EAN: 9783864424410

BRASIL! BRASIL! THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM

Brasil! The Dawn of Modernity   In the winter of 1944  over the course of three weeks  the
Royal Academy of Arts hosted the ­»Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings« in its grand 
neoclassical Main Galleries. The show's title is somewhat misleading as it was  in effect  two
distinct exhibitions rolled into one: the first  the »Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings«
comprised 80 paintings and 86 works on paper displayed in two galleries  and the second 
»Brazil Builds«  contained 192 photographs and occupied a single gallery. Between 1947 and 1948
both the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)
opened  as well as the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-RJ)  and an art critic
referred to these initiatives as an »indi­cation of the Brazilian desire to communicate with
its own artists as well as associating with those international centres of artistic
expression«. Not long afterwards  in 1951  Brazil inaugurated the Bienal Internacional de São
Paulo: the first biannual exhibition anywhere in the world after Venice  and a demonstration of
the value Brazil placed on art and culture at that time  emphasizing its determination to be
part of the emerging post-war ­international art circuit. The Semana de Arte ­Moderna (Modern
Art Week) in 1922 is seen as the initiating event in the development of a ­Brazilian modernism
which gave rise to a first ­generation of artists  including Anita Malfatti (1889-1964) and
Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899-1970). The genuinely Brazilian aspect of this modernism  as
postulated by the writer ­Oswald de Andrade  would be the role of »national identity«. In a
manifesto  he called for foreign ­European culture to be devoured  »digested« and  through its
transformation  used to forge a Brazilian art in its own right. This included  in his view 
also the »devouring« of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian cultures. The two artists mentioned above
and additional protagonists  such as Lasar Segall (1891-1957) and Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973)
are today considered to maintain a certain social distance from Indigenous visual language and
Afro-Brazilian rituals  which was eventually overcome by a second generation around Djanira da
Motta e Silva (1914-1979) and Rubem Valentim (1922-1991). Now  all of these artists and their
works are causing quite a stir in exhibitions such as ­»Foreigners Everywhere« at the 60th
Venice Biennale ­(curated by Adriano Pedrosa)  as a very unique visual language emerged in the
works once the formalist conquest by European modernism had been »digested«. There has been
strong international interest for some time now in the concept of global modernism  and
­academic parallels to the challenges of European modernism are addressed just as much as the
­political  social  and cultural dif­ferences. »Brasil! Brasil! - The Dawn of Modernity«
presents in the exhibition and with this comprehensive ­publication the various ways in which
Brazilian ­artists have ­developed their distinct modern visual language and  based on the
presentation of ten positions  simultaneously provides an introduction to formative political 
social  and economic circum­stances  key stages in literature  music  design  and architecture
have also been addressed. An initial ­opportunity for intercultural exchange ­presented ­itself
to the Zentrum Paul Klee in 2019 with the exhibition »Paul Klee - Unstable ­Balance«  curated
by Fabienne Eggelhöfer  which was received with great interest by the Brazilian public on its
tour from Saõ Paulo via Rio de Janeiro to Belo ­Horizonte.     Exhibition:     Royal Academy of
Arts  London  28 1 - 21 4 2025      The Exhibition is organised by the Zentrum Paul Klee  Bern
in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts  London

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