Dissident Practices: Brazilian Women Artists, 1960s–2020s 9781478024026

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
1 POLITICAL PRACTICES
2 DISCURSIVE PRACTICES
3 TRANSGRESSIVE PRACTICES
4 PRACTICES OF THE SELF
To Be Continued
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Dissident Practices

Duke University Press Durham and London 2023

DISSI DENT PRAC TICES

Brazilian Women Artists, 1960s–2020s Claudia Calirman

© 2023 Duke University Press. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Designed by Aimee C. Harrison  |  Project Editor: Ihsan Taylor Typeset in Portrait Text, Canela Text, and Helvetica Neue LT Std by Copperline Book Services Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Calirman, Claudia, author. Title: Dissident practices : Brazilian women artists, 1960s–2020s / Claudia Calirman. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036259 (print) LCCN 2022036260 (ebook) ISBN 9781478019404 (paperback) ISBN 9781478016779 (hardcover) ISBN 9781478024026 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Women artists—Brazil—History—20th century. | Art—Political aspects—Brazil—20th century. | Art and society— Brazil—21st century. | Women artists—Brazil—History—21st century. | Art—Political aspects—Brazil—21st century. | Art and society— Brazil—21st century. | Art and state—Brazil—History. | Art, Brazilian— 20th century. | BISAC: ART / Caribbean & Latin American | ART / Women Artists Classification: LCC N6655 .C355 2023 (print) | LCC N6655 (ebook) | DDC 700.981—dc23/eng/20221018 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036259 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036260

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of CAA.

Cover art: Berna Reale, Palomo, 2012, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

To Joe, Your love and support breathes throughout these pages.

Contents

1

2

POLITICAL PRACTICES 14

DISCURSIVE PRACTICES 58

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1

3

4

TRANSGRESSIVE PRACTICES 108

PRACTICES OF THE SELF 148

To Be Continued  187 Notes 193 Bibliography 219 Index 237

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments Ten years ago when I began to envision a book on Brazilian women artists, it was, to say the least, not a prominent topic. It was an overlooked and thorny subject. Moreover, it was difficult to engage artists and scholars willing to discuss it. Thankfully, since then the reception of the theme has significantly changed, as it became not only timely but also necessary and indispensable: a fascinating and complex story worth telling. Over the years, I had conversations, exchanges, and interactions with many people. Their voices, ideas, and contributions constitute the amalgam of this book. First of all, I would like to thank the artists addressed here: Sonia Andrade, Lenora de Barros, Fabiana Faleiros, Renata Felinto, Anna Bella Geiger, Anna Maria Maiolino, Lyz Parayzo, Rosana Paulino, Berna Reale, Rosângela Rennó, Sallisa Rosa, Gretta Sarfaty, Aleta Valente, and Regina Vater. My gratitude also goes to the estates of the late artists Lygia Pape, Letícia Pa­rente, Wanda Pimentel, and Márcia X. I extend my appreciation to the numerous artists, individuals, galleries, and institutions that provided images and copyrights for the illustrations, including Tarsila do Amaral, Fernando Gabeira, Galeria A Gentil Carioca, Galeria Jaqueline Martins, Galeria Nara Roesler, Eduardo Kac, Nora Martins Lobo, Antonio Manuel, Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Priscilla Monge, Beatriz Pimentel, Projeto Lygia Pape, the Carolee Schneemann Foundation, Wagner Schwartz, Annie Sprinkle, Adriana Varejão, Ricardo Ventura, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Univer-

sidade de São Paulo, Museo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires, and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. My encounters, interviews, and dialogues—brief, long, and in-between; in person, on Zoom, via email, and by phone—with so many interlocutors during this process permeate and animate this book. In particular I would like to acknowledge Roberta Barros, Sérgio Bessa, Ana Paula Caval­canti Simioni, Roberto Conduru, Tania Cypriano, Márcio Doctors, Alex Hamburger, Paulo Herkenhoff, Fabiana Lopes, Tertuliana Lustosa, Katia Maciel, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Bernardo Mosquera, André Parente, Margareth Rago, Claudia Saldanha, Talita Trizoli, and Gary Zabel. In addition, I am indebted to the professor and philosopher Auterives Maciel, who helped me navigate my inquietudes throughout the process. My colleagues in the Department of Art and Music at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and many friends, artists, and scholars offered their support at different stages of the project: Margaret Barlow, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Marta Dziewanska, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Tatiana Flores, Clara Gerchman, Andrea Giunta, Agata Jakubowska, Elizabeth Jobim, Si­mone Klabin, André Lepecki, Ana Maria Reyes, Marcos Steuernagel, Edward J. Sullivan, and Katerina Valdivia Bruch. This project has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, several psc-cuny (Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York) grant awards, the Millard Meiss Publication Grant, and the Office for the Advancement of Research at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I am thankful to Ken Wissoker, senior executive editor at Duke University Press, for his guidance throughout the process. My deepest and most sincere appreciation goes to my editor, Tom Fredrickson, for his input in shaping this project and to my research assistants, Vitoria Hadba and Gabriela Davies, for their thorough work. I am grateful for the encouragement and reassurance of my parents, Arnaldo and Loris, and my daughter, Ana Carolina.

x

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

Freedom isn’t enough. What I desire doesn’t have a name yet. —Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart

A young female crouches over piles of cheap construction materials and debris in front of an unfinished cinder-­block wall, striking a provocative pose and staring at the viewer. She wears a white T-­shirt, tiny shorts, sneakers, and a green-­and-­yellow cap (the colors of the Brazilian flag) (fig. I.1). The image is part of a series of selfies titled Material Girl (2015) by Aleta Valente (b. 1986), in which the artist turns herself into a tropical, impoverished version of the pop star Madonna. Instead of Madonna’s affluent, glamorous material world, the setting for this image is the rubble and bricks used to erect homes in lower-­income communities. Valente grew up on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro—in Bangu, famous for being the hottest place in the state and home to a maximumsecurity prison. Like most of the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Bangu is featured on no tourist postcards of the city. It was once a working-­class neighborhood and a commuter town, but over the years it became a run-­down area surrounded by favelas where crime and drug trafficking are rampant. Valente uses the unappealing social landscape of Bangu as the site for the photo performances she takes with her cellular phone and then posts on social media. In these images, Valente juxtaposes the derelict zones of Bangu with her own body, becoming a composite body environment in which both are fully exposed.

I.1 

Aleta Valente, photograph from the series Material Girl, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Valente is part of a generation of artists who came to the scene at the dawn of the twenty-­first century, using social media to build visibility, form virtual communities, and create connections with different constituencies. They explore the internet, where communication and interaction are instantaneous, to experiment with new forms of self-­presentation, self-­construction, and self-­recognition through memes, selfies, and videos. Through them, discussions of gender inequality and debates on race and class discrimination long overdue in Brazilian society came to the forefront, marking major changes (and ruptures) with past generations, over the span of sixty years covered by this book: the 1960s to the 2020s. These artists arose from diverse social backgrounds. They no longer only came from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo—Brazil’s hegemonic cultural centers—but also from various regions of the country outside major urban centers. Through the more inclusive digital and social-­media networks—and the system of racial quotas that were instituted at public universities in Brazil in 2012—this new generation was able to ascend into the artistic scene. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when this study begins, there were fewer opportunities for social mobility, and the art scene was restricted to members of the upper and middle classes who had the economic and cultural capital to navigate an elitist art world. Those decades witnessed an explosion of vision2

Introduction

ary women visual artists, such as the ones addressed here: Sonia Andrade, Lygia Clark, Anna Bella Geiger, Gretta Sarfaty, Anna Maria Maiolino, Lygia Pape, Letícia Parente, Wanda Pimentel, and Regina Vater.1 This book starts from the premise that Brazil had and still has a unique position in the global scene with regard to the prominence of women artists. They had long been accepted and even lauded as key figures in a vibrant and progressive culture, enjoying more notoriety and critical recognition in the country’s cultural sphere than their North American and European counterparts. Since the 1920s they had been praised for introducing modernist trends to the country and creating a visual identity for Brazilian art. Later, many exhibited in major art institutions and at the São Paulo Biennials (initiated in 1951). Their works were included in prestigious international private and museum collections, and, moreover, some had even commanded higher prices in the market than their male peers.2 According to the curator Paulo Herkenhoff, “Women were more than contributors to the visual arts in Brazil: they were the driving force of Brazilian art in the twentieth cen­tury.”3 There was no “Brazilian” equivalent to Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” because there was no need: the assumption was that female artists already “had a place at the table.”4 While Brazilian women artists enjoyed a unique position in terms of visibility and prominence that does not mean that they were not vulnerable and did not face adversity and constraints because of their gender. Brazilian women artists may have been part of the local art scene in ways their sisters elsewhere were not, but they still faced challenges and pressures—many of which have yet to be accounted for. This book gives a nuanced account of the adversities and contradictions faced by many of these artists, even if they admittedly didn’t feel discriminated against because of their gender. While many disavowed the term “feminism,” they still employed feminist strategies without naming it as such or finding a better term to define their specific practices. This book addresses many artists from different periods, and it contains a multiplicity of voices. The women discussed succeeded in exposing (and continue to uncover) power relations with the aim of blocking and destabilize those stifling forces through “practices of resistance,” a term coined by Michel Foucault to convey strategies to build new forms of living and resistance to power. These artists saw discourse not only as an instrument of knowledge and power but also as a tool of resistance that would allow them to create new potentialities and possibilities. As Foucault wrote, “Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it,

Introduction

3

renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.”5 Here, resistance refers to actual practices that produce change rather than reactive approaches toward power. Power is seen as a pervasive relation of forces that doesn’t have an essence or a specific attribute but rather is erratic, widespread, and creative. There is no unifying term or universal practice that collectively defines the artists discussed here. They opposed normative policies, resisted authoritarianism, transgressed on imposed boundaries, pushed back against female objectification, challenged the constructions of “woman” as a fixed category, contested prescribed gender roles and morality as ordained by society, fought against the corporeal mechanisms of power, and rebelled against patriarchal culture. In their artistic productions it is possible to identify attitudes and themes clearly connected with feminist agendas of the time. This book raises crucial questions: What were (and still are) the obstacles faced by women artists in Brazil? What strategies did they employ to create political agency and new modes of subjectification? What ruptures took place over the sixty-­year span covered by this study? What still remains unchanged? A series of complex, underlying related themes run through the works discussed here: the coercion of women’s bodies, the mechanisms of social discipline imposed on them, the conduct and behavior expected of women, and the transgressive and irreverent ways in which these artists used their bodies to defy gender norms and transcend social codes and taboos. For them, a women’s body is not just a place of oppression, but the locus of resistance to the patriarchal order. Explored throughout are various constructions of subjectivity, including the use of language as an instrument of multiple significations, the nonconformative being, and the defiance of established rules. These artists refused religious dogmas related to virtue, vice, and the cardinal sins. They also rejected strategies of control over the female body via scientific discourses of normalcy and abnormality, asepticism and abjection, convention and deviancy. They challenged the concept of hygiene as a form of corporeal discipline deeply entangled in notions of eugenics and modernization. Although many artworks discussed here address women’s subjectivity, gender politics is only one aspect of their multifaceted strategies of resistance against apparatuses of power, whether it be coloniality, racism, capitalism, or patriarchy. As this study demonstrates, these women’s artistic practices, in myriad creative and evocative ways, became inseparable from a multiplicity of battles against censorship, state violence, social inequality, systemic racism, police brutality, and the exclusion of marginalized groups. I draw on their multiple and diverse dissident practices as a guiding force for the book’s organization. 4

Introduction

Tropical Spring: The Giant Awakened

At the beginning of the twenty-­first century, a particularly vibrant environment blossomed in Brazil. This moment was marked by the decline of neoliberal policies that had dominated Latin America throughout the 1990s and culminated in the 2002 election of the left-­wing Worker’s Party candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula). It also echoed the social uprisings taking place around the globe in 2011: the Arab Spring targeting repressive regimes; widespread protests in Latin America opposing structural inequality and corruption; large-­scale demonstrations in Greece, Italy, and Spain sparked by economic crises; and the Occupy Wall Street and the Black Lives Matter movements in the United States protesting economic disparity and racism. In Brazil, the catalyst for this new moment took place in June 2013 with a stunning surge of public rallies in what became known as the Tropical Spring. Few saw it coming, and no one anticipated the consequences. What began as a minor complaint against a small increase in municipal bus fares rapidly mushroomed into a massive and unprecedented wave of protests unlike any the country had seen in decades. With more than a million demonstrators from across the socioeconomic and ideological spectrums taking over public spaces in big cities, it was a major turning point: the giant had awakened. Some have called the Tropical Spring a before-­and-­after moment—a new beginning. And yet, since it lacked a unified target, the movement’s claims and complaints were diffuse. Protesters filled the streets demanding the imprisonment of corrupt politicians, better education and public transportation, improved health policies, and more efficient security measures. Rejecting any political affiliation, they burned party and union flags. Discontent grew after a federal investigation emerged in 2014 exposing fraud in the state-­owned oil company, Petrobrás.6 Expressing anger over financial stagnation and rampant corruption, more than a million people poured into the streets on March 15, 2015. All these circumstances, financial and political, led to a major polarization in the country, culminating a year later with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, successor to Lula, on August 31, 2016, shortly after the beginning of her second term. Many considered her ouster a coup to end the thirteen years of rule by the Worker’s Party. Further destabilizing the political situation was the advent of the internet and social media, which facilitated the dissemination of hate and intolerance and the public rise of right-­wing and Evangelical groups.7 The most active of these was Movimento Brasil Livre (mbl; Free Brazil Movement), which (among

Introduction

5

other things) called for censorship of the arts. This marked the beginning of an intense campaign against artists and cultural institutions that would culminate in a series of disquieting events in 2017. In September 2017, conservative factions, including Evangelical groups and the mbl, succeeded in shutting down a month before the scheduled closing of the exhibition Queermuseu: Cartografias da diferença na arte Brasileira (Queermuseum: Cartographies of difference in Brazilian art), presented at Santander Bank’s Cultural Center in the state of Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil. The exhibition had been charged with promoting blasphemy, pedophilia, and bestiality, and the building was defaced with spray-­painted comments such as “Anti-­Christ” and “Santander supports pedophilia.” Among the images that triggered the protests was Cena de interior II (Interior scene II; 1994) by Adriana Varejão (fig. I.2). The painting includes scenes depicting the brutal colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese, such as one showing a Black man being raped by two white men. The scene alludes to the Indigenous Natives and enslaved Africans who were subjugated by European conquerors and subjected to unspeakable violence, including sexual assaults. In another scene, a man is depicted having intercourse with a goat. The image comes from narratives of sexual interactions between animals and sertanejos (inlanders) as well as males from sugar plantations in the northern part of the country as described in Gilberto Freyre’s seminal book Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves; 1933).8 Misrepresenting Varejão’s decolonial critique, detractors accused her of promoting zoophilia.9 The controversy escalated when many lesser-­known queer artists felt excluded from the exhibition. As the art critic Daniela Name acutely pointed out, Queermuseum lacked queers.10 Angered, some of the excluded artists refused to support the protests against the exhibition’s closing, which ironically reinforced demands to shut it down.11 Less than a month later, another protest by conservative groups erupted at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo; mam-­s p) when a video of performer-­choreographer Wagner Schwartz’s piece La bête (The beast) (fig. I.3) circulated on social networks. A nude Schwartz lay on the ground holding a plastic copy of one Lygia Clark’s hinged interactive sculptures called Bichos (Critters) and invited members of the audience to manipulate his body as if it were one of Clark’s objects. During the event, a four-­year-­old girl—accompanied by her mother, an artist herself—approached Schwartz and touched his feet.12 The video went viral, spurring the mbl to mobilize its membership against the performance, the artist, and the venue. Schwartz was accused of inciting pedophilia, and the museum’s public funding was threatened. 6

Introduction

I.2 

Adriana Varejão, Cena de interior II (Interior scene II), 1994, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

In October 2018 a right-­wing former army captain named Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. One of his first measures was the dissolution of the ministry of culture, in the process attacking “big-­time artists” who, he claimed, were getting rich off public money. Inflammatory rhetoric denigrating women, Afro-­Brazilians, Indigenous people, and lgbtqi+ communities had marked Bolsonaro’s climb to power. He once described having a female child as a “weakness” and affirmed “he would not treat or pay women the same as men in the workplace,” adding that he would “rather have a son who is an addict than a son who is gay.”13 In the midst of this period of political turbulence, a diverse collection of progressive professionals, artists, and activists mobilized to expose censorship of the arts as well as hatred, intolerance, and violence against minority groups. A new generation of women visual artists came to the fore. This time, they were adamant in considering the personal political—and the political personal.

I.3 

Wagner Schwartz, La bête (The beast), 2017, performance, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2018. Photo: Benoit Cappronnier. Courtesy of the artist.

