Project:

Transits: popular culture and modern and contemporary art in Brazil

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Working plan:

Popular Culture: ways to use

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Abstract:

“Popular art” was fundamental in the constitution of modern art in Brazil, and its appreciation fostered a considerable repertoire and bibliography on the subject, promoting critical dialogues between productions considered “popular” and “non-popular” or erudite. The urgency of the historiographical review of its categories and classificatory criteria, as well as the effort to come to terms with what Denise Ferreira da Silva calls “the unpayable debt,” have shed light on deep gaps in the field of art research, exposing and imposing the challenges and difficulties of looking at, reviewing or understanding artistic productions that have historically been made invisible or limited to “categories” (some considered “minor art”), which, in contemporary times, have gone through a review process, such as the case of the so-called naïve, ornamental and also popular arts. Considering the weakness of totalizing narratives, and understanding that each path is unique and mobilizes, around itself, questions, agents, references, processes, transits, and works in a specific way, the project proposes to investigate some case studies, comprehending, in each one, the implications of the association with the notion of popular.

Keywords: popular art; Brazilian art; global art history