ARTH 368 Studies in Contemporary Art and Architecture: Brazilian Art

• Thursdays, 6:00 - 8:15pm
• EV 1.605
• Insctructor: Rodrigo De Alcântara Barros Bueno

This course provides an overview of Brazilian art, rescuing concealed histories from the country’s colonial past and centralizing Afro-diasporic, Indigenous, and queer perspectives, all the way to the present. In this direction, the course proposes to expand students’ understanding and knowledge of the construction of nation-specific identities through post-colonial movements in Brazil such as Modernismos, Concretismo, and Tropicalismo. The course also examines how conceptualism and pop art were subverted in Brazil to be employed as strategic tools for contesting authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, analyzing the social impact of this historical moment in the local Brazilian artistic production in perspective to other Latin American countries. The importance of Brazilian contemporary art in re-visioning the stereotypes perpetuated by Western Art-History is articulated through critical analyses of the European artistic missions. Furthermore, a plethora of counter-hegemonic contemporary theorists focusing on racial and gender studies will help shed light on this specific historiography.