8

Introduction

Antecedents: Influences and Inspirations

This book is neither a survey of Brazilian women visual artists nor a history of feminism in the country. It does not pretend to cover the lifetime production of the artists mentioned herein, and it is not an essentialist or a nationalistic reading of contemporary Brazilian women’s art. Rather, my intent is to highlight key works by prominent and emerging women artists—from the 1960s onward, the period covered by this study—that illuminate significant moments of change and that engage with important debates and theoretical frameworks permeating the local and international spheres. The practices of these women artists are analyzed in light of historical perspectives, temporal events, and cultural specificity. This book rejects the global trend toward the attenuation of differences, where it is thought better to promote a universal language diluted by hegemonic cultural representations than to affirm dissident subjectivities. Why did I choose to write about this select group of women visual artists among so many other significant possibilities? The choice was based on the issues raised by these artists’ practices of resistance in relationship to main historical moments in Brazil: the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985; the return to democracy and the first direct elections for president in 1989; the social changes and turmoil of the 1990s; the rise of the Worker’s Party in the early 2000s; the return of the Right in the mid-2010s; and the emergence of a new “artivist” generation and the overtly feminist artists who emerged in 2015 and after. Though this text respects a chronological structure that traces the changes that have occurred over the decades, it has less to do with neat generational divides than with major historical transformations and ruptures that took place in the sociopolitical and cultural spheres. This study builds on my 2012 book Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles, which analyzes the intersection of the visual arts and politics during the most repressive years of Brazil’s military regime, the so-­called anos de chumbo (leaden years) of 1968 – 75. The springboard for the present project is my article “‘Epidermic’ and Visceral Works: Lygia Pape and Anna Maria Maiolino,” published in the Woman’s Art Journal (2014), and my chapter “Lygia Pape: A gula e a luxúria” (Lygia Pape: Gluttony and Lust)” in the 2017 exhibition catalogue Invenções da mulher moderna: Para Além de Anita e Tarsila (Modern women and their inventions: Beyond Anita and Tarsila), edited by Paulo Herkenhoff.14 The groundbreaking 2017 exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985, organized at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles by Andrea Giunta and Cecilia Fajardo-­­Hill, and its catalogue were motivational for this book.15 That project gave an overdue

Introduction

9

visibility and legitimacy to the production of Latin America women artists during a period of intense political and social unrest, stressing the inventive ways in which Latin American women artists used their bodies in the fight for political emancipation. Aracy Amaral and Herkenhoff ’s exhibition catalogue Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil was one of the earliest attempts to address the reasons for the lack of interest in feminism in Brazilian visual arts. Herkenhoff and Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda’s Manobras Radicais: Artistas Brasileiras, 1886 – 2005 (Radical maneuvers: Brazilian artists, 1886 – 2005; 2006) provided an invaluable overview of the innovations wrought by prominent women artists. Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni’s Mulheres artistas: As pioneiras 1880 – 1930 (Women artists: The pioneers 1880 – 1930; 2015) is a significant contribution to the discussion of amateurism versus professionalism in the formation of Brazilian women’s artists. Roberta Barros’s Elogio ao toque: Ou como falar de arte feminista à Brasileira (Eulogy to touch: Or how to talk about feminist art in Brazilian; 2016) is a crucial study that punctures the fallacy that no gender discrimination exits in the visual arts in Brazil. Barros boldly states that even today, works of art are still being analyzed through formalist lenses, purposefully eschewing discussions of feminism. Also significant are the writings of renowned Brazilian art critics, art historians, and feminist scholars including Ana Mae Barbosa, Sueli Carneiro, Maria Angélica Melendi, Margareth Rago, Cynthia Sarti, Luana Saturnino Tvardovskas, Talita Trizoli, and Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, among many others.16 Sonia E. Alvarez’s Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movement in Transition Politics (1990) is central to this study in its thorough historical account of the development of feminism in Brazil in the sociopolitical sphere. It relates the rise of the progressive women’s movements amidst a climate of repression in the 1970s and the emergence of gender politics in the final stages of the military regime in the 1980s. Brazilian psychoanalyst and cultural theorist Suely Rolnik uses the term micropolitical insurrection to suggest the creation of adequate means of resistance to Brazil’s systemic racist and patriarchal regime, an expression that aptly fits the artists discussed here, who resist the powers of colonial-capitalist society by assuming creative and ethical responsibility in their lives.17 The writings on unpaid reproductive work in capitalist society by Italian theorist and activist Silvia Federici are also informative.18 Judith Butler’s theory of performativity is central in discussing the ways these artists used different codes of signification—such as language, gestures, images, and affects—to challenge power discourses.19

10

Introduction

In O que é lugar de fala (What is the place of speech?; 2017), the AfroBrazilian philosopher and activist Djamila Ribeiro proposes the dismantling of the fallacy of a universal voice by exposing different social conditions of disparate groups in society.20 For Ribeiro, it is crucial to build a new societal “lugar de fala” (place of speech) that grants agency and visibility to subjects who have been subsumed or taken for granted within the hegemonic discourse, be it for their race, gender, or class. Based on Ribeiro’s assertion, artists’ biographies are used here to mark their privileges, dislocations, adversities, and exclusions. It is necessary to question the hierarchical order of narratives and to create space for the emergence of new voices, as this study indicates. Writings by Gloria Anzaldúa, Susan Bordo, Patricia Collins Hill, bell hooks, Grada Kilombo, Audre Lorde, and Nelly Richard contributed to the discussions that permeate this book. Coming from diverse backgrounds, these authors sought new strategies to unveil networks of power that disguise gender inequalities through notions of universalization and neutrality. They questioned transhistorical and transgeographical views that reproduce colonialist practices based on hegemonic discourses. Decolonial studies as theorized by Walter D. Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Anibal Quijano, and Maria Lugones and the debates on epistemological and ontological extractivism by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, are also relevant.21 Overview

Chapter 1, “Political Practices,” discusses how in the 1960s and 1970s a prominent group of women artists came to the forefront of Brazilian visual arts in the face of the military regime that ruled the country for twenty years (1964 – 85). While they may have addressed the fight for women’s emancipation and deobjectification, they rejected the label of feminism—a dismissal influenced by a complexity of issues: the country’s authoritarian and patriarchal structures; the machista attitudes of cultural agents; the seemingly prominent place female artists enjoyed in the artistic community; the view of the dictatorship as a unifying enemy; and the disdain of both the sectarian Left and the Right for women’s personal experiences. Moreover, the feminist movement was considered one more hegemonic enterprise orchestrated by the United States, thus the choice of these artists not to claim it became part of an anti-­­imperialist gesture. All these factors contributed to create a narrative of Brazilian women’s art unique to its historical con-



Introduction

11

text. Groundbreaking works by Anna Bella Geiger (b. 1933) and Lygia Pape (1927 – 2004) articulated social and ethical responses to authoritarianism as they also embraced Indigenous and Afro-­­Brazilian cultures. Chapter 2, “Discursive Practices,” explores how artists Sonia Andrade (1935 – 2022), Anna Maria Maiolino (b. 1942), Letícia Parente (1930 – 1991), Gretta Sarfaty (b. 1947), Regina Vater (b. 1943), and Lenora de Barros (b. 1953) explored the semiology of the mouth as a source of sensorial experiences and a site for the intricacies of communication. In the late 1960s and 1970s these artists powerfully interrogated established constructions of women’s subjectification, addressing immobility and entrapment within prescriptive social norms. They acted against biological determinism and pseudoscientific theories. They played with the double connotations of the word língua, which in Portuguese means both “tongue” and “language.” It became a potent symbol of the mother language and the nation, and, moreover, served as a tool of resistance to authoritarianism, the patriarchal order, and the systemic structural mechanisms of reproduction of social hierarchies. The tongue was regarded as an instrument of multiple significations; an apparatus of knowledge, discourse, and power. The chapter also discusses the later work of Lenora de Barros, an artist whose practice spans the era, delving into linguistics and bringing the interrogations that women were putting forward in the 1970s into the present day, demonstrating their continued relevance. Chapter 3, “Transgressive Practices,” focuses on artists from the mid-­­1980s to today whose works refer to violence, trauma, and power. In the wake of the military regime’s downfall in 1985, there was a wish to leave the authoritarian past behind and to forget issues related to the politics of repression, by then considered as outmoded as the dictatorship itself. Yet new agents of violence soon entered the scene, including militias, extermination groups, and drug gangs, among others. To counter this nascent repressive apparatus, new strategies of resistance emerged to push back against social inequality, systemic racism, gender discrimination, corruption, police brutality, and the abysmal conditions of the prison system. Márcia X (1959 – 2005), Rosângela Rennó (b. 1962), Rosana Paulino (b. 1967), Berna Reale (b. 1965), and Renata Felinto (b. 1978) came to the fore in Brazil’s postdictatorial era, challenging patriarchal structures and the myth of racial democracy in the country. They convey a sense of urgency to address the harsh reality that surrounds and affects them. Chapter 4, “Practices of the Self,” analyzes artistic developments by a group of artists who became active in the first two decades of the twenty-­ first century. Special attention is given to Aleta Valente (b. 1986), Fabiana 12

Introduction

Faleiros (b. 1980), Sallisa Rosa (b. 1986), and the queer artist Lyz Parayzo (b. 1994). By overtly embracing feminism, they advocate for women’s potentialization via aggressive strategies such as self-­exposure and shock. They employ debauchery, parody, satire, and humor. Acting as agents’ provocateurs, they question compulsory motherhood while fighting for women’s reproductive rights and access to abortion. Their platforms, mostly promoted on social media, became even more powerful and noteworthy in view of the #MeToo movement that attained worldwide prominence in 2017.22 These artists work at the intersection of gender, race, and class; they claim their right to occupy public spaces while erasing the lines between the private and the public. As art critic and curator Moacir dos Anjos wrote, “By negotiating in vari­ ous ways the conditions underlying exchanges with other corners of the world, the producers of symbolic goods in Brazil contribute less to establishing a politics of difference than to the formulation of a poetics of diversity.”23 By comparing and contrasting the production of different generations of women artists at key moments from the 1960s onward, this narrative unfolds the transformations that took place over that time—while also indicating that many changes have yet to take place.



Introduction

13

1

It is time for the crossing, and if we do not dare do it, we will forever be at the margins of ourselves.

POLITICAL

PRACTICES

—Fernando Teixeira de Andrade

In 1976 Lygia Pape occupied a place in Brazilian culture that was at once enviable and complicated. Her exhibition Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria? (Eat me: Gluttony or lust?) was slated to appear at Galeria Arte Global in São Paulo and at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro; mam-­Rio), two prestigious venues in the country.1 Neither institution seemed troubled by the installation’s strong critique of consumerism, exposure of female tactics of seduction, and condemnation of the objectification of women. The São Paulo gallery even placed an ad for the show on Brazil’s major television network during peak hours. Yet when that teaser—consisting of a clip from Pape’s 1975 film Eat Me (fig. 1.1) showing a mouth sucking and expelling colored stones—aired, the reaction was immediate: people complained about the graphically erotic images and demanded the commercial be removed. Caving to the pressure, the gallery shuttered the exhibition before it opened on the grounds that some of the pieces in the show contained pornographic content.2 Despite the incident, the exhibition went on as planned at mam-­Rio, yet when people protested about a film projected on the exterior of the museum showing Pape seductively inviting passersby to enter the exhibition, the projection too was taken down. Pape’s standing in the Brazilian art world was like that of many women artists in the country: prominent and secure yet curious and contradictory. The majority of the women artists active in the 1960s and 1970s professed

1.1 

Lygia Pape, Eat Me, 1975, 16mm/35mm film transferred to digital video. Courtesy of Projeto Lygia Pape.

to never having suffered any kind of gender discrimination. Sonia Andrade expressed the spirit of her generation when she said, “I am an artist. I have no sex. I never had any difficulty with my work because I am a woman, I never felt any discrimination in this sense.”3 The filmmaker Suzana Amaral said, “I had no patience for meetings from the feminist movement.”4 The artist Iole de Freitas added, “Nobody looks for the masculine in the artistic production of male artists.”5 These artists deliberately resisted being pigeonholed by their gender identity and refused positions of relative powerlessness. They may not have wanted to be identified as women artists, but they were expected to operate with certain parameters. When those boundaries were broken, the response could be swift, harsh, even contradictory— especially in the context of Brazil’s repressive political circumstances and conservative morals. In a culture famed for its sensuality, surprisingly, artworks that violated a sense of decorum about sexuality and eroticism raised alarm.

Political Practices

15

Modern Times

The art historian and curator Tadeu Chiarelli claims that the prominence of women in Brazil’s most radical art trends throughout the twentieth century did not follow from recognition of their talents. On the contrary, women were afforded their leading positions precisely because Brazilian society has always esteemed culture so little. Since art isn’t regarded as a serious activity in Brazil, it is considered a “woman thing.”6 The art historian Aracy Amaral corroborates this notion: “Perhaps this is one of the reasons why women in Brazil do not have to struggle (unlike European and North American women) to enter the art environment. It is [already] ‘her’ environment.”7 According to the sociologist Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, in 1892 women artists were admitted to the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (National School of Fine Arts) in Rio de Janeiro—formerly called Academia Imperial de Belas Artes (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts)—though they were still considered “amateurs” with lesser skills than their male peers.8 Women had access to private classes with renowned artists and had participated in annual exhibitions since the 1840s. Moreover, well-­educated women from middle-­ class or wealthy families were able to travel abroad to pursue their artistic education. Indeed, the introduction of modernist avant-­garde trends to the country is credited to two Brazilian women artists educated abroad. Both Anita Malfatti (1889 – 1964) and Tarsila do Amaral (1886 – 1973) have long been acknowledged as leading figures in modernism, and there is no question that Brazilian women artists are part of the country’s canon in ways that their European and North American peers are not. Between 1910 and 1914, Malfatti was sent by her uncle to study at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and later under Lovis Corinth and Ernst Bischoff-­Culm. She then spent two years in New York, where she took classes  at the Art Students League and at the Independent School of Art. Malfatti thus introduced expressionism to Brazil upon her return. Malfatti’s second solo show, held in São Paulo in 1917, was violently attacked by the renowned writer and art critic Monteiro Lobato, who accused the artist of importing foreign models instead of promoting nationalistic themes. Lobato made a distinction between what he considered normal art, which followed academic standards, and abnormal art—like Malfatti’s—which embraced the new trends and theories of the early twentieth century’s European avant-­garde.9 In the aftermath of Lobato’s attack, Malfatti was portrayed as a fragile, wounded woman who had been victimized by a powerful critic. Lobato’s harsh review ultimately back16

Chapter One

fired and helped to establish Malfatti as the catalyst for the emergence of modernism in Brazil. Conversely, Tarsila (as she is known) was cast in the role of the muse of the modernist movement. Beautiful, cosmopolitan, and well educated, she enjoyed a privileged upbringing fitting one born to a family of coffee plantation owners in Capivari, in the interior of the state of São Paulo. Tarsila traveled to Paris in 1920 to attend the renowned Académie Julian. During subsequent sojourns in the French capital she studied with André Lhote, Albert Gleizes, and Fernand Léger. As the “founders” of Brazilian modernism, Tarsila and Malfatti were iconic figures in the country’s history. Yet despite their achievements and prominence, Simioni argues that both artists were still pigeonholed in stereotypical roles often attached to women: Malfatti, the victim; Tarsila, the muse.10 In the 1920s Tarsila served as a link between the artistic communities of Paris and São Paulo. As she became immersed in the Parisian art scene, she felt the urge to look into her “Brazilianess,” writing to her family, “I feel more Brazilian everyday: I want to be the painter of my country.”11 The year of 1923 was pivotal. While living in Paris, Tarsila created what remains her most controversial painting. A Negra (The Black Woman; 1923; fig. 1.2) is a monumental nude Black woman with exaggerated lips and a heavy breast hanging over her arm. She sits cross-­legged on the ground against a banana leaf and an abstract textile pattern. The figure is allegedly based on a photograph that Tarsila kept in her scrapbook of a Black worker on a coffee plantation owned by her father (who at one point had owned slaves).12 In 1972 Tarsila gave an interview saying that she had recurring memories of an “old female slave” from her childhood, adding “that in those days Black women (working as wet nurses) used to tie rocks to their breasts in order to lengthen them, and then they would sling them back over their shoulders to breastfeed the children they were carrying on their backs.”13 The historian and anthropologist Lilia Moritz Schwarcz points out that Tarsila’s narrative is not factual but is rather an invented anecdote that shows the sort of exoticization the enslaved Black female figure attracted.14 A Negra was intended as an allegorical image of Brazilian culture, and according to Herkenhoff, was done to satisfy the European avant-­garde taste for primitivism and legitimize Tarsila’s entrance into elite Parisian circles.15 In 2017 the painting raised alarms during the run of Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which was criticized for avoiding the discussion of race inequality in Brazil.16 Ironically, just as Tarsila was finally welcomed into the international art hall of fame, she was also criticized

Political Practices

17

1.2 

Tarsila do Amaral, A Negra (The Black Woman), 1923, oil on canvas. mac-­usp, Collection Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo.

for exoticizing the figure of a Black woman for cultural capital in her early work. In 1928 Tarsila created another monumental painting that also contributed to her recognition as the creator of the visual identity of Brazilian modernism. Abaporu (The man who eats; from the indigenous Tupi-­Guarani language; fig. 1.3) depicts an elongated, distorted figure seated in profile against a blue sky, next to a sun like a slice of lemon, and a cactus. The nude figure is entirely out of scale: huge foot and hand, long arm and torso, tiny head. The painting was a birthday gift to Tarsila’s husband, the poet and writer Oswald de Andrade, inspiring his celebrated 1928 “Manifesto Antropófago” (Cannibalist manifesto). One of the most quoted pieces of Latin American literature, the manifesto encouraged artists to critically appropriate, digest, and transform foreign influences into something new and uniquely Brazilian, thus ending cultural dependence on imported models—a process dubbed antropofagia, or cultural cannibalism.17 At the one-­hundredth anniversary of the event that launched the Brazilian modernist movement— São Paulo’s Week of Modern Art of 1922—“Manifesto Antropófago” has become a target of criticism. The main complaint is that, despite incorporating Black and Indigenous cultures into their aesthetics, Brazilian modernists consisted mostly of a white educated cosmopolitan elite who did not support autonomy or equality for minority groups. In the 1940s, Maria Martins (1894 – 1973) entered the canon of major Brazilian women artists. Martins created an astounding universe of surrealist sculptures that explored Afro-­Brazilian and Indigenous rituals and mythological deities from the Amazon region, such as snake and river goddesses (fig. 1.4). In these three-­dimensional forms, Martins overtly addressed female sexuality, becoming one of the few Brazilian women artists to do so at the time. She spent most of the 1940s in New York, where she participated in important surrealist exhibitions and befriended André Breton, Benjamin Péret, Yves Tanguy, and Alexander Calder. Breton praised her work in his preface to the catalogue for Martins’s 1947 exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery.18 Martins received wider attention for the revelation that she was a model for Marcel Duchamp’s last installation, Étant donnés: 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The waterfall, 2. The illuminating gas). In this erotic assemblage, secretly created by Duchamp from 1946 to 1966 in his Greenwich Village studio, a pair of peepholes reveals Martins as a headless nude body splayed across a bush and holding a gas lamp aloft.19 Through the tiny apertures, viewers are placed in the role of voyeur of Martins’s recumbent, desecrated body.

