak innocently of “racial democracy” or
of this discussion in the United States. Her work makes their works are critically related to the colonial device. celebrate our “syncretic” culture and “miscegenation”
an important contribution and should be translated in The decolonial political shift is in no way restricted to without understanding the trauma that is at the root
Brazil in order to enrich the debate on this subject there. Afro-descendant artists. of this hybridisation. With the profound changes in the
The author addresses explicitly in chapters the works of “eld of the arts in last decades of the 20th century, there
the following artists: Abdias Nascimento, Ronaldo Rego, DeColonial afro-DesCenDant artists has been a rise, as we have seen, of the subject, of the
Eustáquio Neves, Ayrson Heráclito and Rosana Paulino. The aforementioned exhibition, Histórias Afro-Atlântica, agent of art, who before was, in part, still subjugated to
For its part, the volume of critical texts resulting from held at MASP and at the Tomie Ohtake Institute in São the “eld of representation. A series of Afro-descendant
the exhibition Histórias afro-atlânticas, held in São Paulo Paulo in 2018, and curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Ayrson artists, almost all trained in visual arts, and art collectives
in 2018, features introductory chapters by Adriano Heráclito, Hélio Menezes, Lilia Schwarcz and Tomás started to interact in the Brazilian cultural scene from
Pedrosa, Heitor Martins, Amanda Carneiro and André Toledo, was one of the most important shows on the this point of view of the decolonial shift. They are going
Mesquita, in which they pinpoint the task of rethinking subject of negritude ever held in Brazil, but it is important to imagine the negritude in the spaces of the Diaspora.
Brazilian art from the decolonial prism. In addition, the to see how it is part of an ongoing journey that can be Imagine in the sense of creating images, but also of
catalogue contains texts by Achille Mbembe (Pedrosa et traced back to the 1988 exhibition, A mão afro-brasileira, creating a playful and political “eld of action. (12) With
al., 2018, 125–144) and the contribution by Okwui Enwezor with many others just as essential along the way. Inspired the enthronement of the subject and the shift of the
(Pedrosa et al., 2018, 145–158), which are also a product by the survey conducted by Hélio Menezes for his text aesthetic “eld towards politics and micropolitics, this
of the current debate of post-colonial reconstruction of in the Histórias Afro-Atlânticas, I can highlight the repoliticisation of art entailed new costuras da memória
the aesthetic “eld. But not all the texts in the catalogue following exhibitions: Incorporações – Arte afro-brasileira [sewing of memory], to play with the title of Rosana
follow this outlook, as the intention was also to show contemporânea (October 2011– January 2012), at the Paulino’s exhibition in the Pinacoteca. The testimonial
an overview of the debate on Afro-Atlantic histories in International Arts Festival Europalia, Brussels, curated element becomes central. At the same time, in Brazil,
Brazil. The anthropologist Kabengele Munanga in “Afro- by Roberto Conduru; Afro como ascendência, arte como support for the arts has increased in the “rst decade of
Brazilian Art: What actually is it?” even places his reading procedência (December 2013–March 2014), at SESC this century, with more prizes, scholarships and options
of Afro-Brazilian art in the key of beauty, of the “universal Pinheiros, São Paulo, curated by Alexandre Araújo Bispo; for exhibition venues – the result of economic expansion
and necessary” (2018, 113–120) and commemorates the Histórias Mestiças (August 2014–October 2014), at the accompanied by a democratisation that has also been
“pioneering work of Nina Rodrigues” in founding the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, curated by Adriano Pedrosa and re!ected in universities and in culture as a whole. This
history of Afro-Brazilian art (2018, 118). He distances Lilia Schwarcz; Territórios: artistas afrodescendentes no movement began to swing backward with the economic
himself from the expression “black art in Brazil” because acervo da Pinacoteca (December 2015–June 2016), at the and political crises from 2013 onwards. But the exhibitions
he suspects that there is a “certain biologism” in it and Pinacoteca in São Paulo, curated by Tadeu Chiarelli; A didn’t really come to a halt: the aesthetic “eld was already
argues that it would be from a notion that is “broader, cor do Brasil (August 2016–January 2017), at the Museu too busy with these new policies and ways of imagining
non-biologised, non-ethnicised and non-politicised de Arte do Rio, curated by Paulo Herkenhoff and Marcelo and sewing together memory. The current government’s
that can be operated to identify the Africanity hidden Campos; Diálogos ausentes (December 2016–February programme aims, through censorship and heavy cuts
in a work” (2018, 122). Why would Africanity be hidden 2017), at the Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, curated in investment in the cultural “eld, to sti!e this boom in
in a work? We are light years away, here, from Rubem by Rosana Paulino and Diane Lima; Agora somos todxs critical art, in which Black art plays a part. We will have
Valentim’s manifesto and the “ghting and openly political Negrxs? (2017), at Galpão VideoBrasil, curated by Daniel to keep an eye on what kind of effect these policies of
stance also defended by Abdias Nascimento. In this Lima; • PretAtitude (2018), at SESC Ribeirão Preto, curated oppression will have.
