Jan 2024
Primitivist cosmopolitanism: Vicente do Rego, Tarsila do Amaral, Oswald de Andrade and the problem of authenticity in 1920s Paris
Paris, France
The École des modernités
Rafael Cardoso is an art historian and writer. He is a research associate at Freie Universität Berlin (Lateinamerika-Institut); a member of the postgraduate faculty in art history at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; and, in 2024, will hold the Aby Warburg Guest Professorship at Warburg-Haus, Hamburg. Among his many works, recent highlights include the book Modernity in Black and White: Art and Image, Race and Identity in Brazil, 1890-1945 (Cambridge UP, 2021); the book and exhibition O olhar germânico na gênese do Brasil (Museu Imperial, Petrópolis, 2022); the articles "Decolonizing the canon?" (Texte zur Kunst, Dec. 2022) and "Decolonizing decolonization" (Panorama, Fall 2020).
Image : Rafael Cardoso © Patricia Breves
Among Brazilian artists active in Paris in the 1920s, two of the most prominent were Vicente do Rego Monteiro and Tarsila do Amaral. Though they originated from different regions of Brazil (Pernambuco and São Paulo, respectively), they shared similarities of background. Both were wealthy cosmopolitans, well connected in modernist circles. To differing degrees, both also appealed to their perceived exoticism as a means of attracting attention in the competitive Parisian art world. The lecture will focus on two books produced in 1925: Quelques visages de Paris, by Rego Monteiro, and Pau Brasil, with illustrations by Tarsila accompanying poems by her partner Oswald de Andrade. By looking at the differences in the strategies they deployed, the problem of authenticity and its relationship to ideas of modernism, primitivism and nativism can be better assessed.
31 January, 6:30 PM
At the Giacometti Lab and Live on Youtube
Free - Lecture in English
By Rafael Cardoso
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