Political Practices

19

1.3 

Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu, 1928, oil on canvas. malba, Collection Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. Donated by Eduardo F. Costantini (2001).

1.4 

Maria Martins, O oitavo véu (The eighth veil, 1949), bronze. mam-­Rio Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Donated by the artist.

Martins returned to Brazil in 1949, where she had a few exhibitions. In 1957 the influential art critic Mário Pedrosa condemned Martins’s work for being too subjective and lacking formal qualities: “It is from this flaw that, mainly, arises the major negative trait of her work as a sculptor: lack of monumentality. She lacks the high sense of form. In her solid works . . . this lack of monumentality stands out. . . . Maria’s best-­executed pieces never detach themselves from her.”20 Despite this critique, Martins continued sculpting in a surrealist vein, a style that did not enjoy much recognition in Brazil, where the constructivist trends favored by Pedrosa—especially geometric abstraction and its associations with modernization, cosmopolitanism, and economic development—were prevalent in the 1950s. Pedrosa’s criticism of Martins was motivated less by aesthetics than politics. He had been a member of the Brazilian Communist Party since 1926 and later joined Brazil’s Trotskyists, becoming a founder of the Fourth International. Martins, on the other hand, was married to Carlos Martins, the Brazilian ambassador to the United States from 1939 to 1948 and a key diplomatic player during the presidencies of Getúlio Vargas (1934 – 45, 1951 – 54). The couple traveled in government circles, which were not well regarded in Pedrosa’s Leftist intellectual milieu. According to the curator Veronica Stigger, Martins’s most egregious sin, however, was to defiantly address female sexual pleasure and desire in her sculptural pieces.21 Despite his stance on Martins, Pedrosa was most often supportive of women’s art and praised its historical importance. When Pedrosa became the director of mam-­s p in 1961, the museum presented the all-­female exhibition Contribuição da mulher às artes plásticas no país (The Contribution of Women to Visual Arts in the Country)—the first large-­scale female group exhibition to take place in Brazil.22 Pedrosa acknowledged the significant contributions of women, writing in the exhibition catalogue that it was difficult to determine whether the strongest creators in the country were male or female. In the Brazil of the 1960s and 1970s, exhibitions dedicated solely to women artists were scarce and largely frowned upon, since issues relating to gender identity were regarded as irrelevant to artistic production. According to Lourival Gomes Machado, the critic of the Brazilian newspaper Correio da Manhã, the all-­female exhibition at mam – s p “led to the assumption that women were a priori less-­capable art producers.”23 The exhibition also ignited the fury of formalist art critics, such as Jayme Maurício, who used terms such as “ladies” and “mademoiselles” to refer to the artists in the show.24 In fact, there was a critical difference between exhibiting works by women artists and organizing exhibitions centered on gender politics— 22

Chapter One

between supporting women as artists and praising works addressing female-­ centered content, such as sexual emancipation, women’s objectification, reproductive rights, and other aspects of female experience. These themes were not considered worthy topics for the visual arts. In 1977 the art critic Sheila Leirner posed a question: “Is there a specifically feminine art?” In reply, the art historian Aracy Amaral said, “In our country, where fundamental problems have yet to be solved, it seems unreasonable and ‘luxurious’ to raise such a problem at this moment.”25 The art educator Ana Mae Barbosa asserted that most female artists who had achieved visibility in Brazil refused to identify as “women.” Some argued that only artists without talent had to resort to the crutch of identity politics; if women artists lacked recognition, it was only because their work lacked quality. Barbosa stated, “It was clear that these artists thought they would lose status if they were seen as female artists.”26 Since women artists did not wish to lose the support of their allies among powerful male critics, discussions of the country’s visual arts never centered on a battle of the sexes. By refusing to identify as women, these artists could move freely outside essentialist identitarian praxis and also address topics similar to those of their male peers. The common assumption was that “good artists were good artists” regardless of gender. Paraphrasing Gertrude Stein, the motto of the time was “an artist is an artist is an artist.” Even in an art market dominated by women, art dealers, and gallery owners largely accepted and promoted the notion that talent should be judged solely on artistic ingenuity. As the French Chilean cultural theorist Nelly Richard stated, “The judgment of ‘quality’ seeks to make itself trustworthy (equitable) by pretending to rest on the neutral institutional recognition of women and men with works of equivalent merit. But how can we not doubt this judgment when we know that the formalist category of quality is not neutral (universal) but rather forged by a prejudicial culture that defends, among other interests, masculine supremacy as the absolute representative of the universal?”27 In other words, is it possible to talk about a universal and neutral art without reaffirming the male-­centered hegemonic discourses, even if not intentionally? It is not surprising, then, that in this environment, artworks with female perspectives were dismissed as simplistic, demagogic, and reductive. Since many women artists accepted the formal rules imposed by the supposedly gender-­neutral artistic universe of Brazil, their male peers (of similarly privileged economic and cultural backgrounds) recognized them as equals. It therefore became difficult to claim that works dealing with female issues

Political Practices

23

were being discriminated against. How could women complain if they were vested participants in a male hegemonic system? In the 1993 exhibition catalogue Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil, Aracy Amaral stated, “It seems quite clear to me that any artist who represents social problems in his or her works will always be discriminated against in Brazil by the country’s formalist critics.”28 Almost twenty-­five years later, the visual artist and gender scholar Roberta Barros reiterated Amaral’s assertion by affirming that even today there remains resistance to viewing the artistic production of Brazilian artists through a feminine lens, as many critics still insist on the autonomy of the work of art.29 Following this formalist line, a work of art should be measured by the aesthetics and innovation it displays independent of any social, political, geographic, racial, or gender context. This discourse purported to be intellectually apolitical and timeless, discrediting socially or historically based narratives. Wanda Pimentel was one of the few Brazilian artists who addressed women’s issues in her gendered portraiture. In the paintings of her Envolvimento (Involvement) series from 1968 – 75 (fig. 1.5), fragments of sewing machines, telephones, hairdryers, stoves, and other devices traditionally relegated to the women’s sphere abound within rigid, constructivist spatial frameworks.

1.5 

Wanda Pimental, from the series Envolvimento (Involvement), 1968, vinyl on canvas. Arthur Peixoto Collection, Rio de Janeiro.

24

Chapter One

Influenced by graphic design, Pimentel used smooth, flat brushstrokes with vivid colors to portray intimate scenes of female daily life, with parts of her own legs, feet, and toes intruding into the domestic space, provoking a sensation of entrapment and confinement while also evoking consumer goods that purportedly free modern women from domestic chores. As more women entered the work force, they were caught up in a well-­oiled machine ready to promote, package, and sell them all sorts of domestic goods promising female independence outside the household and making everyday tasks more alluring, as Richard Hamilton humorously depicted in his early pop collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1965). Pimentel’s work is usually viewed through the prism of her distinctly feminine sensibility and shy demeanor, as if in order to question women’s role in Brazilian society, she had to embody a fragile persona. When asked about the portrayal of women’s experiences in art, she declared, “I always thought [it] had to be shown in a sensible and discrete way. . . . These were difficult years, and I believe that today it is different. Nowadays, women have positioned themselves much forcefully . . . they are more courageous. At that time, you had to stay very elusive.”30 Pimentel’s self-­effacement evidently succeeded, as her work has largely been interpreted within the art historical framework of pop art and its strategy of calling out the banality of everyday life and critiquing consumer society. It was not until 2017, with her solo exhibition Envolvimentos (Involvements) at the Museu de arte de São Paulo (São Paulo Museum of Art; masp) that Pimentel’s work received the more comprehensive feminist reading it had long deserved. In the 1960s it was uncommon for women artists to acknowledge the existence of a “boys’ club” and even more daring to voice their discontent about their exclusion from it. Public statements on such matters were rare, with that of artist Anna Maria Maiolino being a notable exception. From 1968 to 1971 Maiolino; her then husband, the visual artist Rubens Gerchman; and their two children relocated to New York City, living in a loft on the Bowery. When in 1970 a reporter from the Brazilian magazine Fatos e Fotos was writing an article on Brazilian artists living in New York City, Gerchman, Ivan de Freitas, Roberto Delamônica, Hélio Oiticica, and Amilcar de Castro (all males) got together for the interview and photo shoot; Maiolino was not invited to participate but was asked to serve coffee.31 According to Maiolino, it was evident that she was an “outsider” in the eyes of her husband and his colleagues. “Was that my fault?” she asked.32 Like many women artists at the time, Maiolino was perceived as someone’s wife and not an artist in her own right. Not speaking English well and burdened by domestic responsibilities,

Political Practices

25

she was excluded from the male-­dominated artistic scene. By that time, Maiolino was already an accomplished artist in Brazil, having been included in the groundbreaking 1967 exhibition Nova objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian objectivity) at mam-­Rio, the same show in which Oiticica first exhibited his seminal installation Tropicália.33 The place of women artists in Brazil was further complicated by the country’s status in the international arena. Herkenhoff claims that Brazilian artists, regardless of gender, have always strived to participate as equals in hegemonic centers of artistic production; therefore, the discussion of center versus periphery was always more salient than debates concerning gender issues. Herkenhoff observes “that artists from Latin American countries are constantly being pressured with the burden of proving that they are not mirrors but full individualities, perfectly capable of participating in the contemporary system of symbolic exchange.”34 From this perspective, the desire to transcend the confining label of “Latin American art” was always more important than inwardly focused discussions of identity politics. As Lygia Pape declared in 1997, “I think it is outrageous that an exhibition can still be titled Latin American art. . . . This is self-­discriminating; it is very reductive.”35 The imprint of Latin American was burden enough for these artists; adding one more label—female—would only create another unwanted restrictive rubric. Further, the domestic situation of many women artists in Brazil made addressing gender issues uncomfortable. Aracy Amaral gave a compelling explanation for the lack of interest in disturbing the status quo: “In reality, it is necessary to recognize the practical reason why women in Brazil had so much availability to dedicate themselves to their artistic careers. The presence, even today, of one or more domestic helpers in the household providing services for the middle and upper classes always gave Brazilian women the opportunity to dedicate themselves to the arts, a condition that their North American counterparts could not afford.”36 This raises a crucial point: The interests of white, middle-­class women in Brazil—including the majority of prominent women in the visual arts—were radically different from those of the dark-­skinned, poor, and working-­class women who often served as caretakers, nannies, cooks, and cleaning ladies.37 In reality, affluent women had little interest in ending their reliance on working-­class women’s labor, since it released them from the confinement and obligations of the household sphere. Middle-­class women also had greater access to edu­ cation and professional opportunities. Thus, the socioeconomic discrepancy among different social classes has always been the foremost disparity in Brazil, one that helped whisk away any discussions of gender inequality. The 26

Chapter One

roots of this gap can be traced back to the formation of Brazil’s patriarchal society. Gilberto Freyre’s The Masters and the Slaves (1933) remains the most influential source on the constitution of the patriarchal family in Brazil.38 Freyre argued that this system evolved from a strategy rooted in Portuguese colonization, which took as its template the rural, slave-­based sugar plantations that gave masters complete power over family (gender domination) and workers (racial segregation).39 According to Freyre, as Brazil became an independent nation in the nineteenth century, the patriarchal mode of the plantation owners marked by hierarchical, often violent authoritarianism was carried over into family structures and political life in the modern period.40 This argument has been contested for imposing a construct originating in a specific context (rural, agrarian, dependent on slavery) onto a wide variety of social situations in very different times marked by urban industrialization. Further, Freyre’s view of the patriarchal family enforced a polygamist model exclusive to the affluent classes, one in which any sexual relation was permissible for white men, while white women were to remain chaste and faithful.41 This colonialist, racist perspective gave rise to a popular Brazilian saying: “The Black woman belongs in the kitchen, the mullata in bed, and the white woman in the salon.” This maxim embodies a legacy of slavery and a patriarchal system that was constituted in Brazil through sexual, physical, and psychological violence against Black women. The Marxist feminist scholar Heleieth Saffioti argues that a symbiosis exists among patriarchy, racism, and capitalism that allows no separation from patriarchal domination and capitalist exploitation. The patriarchal system is transposed to family relations through marriage and its sexual contract.42 Despite the women’s fight for emancipation, the roots of patriarchy have not been destroyed, even if certain aspects of it have successfully been altered. Over the decades, patriarchy prevailed in Brazil, as women’s traditional roles as mothers and wives were revered and society at large maintained conservative views on family, maternity, and sexuality. Repressive Times

If the Latin America of the 1940s and 1950s was marked by optimism, buoyed by promises of progress and modernization, this hopeful moment ended abruptly when several military regimes took power and ushered in a distinctly bleak period. In Brazil, the 1960s and 1970s were a time of intense political turmoil. During the time the military regime ruled the country be

Political Practices

27

tween 1964 and 1985, all attention and struggle was focused on the dictatorship, as many sectors of the population mobilized against repression and in favor of the restoration of civil rights. At first, the regime did not forbid the circulation of cultural output from the Left; indeed, despite the environment of repression, the Left enjoyed cultural hegemony.43 This autonomy lasted to the end of 1968, when the government established the Ato Institucional #5 (Institutional Act #5). The ai-­5, as it became known, was the most severe in a series of increasingly repressive measures issued during the dictatorship.44 Suspending political and civil rights and sanctioning torture as a means of intimidating political opponents, it marked a drastic change in the country’s political and cultural atmosphere. Immediate consequences included widespread arrests of students, intellectuals, politicians, artists, and journalists, among other members of society, and censorship of the media and the arts. Agents in the fields of music, cinema, and theater were more directly targeted by state repression than visual artists, who managed to stay under the radar of the regime. This relatively laissez-­faire attitude was possible only because the government saw the visual arts as inconsequential and irrelevant. After the ai-­5, Brazil was a changed nation—one marked by disillusionment with traditional politics and suspicion of all forms of authoritarianism. The regime enjoyed considerable support among the conservative sectors of society, such as wealthy landowners and industrialists who sought security and feared the spread of communism, social reforms, and popular movements.45 Concerned about interference and influence from Cuba and the Soviet Union, the United States embraced a strong anticommunist agenda in its Latin American foreign policy. Following the Brazilian coup, the United States lent its support to the military regime, giving it a veneer of legitimacy in the international arena. With resistance to authoritarian rule being the dominant concern, many women artists shunned the mantle of feminism as limiting or, worse, divisive and counterproductive. For many artists living in Brazil in the late 1960s and 1970s, the fight against the dictatorship trumped the battle for individual pursuits. Once more it was Sonia Andrade who spoke for many of her peers when she said, “During the dictatorship we could not worry about anything else since we had to face a brutal regime.”46 Thus, gender-­related discussions took a back seat to more pressing matters. Political resistance to the dictatorship was the order of the day, and any other issue was considered a distraction; nothing could or should divide one’s attention. While women’s movement organizations made significant gains in the social sphere

28

Chapter One

in the country during this period—demanding equal pay, day c­ are centers, healthcare, and political participation—critical discussions around reproductive rights, domestic violence, divorce, and sexual emancipation were often overlooked and dismissed as subjective, individual, and personal. The slogan popularized by North American feminists—The personal is political47— was dismissed by the Brazilian Left as too bourgeois and counterproductive to the principal fight against authoritarianism. The movement was also condemned as a North American import, and the cultural aversion to everything that came from the United States was a significant aspect in its rejection, largely due to the US support of the dictatorship. For many artists and intellectuals, the fight against gender discrimination was an imperialist construction that did not apply to the Brazilian reality. The Right, the Church, and the Left

During the dictatorship, patriarchal relations became intertwined with the exclusionary, discriminatory, and repressive character of the military regime and its ideals of order and progress. Such notions intersected with hierarchy, norms, laws, and obedience to the state. Despite government repression, the number of women’s associations multiplied in the 1970s. The historian Sonia E. Alvarez argues that the military regime condescended toward women’s organizations while repressing other sectors of civil society since its leaders believed that female groups posed a lesser threat to national security than other political opponents.48 The year 1975—proclaimed International Women’s Year by the United Nations—was a turning point. Celebrations of that event were among the first public assemblies permitted by Brazil’s military regime. Conservative, patriarchal views on women’s issues were adopted by segments of the Right, the Left, and the church alike. The Right was represented by the military dictatorship. The church embraced age-­old doctrines concerning the family, maternity, and sexuality. In conjunction with the Right, the clergy organized events such as the Marcha da família com Deus pela liberdade (Family march with God for liberty). Even progressive factions within the church endorsed conservative positions on morality, abortion, and divorce, reinforcing the virtues of maternity and women’s roles as wives and mothers. Issues related to reproductive rights were seen as an affront to the moral values of the Christian family.49 This view was also shared by progressive leading figures in Liberation theology such as Leonardo Boff



