Rafael Cardoso
PhD in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art/University of London. Member of AICA-Deutschland and Verband Deutscher Kunsthistoriker (CIHA). He acts as a collaborating member of the Graduate Program in Art History at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and as a research associate at the Lateinamerika-Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). He is the author of several books on the history of culture, art and design in Brazil, the most recent being: “Modernity in Black and White: Art and Image, Race and Identity in Brazil, 1890-1945” (Cambridge University Press, 2021) . Main themes and interests: Brazilian art, 19th and 20th centuries; history of graphic arts, print and design; modernism and primitivism; exile and transculturation; image theory; history of art education.
Research project
Title
Modernisms, modernity and modernization in Brazilian art, 1889-1945
Area of Inquiry and Research
Art and Reception
Description
The period that extends from the proclamation of the Republic to the end of the Estado Novo encompasses a series of attempts at artistic modernization that include the Semana de Arte Moderna (“Modern Art Week”) of 1922, but are not strictly limited to it. There was a range of modernizing initiatives that can be understood, each in its own way, as modernisms (starting from the assumption that there is not just one modernism, but several alternatives). This project is dedicated to the study of these manifestations, not only in the so-called fine arts but also in applied arts, graphic arts, photography and similar areas. The aim is to deconstruct the overlap between modernism and archaicism, primitivism and cosmopolitanism, all of which touch almost all modernization projects in Brazilian cultural history. It is especially important to reflect on the contradictions between avant-garde discourses and oligarchic practices, which are characteristic of the Latin American context, resulting in an uneven modernization in which artistic modernism does not always correspond to social modernity, in terms of race, class and gender. The tension between high art, popular culture and mass culture is of paramount importance to understanding the desire for modernity in Brazilian art.