Page 98 - ARTE!Brasileiros #58

ENGLISH VERSION DEMOCRACY AND REPARATION

strength and originality of contemporary Brazilian Black em Pernambuco e Rio de Janeiro, presentation Sergio of this manifesto in the volume that also features an
art also responds to the terrible rise of neo-fascism that Burgi, Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria. important critical essay by curator Lisette Lagnado:
repeats those genocidal intentions today. (16) Rubem Valentim, published by Instituto Rubem
Black art exists only in a process of construction, in a Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1958. Anthropologie structurale. Valentim, São Paulo: Almeida e Dale, 2019.
building up that is parallel to the construction of Blackness. Paris: Plon. (10) In her article in the 1988 exhibition catalogue, Aracy
For it to exist, artists, critics and curators have needed to Amaral also wrote, in a non-critical way, about
disentangle centuries of a white-centric historiography Lopes, Fabiana. 2018. “Rosana Paulino: O tempo do the complicity between aesthetic and colonial
that renders Black art invisible. Curators needed to get fazer e a prática do compartilhar”, in: Rosana Paulino: devices: [T]he new countries of America are
rid of their colonial blindness to understand that Black a costura da memória. curadoria Valéria Piccoli, Pedro presented as a real source of miscegenation and
art is not only a tributary of “Brazilian art,” but that it Neri, textos Juliana Ribeiro da Silva Bevilaqua, Fabiana new reality. Identity thus becomes based on our
constitutes a cultural and symbolic “eld, which, on the Lopes, Adriano Dolci Palma. São Paulo: Pinacoteca de environment, or rather on our tumultuous processes
contrary, must be read in the context of the Black diaspora, São Paulo, 2018, pp. 163–181. of deculturation, or acculturation according to the
beyond the shredding machine of the differences of the models of the hegemonic centres of Western art.
device of nationality. Thinking about Afro-Brazilian art Mbembe, Achille. 2017. Crítica da Razão negra. Translation (1988, 272) The colonial machine is, thus, af”rmed
only makes sense if the term “Brazilian” serves to locate Marta Lança. Lisbon: Antígona Editores Refractários, with its work of destruction of the “other.” The
the space of the diaspora, its context, and not to impose 2nd edition. author also emphasises the myth of the “absence of
national limits in the sense of building an illusionary memory” (1988, 272) of Brazilians, when in truth this
great “Brazilian art.” Black art transcends the borders of Menezes, Hélio. 2018. “Exposições e críticos de arte is a matter of recognising a struggle for memories,
coloniality; it explodes the usual code of history of art with afro-brasileira: um conceito em disputa”, in: Histórias in which histories of violence against Blacks and
its national, linear and ascendant histories, punctuated afro-atlânticas: [vol. 2] antologia, org. Ed. Adriano Pedrosa, Black resistance are systematically suffocated.
by its “great “gures.” By building its theatres of memory Amanda Carneiro, André Mesquita. São Paulo: MASP, (11) With regard to this origin of Brazilian Black art in
that enable the imagination of other spaces of playful pp. 575–593. Candomblé, it is essential to recall the “gure of
action, the Black art discussed here prompts us to rethink Arthur Bispo do Rosário (1909–1989), one of the
the very meaning of art and its borders. Mignolo, Walter. 2011. The Darker Side of Western most acclaimed Brazilian Black artists, with works
Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham, exhibited at the Biennials of São Paulo and Venice.
NC/London: Duke University Press. His work, marked by collectionism, montage, sewing,
referenCes the construction of narratives and serialisations, used
Adorno, Theodor W. e Horkheimer, Max. 1986. Dialektik Nascimento, Abdias. 2016. O genocídio negro. Processo many codes clearly derived from Afro-Brazilian cults.
der Aufklärung. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer V. de um racismo mascarado. São Paulo: Perspectiva. In the fusion of religiosity and artistic work he forged
an original and incomparable direction for the art
Araújo, Emanoel (org.) 1988. A mão Afro-Brasileira. Ndikung, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng. 2019. “Des-outrização scene of the country that, at the same time, forced and
Signi!cado da Contribuição Artística e Histórica. São como método (Leh zo, a me ken de za),” in: 21ª Bienal de deconstructed the aesthetic device (Hidalgo, 1996).
Paulo: Tenenge. Arte Contemporânea Sesc_Videobrasil: Comunidades The performances by artist Ayrson Heráclito, which
imaginadas. Ed. Solange Farkas e. São Paulo: Videobrasil; unite religiosity, rite and the dislocated aesthetic “eld,
Azevedo, José Fernando Peixoto de. 2018. Eu, um crioulo. Edições Sesc. (Exhibition catalogue). [Disothering as a continue down this trail opened by Bispo do Rosário.
São Paulo: n-1. Method: Leh zo, a me ken de za]. (12) Beyond the artists already mentioned, we might
recall Sidney Amaral, Charlene Bicalho, Dalton Paula,
Benjamin, Walter. 2010. Werkeund Nachlaß. Kritische Pedrosa, Adriano; Carneiro, Amanda e Mesquita, André Janaína Barros, Antônio Obá, Juliana Santos, Priscila
Gesamtausgabe. Über den Begriff der Geschichte. Ed. (org.). 2018. Histórias afro-atlânticas: antologia [vol. 2]. Rezende, Lídia Lisboa, Renata Felinto, curator and
Gérard Raulet. Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, São Paulo: MASP. artist Daniel Lima, Tiago Gualberto, Janaina Barros,
Vol. 19. Moisés Patrício, Marcio Marianno, Peter de Brito,
Ana Lira, Ayrson Heráclito, Jota Mombaça, dancer
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2007. Provincializing Europe: notes and performer Luiz de Abreu, cartoonist Marcelo
Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, (1) “Bandeirantes” were explorers and adventurers who, D’Salete and Frente 3 de Fevereiro.