Political Practices

29

and Frei Betto, who blended church doctrine with more secular currents of thought such as Marxism and dependency theory.50 Liberation theologists were influenced by the notion of “critical consciousness” coined by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who was a Christian with Marxist epistemological roots. In his groundbreaking book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), Freire proposed a critical pedagogy in which “conscientization” should awaken revolutionary consciousness and be used as a political-­educational tool to enable the masses to gain awareness of their reality in order to transform it. Freire’s methodology consisted of promoting adult literacy through words and relevant subjects based on the daily experiences of underprivileged groups, enabling the oppressed to identify the sources of their oppression. The sectarian Left (in its Marxist, Maoist, Trotskyist, and Leninist versions) considered men and women genderless soldiers of the revolution. According to a former guerrilla member, “I was a militant, a soldier of the revolution, and a soldier has no sex!”51 For these actors, women’s oppression was rooted in class struggle rather than gender or race inequality. The opinion of liberal professionals also contributed to the negative reception of the women’s movement in Brazilian visual arts. Independent of any party or organization, the so-­called intelligentsia cast the movement in a distasteful light by calling feminism antifeminine. When the North American activist Betty Friedan visited Brazil in 1972, the media ridiculed her as ugly, bourgeois, and a man-­hater. Friedan gave an interview to O Pasquim, Rio de Janeiro’s independent satirical weekly tabloid—a symbol of the opposition to Brazil’s military regime and bastion of the ideas from the Left. Its founder, Millôr Fernandes, faulted Friedan for being unkempt and declared himself proud to be called a chauvinist pig by the feminists.52 The stereotype was of unpleasant, unhappy, sexually unwanted women.53 The publication ridiculed female activists as unattractive, “depraved,” and “promiscuous.”54 The tabloid exemplified the machista attitude of excessive manliness, masculine pride, and a male sense of entitlement. More than forty-­five years after the attack on Friedan, the philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler visited Brazil and ignited a similar reaction, this time by right-­wing groups. Butler was at São Paulo’s sesc Pompéia Cultural Centre to speak at a conference she had helped organize—ironically, not concerning her theories on gender and sexuality but on the “Ends of Democracy.” On November 7, 2018, demonstrators burned an effigy of a witch bearing Butler’s face and held up signs with her photo juxtaposed with slogans such as Go to hell and Burn the witch. They falsely accused Butler of being the leading figure in an ideology that sexualized children. Evangelical groups 30

Chapter One

promoted an online petition demanding that the conference be cancelled. Despite the protests, the event proceeded as scheduled. As they were about to leave the country, Butler and her partner, Wendy Brown, were assaulted at São Paulo’s Congonhas Airport. Butler recalled the following: My sense is that the group who engaged this frenzy of effigy burning, stalking and harassment wants to defend “Brazil” as a place where lgbtq people are not welcome, where the family remains heterosexual (so no gay marriage), where abortion is illegal and reproductive freedom does not exist. They want boys to be boys, and girls to be girls, and for there to be no complexity in questions such as these.55 Any attitude that disturbed the conservative moral order could be condemned in Brazil from all sides. Back in 1969, the newspaper O Pasquim published an interview with the radical actress Leila Diniz in which she openly defended free love and women’s sexual emancipation.56 The Right blamed her for being a menace to the family and good morals; the Left called her promiscuous and vulgar; and women activists condemned her for being an object of male pleasure. In the wake of Diniz’s interview, the military regime approved Decree 1.077 instituting censorship of the press, a measure that became known as “Decreto Leila Diniz” (the Leila Diniz decree). In 1971, Diniz sparked further scandal when she was photographed wearing a skimpy bikini on the sands of Rio’s Ipanema beach while six months pregnant, an image that consolidated her status as a radical progressive woman (fig. 1.6). Diniz’s uncovered belly was considered sacrilegious and an assault on maternity, a sacred state defended by the Right, the Left, and the church. But how could an inoffensive exposed pregnant belly provoke such indignation? It is curious that in Brazil—where women’s sensuality is a matter of national pride, as seen in tropes of the Carnival, tropicality, and Carmen Miranda—no relevant work in the visual arts from the 1960s and 1970s fully exposed the naked female body in public. Nothing from this era can be compared to such radical performances as Valie Export’s Genitalpanik (Genital panic; 1969), where the artist donned a pair of jeans that had been cut to expose her crotch and walked through a Munich cinema seeking direct eye contact with members of the audience. In 1974 Lynda Benglis provoked a furor when she posed naked with only a pair of sunglasses and a latex dildo for an ad in Artforum to promote her exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. The ad aimed to confront male hegemony in the visual arts, not excluding the phallocentric coverage of the magazine itself. In her perfor

Political Practices

31

1.6 

Leila Diniz at Ipanema Beach (1971).

mance S. O. S. Starification Object Series (1974 – 82), Hannah Wilke stuck to her skin pieces of chewed gum shaped to resemble vulvas in reference to the disposable position of women in society, playing on the words stars (alluding to celebrity and glamour) and scars (pain and disfigurement). And certainly nothing in Brazil disrupted norms of decorum like Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975), in which the naked artist read in public a scroll pulled from her vagina. There were, however, a few Brazilian incursions into this territory. In the 1979 performance Evocative Recollections, Gretta Sarfaty lay naked on a mattress on the floor under a white lace veil (resembling mosquito netting) that hung from a bed canopy (fig. 1.8). A male voice recited fragments from Dan32

Chapter One

te’s Divine Comedy over raucous sounds in the background. The artist executed an erotic dance with a black cat, simulating a sexual encounter with the animal. The frightened feline tried to escape, biting and scratching the artist. 57 Recalling Schneemann’s Fuses (1964 – 67; fig. 1.7)—a short silent film in which Schneemann copulates with her partner at the time, Jim Tenney, as her cat watches—Sarfaty’s performance took place at the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris as part of the festival Journées interdisciplinaires sur l’art corporel et performances, an event organized with George Glusberg, the founder of Centro de Arte y Comunicación in Buenos Aires. 58 Though the performance took place in Europe, Sarfaty’s piece was mentioned in a São Paulo newspaper, scandalizing her conservative family.59 Born in Greece in 1947, Sarfaty moved to Brazil when she was seven years old. Her father was a businessman and her sister married into the ultrawealthy Safra banking family. Her mother wanted her to conform to social norms and submit to what was expected of a woman in her position. Being an outcast from her family, Sarfaty married at age seventeen to escape home and pursued an artistic career centered on her body as a transgressive tool addressing women’s adversities and social constrains. While the feminism was not well received in Brazilian visual arts at the time, Sarfaty was in contact with a group of women artists in France who contested the objectification of the female body in society and questioned normative behaviors, roles, and stereotypes attached to and imposed upon women. Sarfaty’s artistic practice was far better received in Europe than in Brazil, where she claims her peers did not take her seriously and ostracized her. It was not until the mid-­1980s that another transgressive female Brazilian artist, Márcia X, would explore the genre of erotic art in the public arena, provocatively blurring the line between art and pornography and affirming her dissident body (see chapter 3). Scandal was not limited to the female body. In 1970 Antonio Manuel inscribed his own body as a work of art at the Salão Nacional (National salon) at mam-­Rio, stating his own weight and height as the official measurements of the work. The jury rejected his body as a work of art, and at the public opening of the exhibition, Antonio Manuel—recognized as the artist who had been spurned—stripped off his clothes (fig. 1.9). The police immediately shut down the museum, and the next day the exhibition was closed to the public. The artist had to flee and went into hiding for a few weeks. Ten years later, in the summer of 1980, the ex-­guerrilla activist Fernando Gabeira caused a frenzy when, upon his return to Brazil from political exile in Sweden, he appeared in a tiny purple crocheted thong on Ipanema Beach (fig. 1.10).60

Political Practices

33

A landmark of hedonism, sensuality, the beach was most famously celebrated in the 1962 bossa nova song “The Girl from Ipanema” by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. Yet more than a poster for tropical escapism, Ipanema was a politically charged site by the early 1970s, when it had become a sort of liberated zone where all sorts of people—hippies, artists, and intellectuals—could stay under the radar of Brazil’s repressive military regime, which did not consider the beachgoers a serious threat.61 Despite Brazil’s reputation for sexual openness and tolerance, both toplessness and nudity have always been prohibited. And while both men and women can be nearly naked on Ipanema Beach, the men are the ones who most openly gaze at the “tall and tan and young and lovely” female sunbathers, making it seem as if the women are always more exposed. Feminist Susan Bordo comments that “women have been deprived not so much of the sight of beautiful

1.7 

34

Carolee Schneemann, Fuses, 1964 – 67, 16mm film transferred to digital video. © 2021 Carolee Schneemann Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ars), New York. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong,

Chapter One

1.8 

Gretta Sarfaty, Evocative Recollections, 1979, performance. Courtesy of the artist.

male bodies as the experience of having the male body offered to us, handed to us on a silver platter, the way female bodies—in the ads, in the movies— are handed to men.”62 Basically, we are accustomed to the role of men as the seers and not the seen. Gabeira’s public appearance in a thong was an act of defiance, a slap on the face of conservative society, being it from the Right, the church, or the Left. Soon after, between 1981 and 1982, the Movimento de Arte Pornô (Porn Art movement) stirred up the sands of Ipanema with nude performances, such as Performance arte foderna (Foderna art performance; 1981) and Performance Interversão (Interversion performance; 1982), both at Ipanema Beach (fig. 1.11).63 The group advocated for public nudity (which is still forbidden in the country to this day) and considered pornography a form of political resistance, especially in a conservative Catholic country like Brazil. Members of the group included Glauco Mattoso, Hudinilson Jr., Teresa Jardim, Bráulio Tavares, Cynthia Dorneles, and Leila Míccolis, among others, but the male artists Eduardo Kac and Cairo Trindade—coauthors of the “Mani­ festo de arte pornô” (Porn art manifesto; 1980)—appear most frequently in photographs of the group’s actions. Kac expressed, “I coined the phrase arte pornô to produce cognitive dissonance by bringing together what was

Political Practices

35

1.9 Antonio Manuel, O corpo é a obra (The body is the work), 1970. Courtesy of the artist.

then understood as sublime (art) and abject (pornography). Further, as there was no legal pornography in the country, the word ‘porn’ made reference to something that did not exist openly in society.”64 Many factors contributed to the laissez-­faire response of the military regime to these ephemeral erotic actions: their lack of visibility and the government’s view of these artists as inconsequential and irrelevant. Moreover, the sexual revolution was seen as an escape valve for youth in the face of political repression. Broadening the Scope: A Wider View

Despite many barriers, Brazilian women artists forged new ways of counteracting established gender roles in a deeply ingrained patriarchal society. Their pioneering experimental practices introduced a shift in representa36

Chapter One

1.10 Fernando Gabeira at Ipanema Beach, 1980.

tions of female iconographies, simultaneously challenging patriarchal structures and engaging with local politics. They shared a female perspective without being limited by the category of woman, as they also expressed solidarity with other marginalized groups targeted during the dictatorship, such as the Amerindian communities and the largely Black inhabitants of the favelas.65 This association, however, had its own set of problems. There was a considerable asymmetry of power between the white middle-­class artists and Indigenous and Afro-­Brazilian communities, and the resulting alliances were somewhat romanticized. Although they chose to identify with groups on the fringes of society, most of the artists came from the middle and upper classes and were themselves not true outcasts. Their identification with communities of color was a reversible, voluntary choice; the actual members of these marginalized groups were involuntarily and irreversibly excluded

Political Practices

37

1.11  Eduardo Kac, Poemazóide (Spermpoem), at Performance Interversão (Interversion performance), Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro, 1982. Photo: Belisário Franca. Courtesy of the artist and Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York.

from sociopolitical representation based on their economic, ethnic, and class conditions.66 Nevertheless, by embracing marginal groups, Brazilian artists brought visibility to their causes—a political and social effort as much as an aesthetic one. Anna Bella Geiger, for instance, was one of the artists who chose to view women’s dilemmas through a wider lens. Painter, printmaker, sculptor, video maker, and installation artist, Geiger is one of the most prolific Brazilian artists of her generation, having been at the forefront of geopolitical artistic practices. The daughter of Jewish Polish immigrants, Geiger studied linguistics and Anglo-­Germanic languages and literature at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She began her artistic training in the early 1950s in the studio of the artist Fayga Ostrower (1920 – 2001). In 1954 – 55 Geiger lived in New York, where she took courses with the German art historian and sociol38

Chapter One

ogist Hanna Levy-­Deinhard at the New School for Social Research and was a dedicated visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.67 During the dictatorship, Geiger lived in Brazil with her four children and her husband, the geographer Pedro Geiger, whom she acknowledges to be a major influence on her research into cartography, a topic at the core of her artistic practice. In the mid-­and l­ate 1960s, in what Mário Pedrosa termed her “visceral phase,” Geiger addressed political oppression.68 A series from 1965 – 69 consists of drawings and engravings alluding to fragmented parts of the human body: ears, brains, throats, hearts, and livers. Boundaries between inner and outer worlds are permeated, as these corporeal fragments become inscribed in social and political signification, recalling the lacerated body parts of political prisoners. Carne na tábua (Meat on a platter; 1967; fig. 1.12), for instance, depicts an image of a bloody liver on a wooden plank with a rainbow above it, perhaps suggesting that happier days will come. In her pioneering videos Passagens I and Passagens II (Passages I and II; 1974; fig. 1.13), Geiger obsessively repeated, ad absurdum, the climbing of different sets of staircases leading nowhere. In the context of authoritarian rule, this compulsive action served as an allegory for the hopelessness of the country’s sociopolitical situation. These works emerged in a period of intense repression and censorship, and any act of defiance and rebelliousness against the military regime was potentially considered subversive. This intense, futile, repetitive, seemingly ritualistic action also suggests a connection between the violence imposed by the regime and madness, since incarceration and torture often resulted in mental despair. Moreover, some artists understood madness as a necessary borderline experience in the process of creation. Linking anthropology and ethnography to the territory of Brazil and Latin America, Geiger’s video Mapas elementares 1 (Elementary maps 1; 1976; fig. 1.14) reconfigures conventional cartography into a geopolitical investigation. It begins with the artist drawing a sketchy outline of a world map as Brazilian singer and songwriter Chico Buarque’s Meu caro amigo (My dear friend) plays in the background. The lyrics, dedicated to the theater director Augusto Boal, then living in exile, convey a dark message about the tense political climate in the country. As the drawing and music evolve, the territory of Brazil is covered over with graphite pencil, blotting it out as a site of emptiness, annulment, and violence. In a subsequent video, Mapas elementares 3 (Elementary maps 3; 1976; fig. 1.15), Geiger addresses stereotypes ascribed to Latin America. Images and words are juxtaposed over four drawings with similar shapes bearing the captions Amuleto (amulet), A mulata (mulatta), A muleta (crutch), and Am. Latina

Political Practices

39

1.12  Anna Bella Geiger, Carne na tábua (Meat on a platter  –  visceral phase), 1967, etching. Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

(Latin Am[erica]). The amulet alludes to the mysticism attached to some Afro-­Brazilian rituals and to the folkloric idea of Latin America as the place of magic realism. The mulatta—a mixed-­race female of African descent— represents the eroticized image of Brazilian Black women. The crutch is a reference to the country’s socioeconomic dependency on hegemonic powers. The final drawing is a map of South America. The visual, phonetic, and semantic games with these phrases converge in what art historian Elena Shtromberg calls a “gendered and racial lens.”69 Cartography, semiology, and anthropology become intertwined as the bolero Virgen negra (Black virgin), interpreted by the group Los Chaynas, plays on the soundtrack.70 In this song, help is sought from a dark-­skinned Virgin Mary—the Black virgin—in dealing with the angst of pain and misfortune; the lyrics also subtly suggest the longing for the physical comfort of a bodily Black virgin—the erotized figure of the mulatta—rather than spiritual solace from a saintly apparition. In the series of nine postcards called Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena (Native Brazil, alien Brazil; 1977; fig. 1.16), Geiger took stereotypical images of Bororó Indians from the state of Mato Grosso and paired them with photographs of the artist, her friends, and family recreating similar scenes. In one pair of images, for example, a Native woman sweeping the ground outside a hut is juxtaposed with Geiger sweeping the pavement in an urban setting. In another pairing, a Bororó woman smiles into a mirror while the artist leans over the reflection of her face in a lake. Seen side by side, the sequence creates a sense of estrangement. Playing off cultural stereotypes, these works ask, Who is the “other” in Brazilian culture—the Native Indian or the white European?71 Geiger untangled the classical distinction between Native and alien while reminding us that, in reality, the Amerindians—who have never been regarded by the state as legitimate citizens—are the ones considered the outsiders in modern Brazil despite the fact that they were the first to occupy the land and are often romanticized as the symbol of the country’s authentic ethnicity. Geiger’s empathy for Native people arises from her own feelings of foreignness and vulnerability: even more than her status as a woman artist, her Jewish European roots have contributed to making her an “alien” in Brazilian society.72 Geiger’s series was undertaken in a spirit of solidarity with Indigenous groups whose lands were being expropriated by the military regime in the name of progress and development. During the dictatorship, postcards of Amerindians were widely sold at newsstands to tourists as souvenirs of the “authentic” Brazil. While claiming that it was protecting these communities, the regime treated its peoples as obstacles to the country’s economic