line of thinking of these two authors, the small text by by Claudinei Roberto (Menezes, 2018, 591–592) and, I add To conclude this re!ection on contemporary Black
performance artist Musa Michelle Mattiuzzi at the end the more recent exhibition Rosana Paulino, A costura art in Brazil, I will focus on the production of two artists,
of the catalogue is almost a decolonial manifesto in da memória (December 2018–March 2019), held at the albeit brie!y, to indicate the power of this production.
nature. She writes: Pinacoteca de São Paulo, curated by Valéria Piccoli and
Pedro Nery (2018). rosana paulino: “anarChiving” the arChive of
In the history told by whiteness – which even now I would also include in this series of exhibitions the Coloniality
has facets of a colonial Brazil – the compulsory Bienais VideoBrasil, curated by Solange Farkas and the Rosana Paulino is recognised as a pioneer in new Brazilian
notion about the “other” is what I qualify as a white exhibition A empresa colonial (December 2015–February Black art. Her work Parede da memória [Memory Wall],
folkloric look at aspects of black and indigenous 2016). Farkas is the general curator of the VideoBrasil 1994, is a benchmark piece within this production. This
aesthetics. It is a look and practice constructed Contemporary Art Festival, which has been held since work is made up of 11 photographs of her family that are
from the use of symbols that engender necropolitics 1983. Her south–south oriented perspective has played repeated in different numbers, totalling 1,500 photos,
as a possibility of inclusion and representativeness, a very important role in the af”rmation of an art more which are printed on fabric of about 8 × 8 × 3 cm each
in a perverse game of white language of seizure and committed to the themes of decoloniality. In 2000 she in size, forming patuás – elements of the Afro religiosity
visibility. I think this when I look into the narratives curated, together with South African critic Clive Kellner, that are seen as amulets in Candomblé. Each patuá has
that are part of this supremacist imagery. I think the exhibition Mostra Africana de Arte Contemporânea, speci”c colours, associated with different Orishas that
this of Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973), the artist who which was held at SESC Pompéia in São Paulo. protect the person carrying the talisman. Let us remember
painted A negra, which, if dispassionately analysed, The exhibition A empresa colonial, curated by Tomás what Abdias Nascimento wrote about Candomblé as
is racist in nature, although it has managed to be Toledo and held at Caixa Cultural São Paulo, though not “the creating womb of Afro-Brazilian art.” It is important
credited with a false narrative that representativity an ethnically curated exhibition, dealt with the subject of to think that Rosana Paulino herself narrates her career
matters and has long sustained the myth of the the continuity of colonial power in contemporary Brazil on the basis of this iconic work, which was also present
racial and cultural diversity of this country. There with great propriety. in her recent exhibition, in 2018–2019, at the Pinacoteca
is a political technology of colonist-heirs to create In one of his works in this last exhibition, Jaime Lauriano, de São Paulo.
burials. […] The “art” of these lands that never one of the most important Black artists in Brazil today, Parede da memória, in its seemingly simple
ceased to be a colony, an “art” established here used a “white pemba” chalk used in Umbanda rituals presentation, actually epitomises the encounter of various
with the violent process of insertion into Western on “black cotton.” With this material, Lauriano retraced gestures: photography, sewing and remembrance, as
modernity. “Art” as the privileged means through the map of Brazil, this political line, as part of a politics much of the family as of an Afro origin. The work also
which written ideas and visual creation made by of the body and self-assertion. Usurping the power of alludes to the worlds of religion, play (memory game)
colonist-heirs, who are part of a wealthy social cartographers in the service of power, he inscribed limits and montage, since it is an arrangement that is always
class, who operate the symbols in the wave of with new meaning with the white pemba chalk: the white in motion, being reassembled, without ever ceasing to
appropriation and address their ideas as universal. of the pemba becomes the inscription agent of historically be the Parede da memória. This wall with a series of
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