NJ: Princeton University Press. from the 16th century on, led forays into the territory (13) I also recall Eustáquio Neves, another important
of the colony and were responsible for enlarging the forerunner of contemporary Black art; and I recall
Cleveland, Kimberly. 2013. Black Art in Brazil. Expressions Brazilian territory. They were generally of Portuguese Paulo Nazareth, a key “gure in today’s Black art, as well
of Identity. Gainsville: University Press of Florida. Conduru, origin, “rst and foremost fortune hunters, and took as the photographs by Ayrson Heráclito. Photography
Roberto. 2007. Arte afro-brasileira. Belo Horizonte: C with them enslaved Indigenous peoples. As they is also fundamental in the works of Rosângela Rennó,
/ Arte set off from the region where the capital of São Claudia Andujar, Paula Trope and Miguel Rio Branco,
Paulo state is located today, to this day there is among so many other contemporary artists not
Couto, Maria de Fátima Morethy. 2009. “A recepção da a huge veneration of these “gures, even though directly related to Afro-descendant art (Diegues
obra de Antônio Bandeira no exterior (1946–1967),” in: they represent colonial violence and the ferocity of & Ortega 2013).
Revista de História da Arte e Arqueologia. Ed. Programa Indigenous and extractivist domination – or precisely (14) It is important to confront this work by Paulino with
de Pós-Graduação em História do Instituto de Filoso”a because they represent it. the striking work by American artist Carrie Mae
e Ciências Humanas da Universidade Estadual de (2) Killings are almost three times more prevalent among Weems, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,
Campinas. Campinas/ São Paulo, nº 11, 69–107. young blacks than in whites, reaching 185 per 100,000”: 1995–1996, which is also made from the appropriation
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ 2019/11/ of photographs of 19th century Blacks, submitted by
Diegues, Isabel e Ortega, Eduardo (org.). 2013. Fotogra!a homicidios-entre-jovens-negros-e-quase-tres-vezes- scienti”c, photographic, sexist devices, to the army,
na arte brasileira séc. xxI. Rio de Janeiro: Cobogó. maior-do-quebrancos-e-chegam-a-185-por-100-mil. as a nanny, etc. This shows how African-Atlantic
shtml (visited on 20 January 2020). With regard to stories are repeated across national borders. The
Ermakoff, George. 2004. O negro na fotogra!a brasileira do the subject of economic inequality between races colonial system was and is global.
século xIx. Rio de Janeiro: George Ermakoff Casa Editorial. in Brazil see also: IBGE, “Desigualdades Sociais por
Cor ou Raça no Brasil,” https://biblioteca. ibge.gov.br/ opinion rEPAIr ANd dEMoCrACy [PAGES 38 to 43]
Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: visualizacao/livros/liv101681_informativo.pdf (visited
Seuil. on 20 January 2020).
(4) Obviously this is not about criticising Kant for being AFRO-DESCENDANTS,
Foster, Hal. 1996. The Return of the Realx. Cambridge, “Eurocentric,” since there was no other option for THE INTERNET AND
MA: MIt Press. him in 18th-century Königsberg, but rather about
critiquing the use of his aesthetic work today without DEMOCRACY AT THE END
Hall, Stuart. 2003. Da diáspora. Identidades e mediações re!ection or criticism.
Culturais. Belo Horizonte: Humanistas. (5) This is a central neighbourhood of São Paulo, but until OF THE TUNNEL
the middle of the 19th century it was still an outlying
Hidalgo, Luciana.1996. Arthur Bispo do Rosário. O Senhor area and the place in which slaves from Africa were Regardless of the methods that will be
do Labirinto. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco. subjected to terror was concentrated in the pillory used for the real social insertion of Afro-
and the gallows. descendants, this insertion will only
Hollier, Denis. 2018. “O valor de uso do impossível,” in: (6) “Broke through” is the translation of “zum Durchbruch be lasting by fighting condescension
Bataille, Georges (ed.), Documents: Georges Bataille, kam.” This version that I quote from Benjamin’s theses
trad. J.C. Penna e M. J. Moraes. Desterro: Cultura e is the little known version he passed on to Hanna and encouraging protagonism and
Barbárie, pp. 3–35. hooks, bell. 2014. Black Looks: Race Arendt. It is important to register this use of the term self-management
and Representation. London: Routledge. “Durchbruch,” breakthrough, a concept that indicates
an understanding both tragic and somatic of the By rENAto ArAúJo dA SIlvA
Kant, Immanuel. 1959. Kritik der Urteilskraft. Hamburg: present and of history.
Felix Meiner. (7) With regard to this debate, which reverberates to While this too is a very distant dream, it is much
the current issue of the appropriation of works from closer than the dream of a golden age. However, the
Kilomba, Grada. 2019. Plantation Memories. Episodes countries previously colonised and of their exhibitions first requirement is memory. Poor memory benefits
of Everyday Racism. Münster: Unrast-Verlag, 5th edition. in metropolitan ethnological museums (and not artistic us, but harms our descendants. The ability to forget
ones, which are reserved for European/Eurocentric art), allows people to step away from the suffering they
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe e Nancy, Jean-Luc. 1991. Le I refer to the exhibition and its well-made catalogue once knew; but the ability to forget also leads people
mythe nazi. Paris: Éditions e l’Aube. Beyond Compare. Art from Africa in the Bode Museum to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.
(Seidel 2017). Lu Xun (1881-1936), on women’s right to equality
Lago, Bia Corrêa do. 2001. August Stahl: Obra completa (9) I must highlight the welcome recent republication with men. (xUN, L., 2017, p. 259)
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