Political Practices

41

1.13  (ab0ve)  Anna Bella Geiger, Passagens I (Passages I), 1974, video. Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive. 1.14  (opposite)  Anna Bella Geiger, Mapas elementares 1 (Elementary maps 1, 1976, video). Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

expansion. Loggers, miners, and cattle ranchers searching for new areas of exploitation invaded the land of Native communities. Bulldozers ravaged their territories, and gigantic construction projects—such as the Rodovia Transamazônica (Trans-­Amazonian Federal Highway), inaugurated in 1972—were used to promote the notion that the modernization of the country was proceeding apace.73 Geiger’s series Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena today might seem uncomfortably embedded in discourse of coloniality that reinforced Indigenous stereotypes. However, in the 1970s it was done as a condemnation of the military regime’s appropriation of Indigenous images to promote patriotism, boosting national identity through the nostalgic image of an authentic Native country. Like many artists of her generation, Geiger identified with the Leftist intellectual cultural elite, which tended to view minority groups from a macropolitical perspective. The urge to promote the “inclusion” of such groups into existing discussions at times resulted in their submission to hegemonic modes of subjectivation—that is, to the white middle-­class viewpoint as “the” sole and universal reference—and the erasure of their own alterity. As Lilia Moritz Schwarcz put it, “These artists spoke for these communities, not with them.”74 The artworks were also created for a Western audience and were not necessarily representative of Indigenous populations. This approach would not be tenable in the 2020s, since anyone endorsing them today would be accused of appropriating the “other” without acknowl-



Political Practices

43

1.15  Anna Bella Geiger, Mapas elementares 3 (Elementary maps 3) 1976, video). Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

edging their own context and fundamental dissimilar economic and social conditions. Outdated as they may appear in our present moment of high sensitivity to issues of class, race, and cultural appropriation, it is important to understand these works in the context of their own time and place instead of erasing, cancelling, or imposing ahistorical twenty-­first century values on them. As noted in chapter 3, Amerindian artists today assert their own agency and affirm their own voices (and presence) in the conversation, in a marked departure from earlier generations. They speak on their own behalf and demand to be legitimized and acknowledged. Moreover, these artists today are producing artworks intended for both the international art audience and their own communities. At last, and unlike their precursors, they found an audience ready to hear them. In her series of small collages titled História do Brasil: Little boys and girls (1975; fig. 1.17), which are part of her Cadernos de artistas (Artists’ notebooks), Geiger played with dichotomies of joy and annihilation. Here she juxtaposed

a photograph of a skull (from the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Me­ xico City) with stickers containing images of joyous children from different Indigenous tribes, the combination somehow suggesting their deaths were imminent. She also placed these decals over the eyes of an anonymous figure that (coincidently) resembles the artist herself, as if this person was seeing the world through deceptive images of carefree Natives. At a time when the military regime was promoting the idea of a joyful Native population, Geiger was concerned with child trafficking and prostitution in those communities—especially in northern Brazil, where violence was waged against Amerindian communities. In Geiger’s ongoing series Fronteiriços (Borderlines; begun in 1995; fig. 1.18), the artist subverts typical geographical configurations and reassesses the role of Brazil and Latin America in relationship to hegemonic nations, questioning neocolonial power relations and geopolitical borders. In this series, Geiger fills the drawers of old metal filing cabinets with encaustic and creates cartographic images with thin sheets or wires of copper. She distorts the maps through the enlargement, isolation, or reduction of established territories. Of this series the Spanish art historian Estrella de Diego wrote, “Physical geography . . . becomes human geography, and the spatial metaphor reflects a key preoccupation in Geiger’s work, as the social evolves into a new way to interpret the stereotypes that the dominant culture associates with Brazil in particular and with Latin America in general.”75 The title of the series is also suggestive: the word fronteiriços can be read either as a geographical boundary or as a mentally unstable state. Geiger’s narrative in these works is tinted by her family’s diasporic condition, shifting from a sense of belonging to one of otherness, both literally and symbolically. Nós, os Bugres (We, the Savages)

The stereotype of the Amerindian as an exotic figure for touristic consumption was also a target for Lygia Pape.76 Beginning in 1969 Pape took a series of short trips around Latin America, visiting Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Peru (among other places) and sparking her interest in Indigenous cultures. She addressed the topic in her ten-­minute film Our Parents “Fossilis” from 1974, in which Pape calls them, “our parents” or relatives. Pape was outraged by images of Amerindians being sold as souvenirs at newsstands alongside photos of naked women. Anticipating Geiger’s Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena series, the film is composed of shots showing Brazilian Indigenous people as exotic figures (gleaned from the picturesque postcards)

Political Practices

45

juxtaposed with images of movie stars, pinups, and naked women representing the luxuries of consumer society. The film starts by showing the Natives as barbarians, marked by face and body paint and striking menacing and erotic poses, before undoing this perception with mundane scenes—children playing with animals, women bathing in a river—that present a friendlier vision of Amerindian life that is accompanied by tribal songs on the soundtrack. Pape’s interest in Amerindian culture found further development in the 1978 film Catiti-­Catiti, a phrase taken from Andrade’s 1928 “Manifesto Antropófago.” The title means “new moon, oh new moon” in the Tupi language of the Tupinambá people, who lived along the Brazilian coast before European settlement and are thought to have practiced cannibalism.77 Catiti-­Catiti encapsulates Pape’s anthropologically bleak view of Brazil, mocking the “harmonious” encounter of the three foundational races (Amerindian, European, African), also known as três raças tristes (three sad races). It praises the beauty of the tropical landscape, exposes eroticism as a product for export, criticizes the empty triumphalist speech of political figures, and comments on the tragic Ato Institucional #5 (Institutional Act #5) decree established by the military government in December 1968. In the late 1960s, Andrade’s notion of antropofagia was revived through the Tropicália movement (1967 – 68), led by the singers and composers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Using antropofagia as a strategy, these artists

1.16  Anna Bella Geiger, Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena (Native Brazil, alien Brazil), 1977, series of eighteen postcards. Photo: Luis Carlos Velho. Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

46

Chapter One

incorporated the foreign sounds of electric guitars and rock and roll into Brazilian popular music, embracing pop and mass culture to create a counterculture based on tropical rhythms. The aim was to reconcile these apparently incompatible camps while simultaneously breaking with colonialist and nationalist attitudes. The word “Tropicália” came from Hélio Oiticica’s installation Tropicália, penetrável (Penetrable tropicália; 1967). After hearing one of Veloso’s untitled compositions in late 1967, the filmmaker Luís Carlos Barreto was struck by the affinities between the song and Oiticica’s installation. Initially reluctant, Veloso eventually was convinced to name his song Tropicália, and it consequently became the anthem for the movement that shares its name.78 Arising at a time of such cultural upheaval, Tropicália grew into more than just a musical movement. According to Veloso: “The idea of cultural cannibalism fits tropicalists like a glove. We were eating the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Our arguments against the nationalist’ defensive attitude found in this stance its most succinct and exhaustive enunciation.”79 There was not only a revival of the “anthropophagic” impulse, but Indigenous modes of living were lauded as a possible way to overcome the frantic and predatory rhythms of capitalism. Renowned intellectuals such as Mário Pedrosa genuinely saw in Native populations creation potential that could bring positive change to the decadence of contemporary times. In 1975, during his French exile (1973 – 77), Pedrosa wrote the celebrated essay “Discurso aos



Political Practices

47

Tupi­niquins ou Nambás” (Speech to the Tupiniquim or Nambá Peoples), in which he made reference to Indigenous handcrafts as a collective, anonymous, and inventive form of creativity as opposed to alienated capitalist production.80 In July 1978, after his return to Brazil, Pedrosa invited Pape to collaborate on the planning of the exhibition Alegria de viver, alegria de criar (Joy of living, joy of creating) at mam-­Rio. The idea was to explore creativity as a source of joy in opposition to society’s mechanization. The proposed exhibition was canceled following a devastating fire at mam-­Rio on July 8, 1978, which destroyed most of the works on view from the retrospective of the Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres-­Garcia and also a large part of the museum’s collection. 48

Chapter One

1.17 Anna Bella Geiger, series História do Brasil: Little boys and girls (Brazilian history: Little boys and girls), 1975, six collages. Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

Taking a lead from Pedrosa, Pape developed her 1980 master’s thesis in philosophy, “Catiti-­Catiti, na terra dos Brasis” (Catiti-­Catiti, in the land of the Brasis), in which Pape expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of the visual arts, which had swung toward catering to the market and to consumerism. She endorsed Pedrosa’s position that only the castoffs or the dispossessed of the world had the courage to experiment with new ideas, thus triggering the creative process. According to Pape, “Our poverty is material. Theirs is deeper and irreversible because it is cultural.”81 Employing the derogatory term given to Indigenous peoples by colonizing Europeans and Catholic priests, who considered them sodomites and heretics, Pape called the art producers from the Third World bugres (buggers). She included herself

Political Practices

49

1.18  Anna Bella Geiger, Orbis descriptio no. 13 (Orbis description no. 13), 1996, iron archival drawer, from the series Fronteiriços (Borderlines). Courtesy of Anna Bella Geiger Archive.

in that group, writing, “We, the buggers, the disinherited of the Third World, in other words, the barbarians, the savages.”82 In claiming the title for herself, she turned the insult into an asset. For her, to be a bugre was to possess creative power. The Artist Inventor

In her thesis, Pape also built on Oiticica’s concept of the “artist inventor”83— the experimenter with the new—as the only figure capable of summoning innovation to overcome cultural decline. With Oiticica and Lygia Clark, Pape was a major exponent of the Rio de Janeiro-­based Neo-­Concrete movement (1959 – 61), which advocated for a return to sensorial and corporeal dimensions in the work of art. The group’s “Manifesto Neoconcreto” (1959), written by the poet and art critic Ferreira Gullar, advocated a move away from the mechanical and scientific concerns prevailing in the São Paulo-­based

50

Chapter One

Concrete Art movement, which had, Gullar argued, become a victim of excessive rationalism. Gullar called for an art that would embrace a phenomenological and expressive approach to color, form, and space. While both groups shared the language of constructivism, the Neo-­Concrete artists emphasized subjectivity, experimentation, and intuition.84 When the Neo-­Concrete group disbanded owing to theoretical differences, Pape and Oiticica remained close friends and together explored the spaces of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, another of Pape’s passionate interests.85 Pape observed affinities between the constructions of Amerindians and the way the inhabitants of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro found innovative solutions to manage their living conditions. She particularly identified parallels between the flexible “antiarchitecture” of the favelas, with their fluid, makeshift spaces, and the communal dwellings of the Native communities of the Brazilian coastline. These groups lived in communal houses until the Portuguese priests deemed such arrangements sinful, forcing them to destroy their original habitats and build individual houses.86 In the favelas, multiple occupants also shared common spaces, which Pape called quartos-­ tudo (everything rooms) for their mutability in meeting the needs of their inhabitants: bedroom at night, living room during the day. Pape believed nothing surpassed the inventiveness of these improvised structures, attesting to the fetishization and romanticized view of the precarious and harsh living conditions of the favelas. In 1972 Pape started teaching at the Centro de Arquitetura e Artes (Center of Architecture and Arts) at Universidade Santa Úrsula, where she pursued an interest in vernacular architecture. Pape remained in the country during the dictatorship with her husband and her two daughters.87 In 1973 someone Pape had aided was arrested and, under interrogation, claimed Pape had given logistical support to political opponents of the military regime. Pape was then imprisoned for two months. Pape later recalled that she was first taken to the Departamento de Operações de Informações – Centro de Operações de Defesa Interna (Department of Information Operations – Center for Internal Defense Operations/ Doi-­Codi)—a unit responsible for torture and repression—where she spent a month in solitary confinement before being transferred to the Vila Militar, a jail for political prisoners in Rio de Janeiro. She was tried by an air force tribunal and acquitted by a vote of four to three. After her release, she was not allowed to leave the country. Despite these dire circumstances, Pape never portrayed herself as a victim but rather as an agent of change of the “Third World.”



Political Practices

51

Eat Me

In addition to her interest in the malleable constructions of the favelas and Indigenous creativity, Pape advocated for women’s emancipation—despite her insistence that she was not interested in any direct ideological feminist discourse.88 The most radical piece done by a Brazilian woman artist in the 1970s addressing female sexual desire was unquestionably Pape’s film Eat Me (fig. 1.1), which appeared in that pivotal year of 1975—the un’s International Women’s Year. On the screen, close-­ups of the mouths of two men (the artists Artur Barrio and Claudio Sampaio) and a woman (Pape) confront the viewer, slurping and spitting out objects in a spectacle that is equally inviting and repulsive. In one shot, the screen is filled with the image of a mustachioed mouth covered with lipstick and sucking on what appears to be a colored stone (actually an object made of plastic) that serves as a surrogate for precious stones and refers to the lust for luxury objects. The male mouth maintains a continuous flux of lapping and salivation before the image cuts to a female mouth sucking on a pink sausage smothered in ketchup. Images of male and female mouths alternate with increasing speed. Pape edited the film mathematically, making each shot half as long as the previous one, thus achieving an ever-­increasing rhythm and momentum, while on the soundtrack a female voice intones the phrase “gluttony or lust?” in German, Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.89 That alluring voice, which soon evolves into erotic groans, along with accelerating tempo of the film, suggests a sexual encounter whose climax is abruptly interrupted by an advertisement for a kitchen gadget, with a female voice announcing “Caldo sem feijāo, feijāo sem caldo: Concha cook! À venda nas melhores casas do ramo” (Broth without beans, beans without broth: Cook ladles! For sale in the best specialty store). All the while, the screen continues to show the mouths. Pape choreographs these elements in such a way that sexual desire and consumption, the verbal and the preverbal, images and sounds become enmeshed. The film’s title is revealing, since eat is not the most accurate verb to describe what is actually a record of licking and sucking but not necessarily ingesting. The mouths play with different objects—some of which are phallic (sausages), others, signs of wealth (precious stones)—and produce saliva that inevitably suggests other bodily fluids. What is striking in this overtly sensual film is the way the woman (in this case the artist) indulges in and expresses sexual delight: as she offers herself as an object of desire (Eat me), she also enjoys it. The men are the ones who are salivating, wanting, craving, while Pape is the one in control, exciting and seducing. Ultimately, Pape wasn’t asking to 52

Chapter One

be eaten or to be consumed. On the contrary, she was—in good antropofagia fashion—the one cannibalizing roles reserved for women in society by promoting sexual agency. Pape’s film was quite a radical message for its time, especially in a conservative Catholic country ruled by a military regime. As noted at the outset of this chapter, Eat Me triggered one of the most vicious assaults on an exhibition during the dictatorship—tellingly, not for any political content but for its violation of sexual morality. That exhibition, conceived by Pape a year after the film was completed, was Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria?, to be presented at Galeria Arte Global in São Paulo and mam-­Rio. It consisted of a large white space divided into two parts illuminated with red and blue lights, respectively. Inside these colored spaces were tents like those used by street vendors that were stocked with small white paper bags (like popcorn bags) bearing the inscription Objetos de seduçāo (Objects of seduction). Pape stamped the words on the bags, kissed them to leave lipstick traces, and then signed them. Inside were kitschy and vulgar objects—cigarettes, mirrors, calendars with naked women, pubic hair, aphrodisiac lotions, miniatures of fake female breasts bearing the word “darling,” and red lipsticks with the word promessa (promise) inscribed on their black cases (Fig 1.19). Pape included apples in the installation—a humorous nod to Adam and Eve’s original sin and a critique of Judeo-­Christian sexual morals. Also present were objects such as undergarments, wigs, dentures, and false eyelashes.90 Through this installation Pape explored the impoverished aesthetic of kitsch, stressing issues of class difference and disparity exposed by the cheapness and disposability of the bagged objects. Everything in the exhibition could be purchased by visitors at the nominal price of one cruzeiro, the Brazilian currency at the time. In a conversation with Oiticica, Pape said that she was trying to allow different types of people, such as the street sweeper, to buy a “work of art” in a museum.91 Eat me: A gula ou a luxúria is even more striking when considered within the context of Brazil’s “economic miracle” in the mid-­1970s, when sales of consumer goods to lower-­middle-­class people soared even as the military regime was at its most repressive phase. The work mocks this golden age of Brazilian economic development, a time when political opponents were being forced into exile and the regime was disseminating patriotic mottos such as Brazil, ame-­o ou deixe-­o (Brazil, love it or leave it).92 To promote the show, the São Paulo gallery placed a clip from the film Eat Me in a prime-­time commercial spot on the major Brazilian television network, Globo. Almost immediately, viewers complained of its erotic tone and asked that the ad be pulled from the air. In response, the gallery



Political Practices

53

cancelled the exhibition outright, alleging that it contained pornographic content. When the installation traveled to its second venue at mam-­Rio late in 1976, Pape projected a short video of herself onto one of the museum’s exterior walls; in it, she gestured seductively with her index finger, like a sex worker luring prospective clients to invite passersby to enter the museum. Once more, Pape’s work was censored. This time, the video was pulled by the museum under the pretext that it was distracting drivers and interfering with traffic. In Rio, Pape fashioned a black space with three darkened metal booths covered with plastic and featuring yellow, red, and green neon projections of the title: Eat me: A gula ou a luxúria. The space evoked the atmosphere of a cheap brothel, with the paper bags filled with objects of desire and seduction on display. The art historian Roberto Conduru recalls his experience as a young student visiting the exhibition as a defying act of transgression:

1.19  Lygia Pape, Objetos de seduçāo (Objects of seduction), 1976. Photo from the exhibition A Multitude of Forms, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017. Courtesy of Projeto Lygia Pape.

