While the “Latin Americans of Paris” enjoyed considerable success in the 1960s, largely associated with the rise of kinetic art, the place of Brazilian artists within this collective has always proved problematic.
The “Brazilians of Paris” never formed a clearly defined group, nor did they share a particular aesthetic.

From Lygia Clark’s arrival in Paris in early 1964, through the military coup in Brazil on 1 April, to Hélio Oiticica’s brief stay in May 1969, this lecture explores the relationship of Brazilian artists in Paris to the collective during the 1960s.
As authoritarianism gained ground, their presence in the French capital took on a different meaning, shifting their status from that of cosmopolitan artists to that of exiles.

Killian Rauline holds the agrégation in history and is a doctoral candidate in art history at the École normale supérieure.
His current doctoral research examines the trajectories of Brazilian artists and intellectuals into exile in Europe during the military dictatorship.
At the intersection of art history, intellectual history and political history, his work explores the transformations and afterlives of the Brazilian avant-garde through the experience of exile, with the aim of developing a situated history of the transformations of the artistic field on the threshold of the global turn. In this capacity, he has contributed to the America latina no oficial research programme at the Bibliothèque Kandinsky.
His most recent article, “The Black Body in Lygia Clark’s Experimental Field,” is forthcoming in issue no. 20 of the journal Plastik.