54

Chapter One

The teachers held hands, creating a barrier, making it impossible for us to enter the tent. They sent the students to the library. I asked to go to the bathroom, and instead I ran to see what had been banned. What I saw, or rather the experience I had, gave me a real shock. The mixture of strangeness and enchantment that I felt was not only due to the objects I found, unimaginable to me at that time in the art world, which were also foreign to my daily life.93 Eat me: A gula ou a luxúria managed to provoke and reveal in equal measure. Pape recalled, “One day during the exhibition, I rode the elevator with a gentleman who had picked up one of the little bags, but when he saw that there was pubic hair inside it, he dropped it on the floor, in disgust. However, he pocketed the small calendars of naked women.”94 Pape’s Objetos de sedução are ambiguous. Some of the bags contained texts from the popular 1974 feminist book Mulher: objeto de cama e mesa (Woman: bed and table object) by the journalist Heloneida Studart, reinforcing Pape’s critique of woman as object. As they expose female strategies of seduction as tools of power and control, they also point to the tyranny of idealized female beauty within society. Her objetos can either function as tools of women’s liberation or as means to discipline female bodies, objects of female sexual agency or apparatuses of objectification. The feminist cultural theorist Rosalind Gill argues that it is important to understand how socially constructed ideals of femininity based on male sexual fantasy can be internalized, thus producing new subjectivities in which women believe that they are free to choose to become sex objects. Gill suggests that “sexual agency” may not be the solution to the missing discourse of female desire but may in fact be a technology of discipline and regulation, a new kind of oppression, in which young women should no longer only be beautiful but have an obligation to be “sexy, sexually knowledgeable and always ‘up for it.’ ”95 In other words, tactics of seduction do not necessarily translate into female sexual agency and empowerment but can become apparatuses of discipline and regulation to control women’s body and desire. Rather than being imposed by a male-­ dominant culture, these new mechanisms function through self-­discipline and self-­regulation. They create an illusion of sexual emancipation through voluntary servitude. By saying yes to sex, one does not necessarily say no to power.96 Gill poses a crucial question: “If this is empowerment, then what does sexism look like? And what kind of cultural politics is equal to the task of resisting contemporary representations?”97 It would take a few more de-



Political Practices

55

cades for a younger generation of feminist artists to address this dilemma in the twentieth-­first century (see chapter 4). Woman in Mass Iconography

In 1978 Pape completed what is surely the most unsung of all her productions: “A mulher na iconografia de massa” (The woman in mass iconography), a research project consisting of a written report accompanied by images. This study is a further theoretical development of two earlier projects— the film Eat Me (1975) and the exhibition Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria? (1976). In it, Pape honed her critique of the representations of women in Brazil’s patriarchal society. She aimed to create a visual archive of images of women in the mass media—an “imaginary museum” outside traditional art venues.98 Pape divided her research into urban and rural zones and open and enclosed spaces, especially targeting places where men often circulated. For the open areas, she considered images found in graffiti, movie marquees, popular markets, public squares, newsstands, street vendors, and train stations. For the enclosed places, she analyzed signs in bookstores, meat markets, pharmacies, garages, bars, barbershops, restaurants, and store windows. She took into consideration specific dates and periods, such as Mother’s Day, Christmas, and summertime, looking for contradictory roles that women are expected to perform in society: the alluring seducer, the assertive professional, the virtuous mother, the demure housewife. She concluded that in all these roles, the female physical features were always their most valued and esteemed attributes. Pape started by exploring visual elements that had been introduced into the landscape of Rio de Janeiro and then expanded her project to include São Paulo and Via Dutra, the main road connecting the two cities. Her goal was to analyze graphic visual representations of women in outdoor ads and street signs. How are these images used to promote consumption? What is their semantic content in a patriarchal society? Moreover, Pape wanted to analyze the role of women as both the object and the subject of consumption: those who are devoured as they consume in order to seduce. She looked for signs that transcended the linguistic elements of literature and the pictorial components of the visual arts. She was interested in ambivalent signifiers instead of univocal messages; the more ambiguous the sign, the better. For instance, an ad announcing a circus and placed in a vacant lot surrounded by overgrown brush and unattended grass became the “ideal” environment for its heralded paraphernalia: wild animals, clowns, and sexy lion tamers. A sign in 56

Chapter One

a bridal store over a clothed mannequin reads For Sale and To Be Altered. The equivocality of these signs questioned their intended messages. Pape’s research was in tune with the emergence of popular media dedicated to the “new women.” The most prominent example was the monthly magazine Cláudia. First published in 1961, by the end of the 1970s it no longer exclusively catered to women in the traditional roles of mothers and housewives. Now it encouraged women to participate in the job market and demand equality while also promoting consumer goods and beauty products as a way to achieve independence. It called on women to be feminine but not submissive, emancipated but still pleasing.99 Pape’s analysis was informed by semiotics, linguistics, information theory, phenomenology, and gestalt principles. Her bibliography included popular texts that were circulating in intellectual circles at the time, such as Edgar Morin’s L’esprit du temps: Essai sur la culture de masse (1962), Umberto Eco’s Opera Aperta (1962), Maurice Merleau-­Ponty’s Phénoménologie de la perception (1945), and Roland Barthes’s Éléments de sémiologie (1964).100 She repeatedly asserted that her research comprised a poetic reading of women’s images in the culture industry and not a feminist one. While sarcastically commenting on women’s objectification and undoubtedly interested in bringing a “women’s perspective” to her work, Pape affirmed that she did not feel discriminated against or excluded by her male peers. Accepted into the dominant Brazilian artistic discourse, Pape deliberately chose not to use the term feminism in her work and writings. This position should not be seen as a failing but as a perspective shaped by her local cultural and political circumstances that she believed were forces for renewal and innovation. Rather than essentializing the debate, Pape—like Geiger—opened the feminist scope to embrace marginal groups, expanding the term and broadening its critical potentiality.



Political Practices

57

2

Silence once broken will never be whole again. —Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

DISCURSIVE

PRACTICES

The onomatopoetic expression glu glu glu (the Italian equivalent of “glug” or “gurgle”) is inscribed on a figure’s throat, suggesting the act of swallowing, in Anna Maria Maiolino’s soft sculpture titled Glu Glu Glu (1966; fig. 2.1). The work is divided into two parts: The upper portion consists of a figure’s head and torso, rendered without much detail, but a wide-­open mouth clearly discernible. In the lower part, stuffed volumes suggest digestive organs, including the stomach and the intestines, alluding to the process of consumption (in) and excretion (out).1 The artist said, “In Italy, everything revolves around food. It is the core of our culture and civilization. Living bodies are oriented by an ongoing physiological cycle: eating, digesting, defecating.”2 Like Pape’s film Eat Me, Maiolino’s Glu Glu Glu points to the passage from instinct (hunger) to compulsion (desire), connecting food to sexual pleasure, and engaging the wide-­open mouth as an emblem of eroticism—a site of satisfaction and affection, an organ that engages with sensual and oral pleasures. Maiolino said, “My university was my family’s dinner table; as a child and the youngest of nine siblings, I felt I was swallowing those conversations along with the food, and this nurtured my imagination and my intellect.”3 Over the years, a number of visual artists have seized on the wide-­open mouth as an expression of angst, agony, and pain. It became immortalized as the iconic modern psychological portrayal of despair expressing hopelessness in Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893). In Francis Bacon’s Study after Velazquez’s

2.1 

Anna Maria Maiolino, Glu Glu Glu, 1966, woodcut. Courtesy of the artist.

Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953), the pope’s open mouth renders a sensation of intense disturbance. The screaming pope is seated in a golden throne behind strands of a dark translucent curtain. He wears a purple biretta and cape over a white liturgical vestment. His face is distorted and elongated. A rope-­ like ring encircles the pope while he grips the armrests as if he is under great distress. Bacon said that, in fact, he “wanted to paint the scream more than the horror.”4 According to Gilles Deleuze, rather than representing a terrible event, Bacon depicts the affect provoked by the horror.5 In the works of many women artists in the Brazil of the 1960s and 1970s, the wide-­open mouth and its resulting astounded expressions came to express anxiety and uncertainty often associated with acts of political defiance and fortitude under Brazil’s dictatorship. While control of mass media was imposed in a direct and coherent manner, censorship of the visual arts was never clearly defined; the boundaries between what was permissible and what was forbidden were often unclear, and enforcement was inconsistent.6 Since no specific parameters of censorship existed in regard to artworks, there was a widespread fear of persecution and self-­censorship. In Maiolino’s work the iconography of the wide-­open mouth became associated with immobility and entrapment within prescriptive social norms. Maiolino focused in particular on the tongue, both visually and verbally, since in Portuguese the word língua means both “tongue” and “language.” In the three black-­and-­white photographs titled É o que sobra (It is what is left over; 1974), from the series Fotopoemaçāo (Photopoemaction; fig. 2.2), Maiolino portrayed herself with a pair of scissors in hand pretending to cut off her tongue and nose. At that time Brazil was enduring the most repressive phase of the dictatorship and Maiolino deployed the image of a wounded tongue in response to Brazilian authoritarianism.7 The image suggests a self-­inflicted 60

Chapter Two

2.2 Anna Maria Maiolino, É o que sobra (It is what is left over), 1974, analog photographs, from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction). Photo: Max Nauenberg. Courtesy of the artist.

injury, as if cutting one’s tongue prevented one from speaking what could not be said. Thus, a chain of signifiers connects the injured tongue with a nation suffering attacks to free speech. Maiolino’s É o que sobra can be seen in dialogue with Hannah Höch’s Cut with the kitchen knife Dada through the Last Weimar beer-­belly cultural epoch in Germany (1919 – 20; fig. 2.3). In that kaleidoscopic photomontage, Höch offered a collage of images critiquing the politics adopted by the recently established Weimar Republic (1918 – 33) and depicting shifting representations of modern women in the aftermath of World War I. It combines photographs of military and political leaders with those of Dada artists and female dancers, athletes, and actresses—all figures associated with changes in society. Höch’s title comments on the male-­dominated Weimar government and identifies women’s power to cut through the patriarchal order (with a common domestic tool, no less). Both Maiolino’s close-­up and Höch’s photomontage involve aggressive acts of cropping and cutting. Höch’s collage consists of fragments taken from magazines, advertisements, and newspapers that were recombined to create a new, unsettling representation, while Maiolino’s photograph consists of a fragmentary image of her own face. Both constructions are expressions of disruption and political irreverence. Yet along with her jaundiced assessment of society, Höch injects hope into her composition by commending women’s gains in modern times.8 Conversely, Maiolino expresses a purely dystopian view of the role reserved for women in the repressive political atmosphere of Brazil in the late 1960s. The battered tongue suggests self-­censorship and silencing. Maiolino’s Super 8 film Y, from 1974 (fig. 2.4), engages her face as a site of vulnerability and resistance. It opens with a black screen followed by unintelligible sounds.9 The next shot is a close-­up of Maiolino wearing a blind

Discursive Practices

61

2.3 

Hannah Höch, Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands (Cut with the kitchen knife Dada through the last Weimar beer-­belly cultural epoch in Germany), 1919 – 20), collage. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Collection, copyright bpk / Nationalgalerie smb / Jörg P. Anders. © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ars), New York / vg Bild-­Kunst, Bonn.

2.4 

Anna Maria Maiolino, Y, 1974, Super 8 film transferred to video. Courtesy of the artist.

fold, her mouth wide open and emitting a painful scream. Another blackout follows. Then a shot of her mouth even wider is shown as she emits louder and more disturbing screams. Blackout again. A close-­up of her face without the blindfold; eyes closed, she utters guttural moans and cries—an unnerving sound that intensifies the atmosphere of fear. Maiolino’s visage is a powerful agent expressing pain. The viewer sees only the dark screen and intermittent close-­ups of parts of her face until her visage takes up the full screen. Then, in a whispering tone, Maiolino utters short sentences (in Portuguese) that can barely be understood: “Come with me.” “Courage! Courage!” “When the simplest honesty was called courage.” At the same time, female voices recite names, racial identities, and professions: “Anna Vieira Ruiz, a woman who lives by washing clothes.” “Manuel da Gama, who lives off his art and painting.” “Ana Teodora de Castro, pardo [mixed race], who makes a living from weaving.” “Francisco da Silva Maciel, who still lives off his music.” These are fictitious characters who, according to Maiolino, represent the types of people affected during the period of repression in Brazil. The last words spoken in Y are “Don’t ever say never”—a note of hope introduced into the atmosphere of despair that suffuses the film.10 In a later series of four black-­and-­white photographs from Fotopoemação titled Aos poucos (Little by little; 1974; fig. 2.5), Maiolino enacts a scene of self-­ inflicted violence. A black cloth initially conceals Maiolino’s eyes and nose, and then it slowly moves down her face, covering her nose and mouth. Obfuscated by the mask, we can only infer the identity of the invisible forces that prevent her from seeing and then obstruct her ability to breath and speak. When her full face is revealed, we discern an expression of relief. As in the film Y, what the photo sequence ultimately renders are the sensations of repression and liberation. Maiolino’s works are shaped by her peripatetic life. Born in 1942 in wartime Italy, she immigrated with her family to South America at the age of twelve, living first in Venezuela and then moving to Brazil in 1960. Between 1968 and 1971 she lived in Manhattan with her husband, the artist Rubens Gerchman, who had won a trip to the United States at the Salão de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Salon) at mam-­rj. Speaking little English, Maiolino found herself isolated and burdened by domestic responsibilities in New York. She once again felt like a displaced immigrant: “Without a green card, without anything, I am but one more ‘illegal’ in the American paradise.”11 In later interviews about those years, Maiolino conveys a sense of silently bearing the unspeakable, deprived of her personhood and her voice.

64

Chapter Two

2.5 Anna Maria Maiolino, Aos poucos (Little by little), analog photographs from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction), 1974. Photo: Max Nauenberg. Courtesy of the artist.

She produced no new artwork during her New York sojourn, but eventually, following a suggestion by Oiticica, she began taking notes and launched a fertile period of writing poetry that coincided with the development of the series Mapas mentais (Mental maps; 1971 – 76; fig. 2.6), in which she created delicate drawings that combined images and words fashioned from China ink and Letraset transfers. Within a grid, abstract shapes are arranged along

2.6 

Anna Maria Maiolino, Capítulo I (Chapter I), from the series Mapas mentais (Mental maps), transfer letter and gouache ink on paper, 1971. Courtesy of the artist.

66

Chapter Two

with words designating places, people, and affects: solitude, fear, love, Rubens, São Paulo, death, and 1971, among other poignant markers. The strict geometry of the grid suggests an attempt to map and create some organization on the cartography of the artist’s subjective experiences. After she returned to Brazil in 1971, Maiolino made the Super 8 film In-­ Out (antropofagia) (In-­Out [anthropophagy]; 1973 – 74; fig. 2.7), where she further expressed a sense of angst and inner searching through language. At the time, many visual artists were beginning to experiment with affordable mediums such as Super 8 film. Scripts were short, and the films were distributed outside commercial channels. The flexibility of the medium and the imperfections in the resulting images shaped an alternative aesthetic that emphasized inexpensive materials and a sense of precariousness.12 In-­Out (antropofagia) alternates between close-­ups of two mouths that occupy the full screen. At first, black adhesive tape covers the mouth on the screen like a censor box, making the act of speech impossible. The tape removed, we see in succession two mouths—one with red lipstick, one with black; one male, one female—attempting to communicate. The mouths make various movements in trying to formulate some semblance of speech, to no avail; efforts to convey language are overtaken by a babble of cries, laughs, noises, and phonetic tones lacking any clear meaning. There is no narrative, plot, or setting—just a disjointed sequence of images and sounds. In this nondiscursive exchange, communication is disintegrated and disarticulated. In subsequent shots, nonlinear images unfold: menacing teeth; a mouth swallowing a long black thread and spilling red, beige, and black filaments; a mouth holding an egg. There’s nothing epic about these acts and images; on the contrary, they are mere exercises in space. For all of this activity, the mouths are stripped of a crucial function: the ability to enunciate cohesive linguistic meaning. Maiolino’s film recalls “the mouth” in Samuel Beckett’s 1972 play Not I, about a woman who has been voiceless after a traumatic experience and suddenly speaks. A disembodied mouth appears suspended above the stage in a pitch-­black space illuminated only by a spotlight. All that can be seen by the audience is a pulsation of lips, teeth, cheeks, and tongue. Articulating no coherent sentences, the mouth unleashes an unintelligible monologue. Although the mouth speaks speedily and continuously, it is powerless to produce anything more than an incomprehensible murmur. It simply goes on talking, filling up the space with disconnected words, without making any sense.13 Like Beckett in this work, by suspending fixed linguistic meanings, Maiolino creates free-­floating, unpredicted, and unstable significations.

Discursive Practices

67

2.7 Anna Maria Maiolino, In-­ Out (antropofagia) (In-­Out [anthropophagy]), from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction), analog photographs, 1973 – 74. Photo: Max Nauenberg. Courtesy of the artist.

The title In-­Out (antropofagia) refers to Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto antropófago” (1928), which proposed the creative dismantling of hegemonic cultures and artistic languages in order to transform them into something uniquely Brazilian (see chapter 1). The manifesto probably resonated with Maiolino’s experience of war, exile, and dislocation, which had forced her to assimilate and digest different cultures and open up new artistic languages and possibilities. Of her initial arrival in Brazil, at age eighteen, she said, “Rio de Janeiro’s astonishing landscape engulfed me. I allowed myself to be eaten like a ‘sacred enemy,’ in order to be digested and expelled by Guanabara Bay as a cannibal version of myself.”14 According to the film critic Ivone Margulies, “Including the word ‘anthropophagy’ in the bracketed portion of the film’s title, Maiolino also reclaims her Brazilianness, affiliating her inquiry on the anxious poetics of speech to Brazilian modernism.”15 Created the same year as Maiolino’s In-­Out (antropofagia), Lygia Clark’s Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic slobber; fig. 2.8) is a seminal participatory experience that likewise involve mouths and threads. Clark conceived the piece as a proposição (proposition)—an artistic practice outside traditional mediums, such as painting and sculpture that eschews the finished work of art in favor of process and experiences. Baba antropofágica was envisioned as an “act” to be carried out by Clark’s students while she was leading a class called the Gesture of Communication at the Sorbonne’s Centre Saint Charles in Paris, where she taught from 1972 to 1975.16 In Clark’s proposition, a person lies on the floor surrounded by a group of blindfolded participants. Each person in the circle places a spool of colored thread in their mouth and then draws out the saliva-­soaked strands with their hands until the spool is empty. A tangled web forms as the threads are slowly draped over, covering the body of the person lying on the ground. Then the members of the circle remove their blindfolds, stick their hands into the tangle of saliva-­ moistened threads, and tear them apart, freeing the reclining body on the floor. Finally, the participants talk about the event in a collective exchange of their vivências (lived experiences). Clark said that the piece was inspired by a recurring vision: “I dreamed that I opened my mouth and incessantly took a substance out of it, and while this was taking place, I felt that I was losing my own internal substance, making me feel distressed mainly because I could not stop losing it.”17 Unspooling the threads from one’s mouth allegedly provokes a sense of catharsis, loss of control, or vertigo, and ripping them off the body of the recumbent person is often described in terms of aggression, joy, euphoria, and (as the threads are hard to break) even pain. The performance artist and theorist Eleonora Fabião, who experienced the

Discursive Practices

69

2.8 

Lygia Clark, Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic slobber), 1973 – 74. Courtesy of “The World of Lygia Clark” Cultural Association.

physically and mentally intense immersion of Baba antropofágica, argued that Clark’s goal in this proposition “was to access those phantasmatic yet very concrete forces through collective practices, and to stimulate the sharing of narratives about these unusual corporeal experiences in search of self-­and mutual elaboration.”18 Clark was adamant in drawing a distinction between her experiential practice and the actions associated with performance and body art of the late 1960s and 1970s. She denied any voyeuristic associations or any form of objectification of the body in her work. Rather, her propositions should be experi70

Chapter Two

2.9 

Anna Maria Maiolino, Por um fio (By a thread), analog photograph from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction), 1976. Photo: Regina Vater. Courtesy of the artist.

enced as subjective, experimental, and collective actions. As the performance theorist André Lepecki remarks, “The point was not to create an event for an audience and to use the artist’s actions and body as the object of contemplation (or even worse, as the object of admiration), but to invite everyone to experience his or her own body as an agent of choice, in an open process of discovery immanent to the performance of an act.”19 These corporeal exchanges were meant to be shared experiences that erased boundaries between the self and the other. Ultimately, they created a collective body in which each participant is affected and contaminated by the others’ fluids and fluxes. Connected by a Thread

The thread-­mouth connection was explored in Maiolino’s photographs Por um fio (By a thread; 1976; fig. 2.9), likewise from the Fotopoemaçāo series. Here, the artist is shown sitting between her mother and her teenage daughter, a

Discursive Practices

71

piece of thread leading from mouth to mouth to mouth, creating a sense of continuity and connection, as if they all shared a common umbilical cord. The women, posed frontally (and stiffly) and staring toward the viewer with their mouths closed, are arranged by age, oldest to the youngest, alluding to the passage of time and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another. The image recalls the children’s game of telephone, though here the matriarchal lineage is not passed verbally, but rather through an oral sensorial experience. As we have noted, in the Brazilian context of the visual arts in the 1960s and 1970s, any artwork deemed personal was generally dismissed as simplistic, demagogic, and reductive. Here, Maiolino challenged this assumption by showing herself in her familial role. This intimate portrait courageously speaks to Maiolino’s inseparable duties as professional, daughter, and mother—a tension that, although all too common, was kept out of public view at the time. In Maiolino’s work, the mouth becomes an instrument in search of identity. In the woodcut anna (1967; fig. 2.10) a speech bubble holding the name anna connects the heads and torsos of two human figures (recalling the one in Glu Glu Glu) and suggests parental signifiers. The balloon comes out of squarish holes that stand for open mouths. The torsos rest on a rectangular block also bearing the name anna. According to the artist, anna is a self-­portrait in the form of a palindrome, in which the rectangular block recalls a tombstone, and the title can be interpreted as an announcement of birth or death.20 But what kind of self-­identification can her proper name possibly entail? The philosopher John Searle argues that “proper names do not have senses, they are meaningless marks; they have denotation but not connotation. . . . Whereas a definite description refers to an object only in virtue of the fact that it describes some aspect of that object, a proper name does not describe the object at all.”21 In other words, a name is not the same as a person. It can refer to an individual but cannot describe it as a unitary structure. Thus, anna is just the empty shell without any unifying identity. It shelters multiple facets of the artist’s persona that can only be grasped as fragments. The search for designating signs, even if only fragmented and dispersed ones, was fueled by Maiolino’s refusal to be objectified as a woman. In De: Para: (From: To:; 1974; fig. 2.11), part of the series Fotopoemaçāo, five black-­ and-­white photographs depict Maiolino’s face being wrapped with a ribbon. The first image displays a narrow black ribbon dropping from the artist’s mouth. The next shows the ribbon tied horizontally across her forehead. In the third, the ribbon continues around her head and passes below her nose. 72

Chapter Two

2.10  Anna Maria Maiolino, anna, 1967, woodcut. Courtesy of the artist.

The final images show the ribbon bisecting her face diagonally and culminating in a bow: Maiolino’s face has been gift wrapped, a beautiful object ready to be purchased or offered. De: Para: is an ironic comment on women’s objectification and pursuit of beautification for consumption. Like Pape’s Objetos de sedução, De: Para: points to the performativity of the feminine through seductive acts and gestures. Paraphrasing Butler, there is no ontological status apart from the various enactments that constitute the fabrication of an interior essence or identity. These construed realities are manufactured and sustained through corporeal marks and discursive signifiers.22 De: Para: shares strong affinities with Serbian artist Marina Abramovic’s video-­performance Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975), in which Abramovic forcefully, painfully combs her hair while repeating the sentence “Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful.” Abramovic situated her work within the feminist discourse of the 1970s, confronting the pressure to meet conventional standards and demands for female beauty. Here, too, the body becomes a vehicle for the cultural inscription of the feminine through discursive practices. In Maiolino’s pieces, blindfolds, ribbons,

Discursive Practices

73

2.11  Anna Maria Maiolino, De: Para: (From: To:), from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction), analog photographs, 1974. Photo: Max Nauenberg. Courtesy of the artist.

threads and scissors ring her face, mouth, and tongue in a chain of signifiers that convey beauty, desire, and consumption; express fear and anxiety; comment on the impossibility of linguistic communication; and disseminate knowledge and experiences. The Close-­Up

The prominence of close-­ups in the experimental art of women artists in the 1970s highlights the expressive agency of the female face as a place where sensations, pleasure, pain, and desire are expressed; the site where encounters, potentialities, alliances, and even deceptions are rendered visible. Film scholar Mary Ann Doane has argued that “the close-­up has inspired fascination, love, horror, empathy, pain, unease. It has been seen as the vehicle of the star, the privileged receptacle of affect, of passion, the guarantee of the cinema’s status as a universal language, one of, if not the most recognizable units of cinematic discourse, yet simultaneously extraordinarily difficult to define.”23 In film, the face is the screen upon which intensities are projected: a surface constantly changing, a site in a continuous transition. Gretta Sarfaty’s astonished, open-­mouthed expressions in the photo sequence Transformações I (Transformations I; 1976; fig. 2.12) address an oppressive situation she wished to escape (as noted in chapter 1). Sarfaty was not taken seriously in the Brazilian artistic scene because of her gender, beauty, and wealth. She stated, “I started getting interested in distorting my face and making it look horrible and ugly because I wanted people to see what I was like inside and what I could do as an artist. It bothered me to be turned away for being just a pretty face.”24 While reading Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Sarfaty identified with the novel’s main character, Gregor Samsa, feeling a prisoner of her body, her home, and her family, and imagining a way to escape entrapment. It was not until 1983 that Sarfaty left her husband and their three children and moved to New York and then London. She said, “After my divorce, as an unmarried woman, my family wanted to confine me in an asylum. I had no choice but to leave.”25 With the use of a camera obscura, Sarfaty, in Transformações I, developed a series of negatives, manually manipulating the images with push pins to deform them. Each image was individually distorted to accentuate the artist’s ears, cheeks, and mouth. She then rephotographed the altered images, creating a grid with multiple images of her face stretched to the point of absurdity, generating a grotesque, comedic expression of astonishment.



Discursive Practices

75

More than deforming her face, Sarfaty is unforming and disorganizing it (fig. 2.13). It is as if she is trying to get rid of a fixed identity based on attributes that do not suit her; traits that encapsulate, confine, and fix her individuality. She experiments with her face, allowing it to take different shapes and forms, unleashing new potentialities beyond the ones already known to others. As Sarfaty challenges her semblance, she breaks away from its unity and coherence, attempting to distinguish the external perception of herself from the way she desires to be perceived. Her self-­constructed, phantasmagoric, hallucinogenic images could be mistaken for reflections captured in enlarging and deforming mirrors in an amusement park, as Sarfaty’s visage became almost unrecognizable as if trying to internally free herself from social codes of behavior. As Deleuze wrote, “Expression must break forms, encourage ruptures and new sproutings. When a form is broken, one must reconstruct the content that will necessarily be part of a rupture in the order of things.”26 By exaggerating and distorting her visage, Sarfaty expressed as2.12  Gretta Sarfaty, Transformações I (Transformations I), 1976, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist.

76

Chapter Two

2.13  Gretta Sarfaty, detail of Transformações I (Transformations I), 1976, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist.

tonishment and revolt in the face of established norms, rejecting submission to normative behavior and family impositions. The face is presented as a mask of distress in Silêncio, an episode in Sonia Andrade’s video A morte do horror (Horror’s death; 1981; fig. 2.14). Andrade stares at the camera and suddenly emits a visceral scream, as if some traumatic scene is taking place in front of her.27 Her terrifying facial expression conveys a sense of fragility and vulnerability as she produces a gruesome, almost mute shriek. Born to a progressive family from Rio de Janeiro, Andrade was one of the pioneers of Brazilian video art in the 1970s, participating in a group led by Anna Bella Geiger. 28 In Andrade’s 1977 video Untitled (Fio [Wire]; fig. 2.15)— one of a series of eight untitled videos she created from 1974 to 1977—the artist’s face is grotesquely distorted as she looks straight at the camera and pulls a strand of nylon through her pierced ear and then winds it around her face. As in Maiolino’s É o que sobra, the artist’s self-­inflicted act of pain and endurance recalls the trauma of torture perpetrated by Brazil’s dictatorship. In many of her videos, Andrade uses a tv screen as a layer of mediation between the inner and outer worlds. In the 1970s the number of Brazilian households with access to television saw rampant growth. This boom was used as a powerful tool to integrate and unify distinct regions in the country’s vast territory that in reality could not be more diverse or complex. Disparate populations would tune to the same soap operas and popular entertainment programs and would be bombarded by relentless commercialization via ads. Mechanisms of power and domination were constructed through the media and the advertising industries, with the military regime employing these channels to promote patriotism through political propaganda. For the curator Marisa Flórido Cesar, Andrade’s work confronts the powers that invade daily life and behavior, scrutinizing their strategies of narcoticizing seduction and veiled violence.29 In a related untitled video, Andrade’s face is seen on a tv monitor as she flosses her teeth and then brushes them forcefully (Untitled [tv]; fig. 2.16). She then takes a glass of water, rinses her mouth, gargles, spits, and repeats this sequence a few times, exaggerating the routine to the point of abjection. At the end of the video, the artist gazes into the camera with a big, ironic smile that shows her bright teeth. Here, Andrade parodies the toothpaste and mouthwash ads that targeted female audiences. It is a sarcastic comment on the close ties between the health and beauty industries, which reinforce the connection of cleanliness to attractiveness. As Foucault demonstrated, bodies are subjected to biopolitical tactics, such as the apparatuses of hy78

Chapter Two

2.14 Sonia Andrade, Silêncio (Silence), 1981, video. Courtesy of the artist.

2.15 Sonia Andrade, Untitled (Fio [Wire]), 1974 – 77, video. Courtesy of the artist.

2.16 Sonia Andrade, Untitled (tv), 1974 – 77, video. Courtesy of the artist.

giene through medical technologies and health policies, in order to control disease, birthrate, longevity, reproduction, sexuality, and public health.30 These procedures marked the beginning of what Foucault called the biopower era in the nineteenth century, when physical vigor and moral cleanliness were optimized to ensure the body’s capacities and integrate it into systems of efficiency and economic control.31 Letícia Parente also exposed the mechanisms of bodily control through which knowledge and power are accrued based on scientific discourses. Born in Salvador, Bahia, Parente graduated with a degree in chemistry and taught in the states of Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro. Together with Andrade, she was part of Geiger’s circle of students and pioneering video artists in Brazil. Through her work as a scientist, Parente was well versed in the practices of diagnosis and categorization and their potential misuse re biological determinism.32 Her interactive installation Medidas (Measurements; 1976; fig. 2.17) consists of seven booths (called stations) where visitors are invited to collect information based on tests of their blood type, attention level, vision efficacy, resistance to cold and heat, and breathing capacity. After all this information is collected, visitors are asked to record it—along with their biometric data (weight, height, face format, skin, hair type, etc.)—on a chart. At the end of the installation, an audiovisual from the book of world records shows images of disproportionate bodies (the highest, the lowest, the greatest breath, the greatest length of nails, the greatest scream, etc.) accompanied by their registered measurements to the sound of clapping. For the critical theorist Katia Maciel, the combination of texts and applause creates a certain humor, as if we are laughing at ourselves after taking our own measures. Maciel points out, “What body is this? And how do you relate to others? Is it a model or a copy? Is it individual or collective? It is the body of experience, produced as one more product with its brands and patterns, tested like a machine in order to breathe and resist.”33 Parente’s son, the filmmaker and scholar André Parente, has pointed out that, as an experimental laboratory of the self, Medidas is a critique of nineteenth-­century positivist theories, such as those developed by Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who developed a theory of crime based on heredity and anthropometric data.34 Lombroso proposed measuring and recording subjects’ reflexes, motor reactions, and range of sight, among other bodily functions, all of which could potentially become criminal statistics. Medidas is a play on such techniques, which are tied to biological atavism, eugenics, and medicolegal theories on hereditary. While such practices may seem as remote as phrenology to us today, they are still present through the 82

Chapter Two

biometrical body control that may be exerted via algorithms, face recognition, genetics, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence.35 Medidas recalls the Peruvian artist Teresa Burga’s installation Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9.6.1972 (Self-­portrait. Structure. Report. 9.6.1972; fig. 2.18), in which Burga created a self-­portrait through diagrams and charts that were constructed from data drawn from her body—medical records, an audio recording of her heartbeat, electrocardiograms, blood analyses, a headshot— all captured over the course of a single day: June 9, 1972. Just as Pa­rente’s work was completed under the Brazilian military regime, Burga’s piece was created under Peruvian Juan Velasco Alvarado’s left-­wing dictatorship. Both artists employed multimedia installations to address tactics of control under authoritarian rule, depicting themselves through a myriad of statistical operations used to diagnose, classify, and designate the body.36 Both Autorretrato and Medidas illustrate how standardized, regulated, bureaucratic systems function as apparatuses for control and oppression—especially for 2.17  Letícia Parente, Medidas (Measurements), 1976, installation. Photo: Ana Vitória Mussi. Courtesy of the estate of Letícia Parente and Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.



Discursive Practices

83

2.18  Teresa Burga, Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe., 9.6.1972 (Self-­portrait. Structure. Report. 9.6.1972), 1972, installation with drawings, photos, documents, electrocardiogram results, phonocardiogram results, luminous object, and sound. Collection m hka, Antwerp.

women. As Foucault demonstrated, beginning in the nineteenth century, women were “psychologized” and “psychiatrized,” thus “creating new personages: the nervous woman, the frigid wife, the indifferent mother.”37 The result, he argued, was the creation of a new technology of sex built upon scientific techniques and discourses. Sexuality was no longer only repressed by the morality of the church or pathologized by the psychiatric hysterization of the female body; it was now also produced, monitored, and controlled by the fields of pedagogy, medicine, and economics.38 Echoes of that process reached the mid-­1970s, when classifications of women’s character became newly popular through a proliferation of psychological tests featured in magazines dedicated to female audiences. They claimed to evaluate women’s personalities through aspects of their physical appearance—the shapes of faces and body parts, for example. Satirizing these assessments, Parente created Projeto 158-­1 (Project 158-­1; 1975; fig. 2.19), a collage in which she introduced subtle distortions to images of female faces extracted from these types of magazines. She manually elongated and compressed the pictures by cutting and pasting them onto a page that she then photographed. In the first image, Parente presented an unaltered face with the inscription tipo médio/nāo específico (medium type/nonspecific). Then, she elongated the head and added tipo cerebral/força mental (cerebral type/mental strength). On the last image, she shortened the face and juxtaposes it with the words tipo instintivo/ força física (instinctive type/physical strength).39 In the subsequent series Mulheres (Women; 1975; fig. 2.20), Parente continued her scorn of magazines that classified women’s personalities by the shape of their mouths by photocopying pages that depicted examples supposedly denoting pride, irony, romanticism, melancholy, youth, generosity, and so on. Here, Parente exposed the media apparatus that captures and subjugates women by disseminating and reinforcing female clichés and criticized pseudosciences such as physiognomy, which links psychology to physique, thus producing modes of subjectivity by imposing classifications on the body. She contested the way stereotypes are reinforced through repetitive codes and configurations. Parente used her work as a conduit for her sharp criticism of authoritarianism and patriarchy. In the video Preparação I (Preparation I; 1975; fig. 2.21), the artist stands before a bathroom mirror, brushing her hair and readying herself for the day. Instead of applying makeup, she places adhesive tape over her mouth and then outlines the shape of her lips on it with lipstick. Then she puts tape over her eyes and draws in eyes (with eyelashes). Finally, she checks her appearance and exits the bathroom. Sight and speech occluded,

Discursive Practices

85

2.19  Letícia Parente, Projeto 158-­1 (Project 158-­1), 1975, photograph. Courtesy of the estate of Letícia Parente and Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.

2.20  Letícia Parente, Sem título (Untitled), from the series Mulheres (Women), 1975, magazine cutouts on paper. Courtesy of the estate of Letícia Parente and Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.

2.21  Letícia Parente, Preparação I (Preparation I), 1975, video. Courtesy of the estate of Letícia Parente and Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.

Parente here attests to the impossibility of bearing witness under an authoritarian regime. The video is also critical of the conventions of beauty promoted by the media and advertising targeting women—forces that dictate life standards and behaviors to make them desirable, young, beautiful, healthy, and modern.40 Stereotypes associated with women’s appearances and behaviors are at the core of Tina America (1976; fig. 2.22) by Regina Vater. In this series of twelve black-­and-­white photographs—whose title is a play on “America Latina,” the Portuguese phrase for “Latin America”—Vater calls attention to what she considered the self-­objectification performed by Latin American women. Posing in close-­ups, she created a series of characters and attributes (teacher, social activist, socialite, reputable woman) by donning different hairdos, accessories, and clothes (hair down, tied in a bun, or in a ponytail; glasses; scarves, etc.). Such transformations were part of an effort by women to fit roles deemed acceptable during the 1960s and 1970s, when a proper young lady was not sup88

Chapter One

posed to leave her parents’ home before marrying and the ultimate goal was to find an eligible bachelor in compliance with the system. Taken together, her images create an index of feminine configurations that, according to art historian Talita Trizoli, documents the visual and ornamental elements of the Brazilian middle-­class woman of the 1970s.41 Given the powerful weight of social norms and the limited avenues for women’s economic stability, respectability, and mobility, those who heeded Catholic morality and accepted the contract of marriage increased their potential to be accepted by and advance in society. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Vater was raised in a conservative middle-­class family and attended a Catholic school. She rejected her traditional upbringing and left home at age twenty-­three. Traveling through South America, Vater was critical of how women acted and constructed personas to entice and signify norms of behavior to attract suitors. The various characters in Tina America are stylized and projected to seduce, yet they imitate the demure image of the wannabe bride. Fittingly, Vater first exhibited the photographic sequence on the pages of a wedding album. The stereotypes of Tina America inevitably bring to mind the work of Cindy Sherman, especially her Untitled Film Stills series of 1977 – 80. Thanks to a prize won in a National Salon, Vater lived in New York in 1972. While she was aware of the works of the second wave of US feminists, Tina America actually predates Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills. Unlike Sherman’s meticulously orchestrated scenes, Vater’s work was completed in a single afternoon in her São Paulo studio. The photos were taken by her friend Maria da Garça Lopes Rodriguez using a single roll of film (thus the twelve exposures), and although Vater used her own wardrobe to create the characters, the photos cannot be considered self-­portraits since she did not identify with any of the posed types. On the contrary, she questioned fixed identities, contested constructed configurations of femininity, and liberated herself from constrained representations of women. Viewing these types through a critical lens, Vater distanced herself from them, affirming her own altered persona as a radical independent woman ahead of her time. In analyzing the body of works of these Brazilian women artists from the late 1960s and 1970s, we note that, even if they were skeptical of the term feminism, they did not refrain from engaging it as a strategy. What they rejected was its associations as a US import, its reductive identification with the ontological category of women, its perception as antifeminine, and its supposed emphasis on a battle of the sexes. The artists discussed here— Pape, Geiger, Pimentel, Maiolino, Andrade, Parente, Sarfaty, and Vater—did indeed fight against women’s objectification and patriarchal structures,

Political Practices

89

2.22  Regina Vater, Tina America, 1976, photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.

questioned fixed female roles and identities, and advocated for women’s emancipation. Over the next decades, Lenora de Barros would continue their practices of resistance while seeking new modes of subjectification, mostly through the apparatus of language. The Poetics of the Tongue

Lenora de Barros played a metalinguistic game with her own tongue—literally and linguistically—in a series of six photographs titled Poema (Poem; 1979; fig. 2.23). In the first image a tongue peeks out from a sensuous if timid mouth, identifiable as female by that conventional mark of femininity: lipstick. In the next image, the tongue presses a key on the typewriter’s keyboard, as if probing for a voice through the written word. In the third image, 90

Chapter One

the tongue—fully extended, erect, almost phallus-­like—seems to be struck by one of the typebars. The action reaches a crescendo in the next images as the tongue is apparently struck and grabbed by an increasing number of typebars. The series concludes in a final image with no tongue but a pyramidic cluster of typebars, as if all the keys on the keyboard had been struck at once—a gush of letters indicating, perhaps, the fruition of the artist’s own poetic writing. It may be said that de Barros’s Poema provokes a sense of jouissance, a French word translated as “pleasure,” “orgasm,” or “orgasmic enjoyment.” But why is the tongue absent in the final image? In an actual typewriter, when all the keys are pressed and the typebars stick together like that, no writing is possible— the typewriter is jammed and has to be unstuck. Is it possible that the final image—indeed the whole sequence—is about the frustration of trying to find



Political Practices

91

2.23 Lenora de Barros, Poema (Poem) 1979, six black and white ink-­jet prints on cotton paper. Photo: Fabiana de Barros. Courtesy of the artist.

your voice and failing or even creating chaos and disruption in the symbolic structure of language?42 De Barros’s body is inseparable from the work, creating an artist-­tongue-­writing connection, as it is her tongue (representing the spoken word) that strokes and is struck by the typewriter’s keys and typebars (the written word). Tellingly, de Barros doesn’t create any signifying meaning with the keyboard, suggesting the possibility of an open poetics. Julia Kristeva has suggested that poetic language offers semantic opportunities to create multiple meanings with the potential to unsettle, disrupt, subvert, and displace the rational and dominant discourse of power.43 Building on Kristeva’s concepts, the feminist theorist Hélène Cixous urged women to reclaim their bodies—and by extension their desires and identities—through writing.44 In her 1976 essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Cixous coined the term “feminine writing” to describe language that celebrates excess, flow, and creative extravagance. But is this “feminine writing” necessarily female? Nelly Richard proposes that instead of Cixous’s “feminine writing,” we should use the term “feminization of writing,” since every time a poetics is produced whose rebellious excesses (body, libido, jouissance, heterogeneity, multiplicity) go beyond the dominant mark of the male, it deregulates the thesis of the majority discourse. Richard follows Deleuze’s and Guatarri’s concept of the “minority becoming,” in which any majority implies the male state of dominance par excellence, whereas all becoming is a becoming minoritarian.45 Majority here relates to those who control hegemonic power and discourse rather than a large quantity of people. In this sense, a “minority writing” or a “feminization of writing” should be seen as a strategy not limited to women but rather a potential agent for multiple forms of gender identities outside the dominant hegemonic masculine discourse. De Barros also played with Poema as a tool for artistic experimentation. More than just a visual poem, it is a “verbivocovisual” construction, to use a term of James Joyce’s from Finnegan’s Wake, expressing the materiality of the poem in all its dimensions and suggesting the creation of new poetic structures that combine aural, visual, and verbal elements. This notion was of key importance to the Brazilian Concrete poetry movement of the 1950s, founded by Décio Pignatari and the brothers Augusto and Haroldo de Campos—collectively known as the Noigrandes poets (named for the magazine edited by the three men). For them, a poem is no longer just based on the written language but had to be able to communicate visually with the reader.46 A Concrete poem must be seen as well as read. Following the con-



Discursive Practices

93

crete poets’ lead, de Barros emphasized the visual configuration of the poem against discursive language. De Barros earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the Universidade de São Paulo in 1970. Her father was Geraldo de Barros, a painter-­ photographer and designer who was renowned as a cofounder of Grupo Ruptura (Rupture Group), which championed the tenets of geometric abstraction that paved the way for the Concrete Art movement in the 1950s.47 The potential and limitations of language are at the root of Lenora de Barros’s practice. The black-­and-­white photomontage Língua vertebral (Vertebral tongue; 1998; fig. 2.24), for example, features an image of the artist’s outstretched tongue on which she has placed a small model of the spinal column. This uncanny juxtaposition posits the spinal column—the structure that keeps the human body in an upright position—as a symbolic syntax that potentially holds language together and provides some intelligibility to its mallea­bility. This metalinguistic proposition asks how one recognizes when language evolves from disconnected syllables into a comprehensive discourse.48 Who Am I? Whom Do I Haunt?

In the twenty-­first century, de Barros has engaged with the iconography of the face, infusing it with significant debates in the fields of criminology, psychiatry, linguistics, and psychoanalysis. After 9/11, an array of posters portrayed Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks, as the face of terrorism, with his mug shot framed to denote terror and evil. This image subsequently became a ubiquitous symbol of the war on terror, as security measures—especially in the United States—increasingly relied on biometric facial-­recognition software to identify potential terror suspects and secure US borders.49 With cameras so pervasive in public environments, it was as if “Big Brother” had come to life. In the wake of the attack, de Barros published a poster-­poem called Procuro-­me in 2001 (fig. 2.25) that included several mug-­shot-­style photos of herself.50 In the images, de Barros poses—wearing different hairstyles and conveying an astounded, exaggerated expression—as if mockingly appearing in one of the fbi’s “wanted” posters. The artist added a subtle but poignant twist by substituting the expected term procura-­se (wanted) with procuro-­me, which means, “wanted by myself ” or “looking for myself.” While the world was objectively searching for bin Laden and other terrorists, de Barros embarked on a subjective pursuit of herself. Her unsettling self-­portraits, juxtaposing the criminal template of the police mug shot with a disquieting facial 94

Chapter Two

2.24 Lenora de Barros, Língua vertebral (Vertebral tongue), 1998 – 2010, digital collage. Photography and photomontage by Marcos Ribeiro. Courtesy of the artist.

expression, raised a critical question: What was she searching for? De Barros provided one answer when she described her work as “a continuous search for a self-­identity that can never be found, because it doesn’t exist as a unitary self.”51 The Brazilian Concrete poet Augusto de Campos suggests that de Barros’s project is a continuous exploration of her artistic identity.52 In this sense, Procuro-­me is de Barros’s pursuit of her own voice through different artistic references, mediums, and styles. It can be read in dialogue with Duchamp’s Wanted: $2,000 Reward (1923; fig. 2.26), which likewise satirizes criminal posters and plays with notions of altered identity. In that work, Duchamp pasted



Discursive Practices

95

2.25  Lenora de Barros, Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself ), 2001, four posters, ink-­jet print on newspaper. Courtesy of the artist.

2.26  Marcel Duchamp, Wanted: $2,000 Reward, 1961 (replica of 1923 original), lithograph. © Association Marcel Duchamp / adagp, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ars), New York 2021.

two mug shots of himself (one in profile, one full-­face) on a poster initially intended as a joke for tourists. He then added an alias to those already listed: that of his female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy.53 De Barros’s piece is reminiscent of Warhol’s mural Most Wanted (fig. 2.27) at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Warhol’s installation—and, pointedly, its title—collapses concepts of criminality and sexual desire, thus making a powerful statement against the illegitimacy and (at that time) illegality of 2.27  Andy Warhol, Most Wanted, 1964, silkscreen ink on Masonite, New York State Pavilion, New York World’s Fair. © 2021 the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ars), New York.

98

Chapter Two

homosexuality in the United States. It consists of enlarged mug shots of the thirteen most wanted criminals from a 1962 booklet published by the New York Police Department. Although the booklet’s producers were probably oblivious to the homoerotic reading of wanted men, it seems to have been obvious to Warhol—and soon became evident to others: The provocative mural was destroyed and covered with silver paint on the order of Governor Nelson Rockefeller before the fair had opened. In a similar way, de Barros’s plays with Procuro-­me’s double meaning as female subjectification (looking for myself ) and as a desiring narcissistic drive (wanted by myself ). Like Warhol’s mural, Barros’s posters were also obliterated (see below). Although the visual similarities between de Barros’s self-­portraits in Procuro-­me and Vater’s Tina America are plain, their intentions are quite different. While Vater morphed herself into different characters to criticize fixed gender roles played by women in society, de Barros used her own image in a self-­reflexive search, questioning the very notion of the construction of a stable identity. Over the years, de Barros’s Procuro-­me evolved into a series that comprised a variety of formats, mediums, and layers. Since its first inception in the pages of the newspaper Folha de Sāo Paulo (2001), it has turned up on street posters, in a sound piece, on an outdoor panel, in a bathroom installation, and in a video performance. It has been exhibited in art galleries and public spaces, endlessly unfolding and acquiring new connotations every time it is performed or shown. For an exhibition at Rio de Janeiro’s Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto in 2002 (fig. 2.28), de Barros created a wall of posters containing mug shots of herself along with a sound piece in which female voices (including the artist’s) intone the following words: Who? Me? No, she . . .  Me? She? Not her Her face Is she I . . . she The same one? Her face I am looking for her That one Her face



Discursive Practices

99

She That one Her face She . . . that one Her face The same one? Am I? Her?54 In this game of words, alternating pronouns refer to de Barros as both a first-­person subject and a third-­person object. By entangling herself and a supposed other, de Barros once more implied an unstable self. Why is she looking for herself if she is already present? If she acts as if she is not herself, is anyone going to find out who she is? In Beckett’s Not I, the mouth speaks in the third person. It insists that what it says concerns she, not I (What? . . .  who? . . . no! . . . she!). Beckett’s title comes from the mouth’s repeated assertion that the events it describes or alludes to happened to another: Not I. According to the literary critic Enoch Brater, “The ‘Mouth’ is not searching for a coexistence with itself, but is instead frantically running away from such an encounter.”55 De Barros’s quest echoes one expressed by the founder of surrealism, André Breton, in the first line of his novel Nadja (1928). Both narrator of and a character in the story, Breton asks, “Who am I? If this once I were to rely on a proverb, then perhaps everything would amount to knowing whom I ‘haunt.’ ”56 The novel concerns Breton’s brief encounter with a young woman with whom he becomes infatuated. His exchanges with Nadja lead to revelations about himself; she becomes a channel for his own self-­discovery—a journey about which he is both interested and frightened. Breton’s ultimate rejection of Nadja is also an expression of his refusal to accept his own vulnerability.57 Like Breton, de Barros grapples with the instability of the self through language. In her writings, she is both the I and the other— recalling Arthur Rimbaud’s famous quote, “I is another.” The phrase “Looking for myself ” implies a phantom I (as in I am searching for myself ). The French linguist Émile Benveniste made a distinction between énonce and énonciation—between what is said and the act of saying it. Benveniste said that there can be no I without a you; the pronoun I can only be used when I am speaking to a you.58 For Benveniste, any system of language involves the existence of an other. Whenever there is an addresser, there must be a receiver. The I utterance is a mobile sign (a shifter), an unstable signifier that

100

Chapter Two

changes every time someone utters it.59 When I say I, it does not refer to the same person as when you say I. I is an indexical sign that only refers to the one who uses it. With the phrase Procuro-­me, de Barros simultaneously is the subject and the object of the utterance. As in a soliloquy, she is the searcher and the searched, the enunciating subject and the subject of enunciation. But how can she search for herself if she is the person conducting the search? Benveniste approached the question this way: “What then is the reality to which ‘I’ or ‘You’ refers? It is solely a ‘reality of discourse.’ ”60 In other words, the circumstance in which a person is both the searcher and the searched can only exist in language; therefore, it is part of a symbolic order created exclusively through performative discourse. Using pronouns, shifters (like I and you), and images, de Barros repeatedly loops into her subjective pursuit without finding any satisfactory answers. In 2002 Procuro-­me became an outdoor installation consisting of four large canvas banners (each containing four images of her face) that were placed facing the street on the facade of the cultural space Centro Universitário Maria Antonia in São Paulo. The work provoked violent responses. Two weeks after it opened, some of the banners in the installation were vandalized, with de Barros’s self-­portraits defaced and covered with graffiti. In a subsequent attack a month later, some of her images were cut down and stolen. A group calling itself Art-­Attack took credit for the assault and sent letters that included such words as true art, cure, action, and destruction to the director of the cultural center and the art critic of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo. Along with the letter, the group mailed de Barros images in which the artist’s face had been obliterated by black paint. They also effaced part of the work’s title, shortening it to Curo-­me (Healing myself ). In 2003 Procuro-­me became a video-­performance. In the first shot we see a plane landing at an airport in Curitiba, in the state of Paraná (fig. 2.29). A gray suitcase with Procuro-­me stamped in red appears on a luggage carousel. Inside the suitcase are flyers bearing the familiar close-­ups of the artist with different hairdos and a puzzled face. Pushing a shopping cart, de Barros goes on to distribute the leaflets in newsstands and department stores. A garbage collector spots them and says, “It looks like the fbi posters: ‘Dead or Alive.’ ” Taking a flyer, he asks, “What could she have done?” The absurdity of the situation continues to unfold. Creating an even greater sense of bewilderment, someone says: “Look! She is standing right next to you. . . . She is the person from the posters.” De Barros doesn’t confirm or deny that she is the woman on the poster, moving away with her suitcase.



Discursive Practices

101

Then, she enters a restroom at Fundação Cultural de Curitiba Moinho Rebouças, placing an empty frame emblazoned with the words Procuro-­me around the lavatory’s mirror and standing before it (fig. 2.30). As she encounters the reflection of her image in the mirror, de Barros expresses a sense of perplexity, as if she could neither find her resemblance through her imagistic representation nor establish a stable relationship between her face 2.28  Lenora de Barros, Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself ), wall of posters, installation view, exhibition at Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro, 2002. Courtesy of the artist.

102

Chapter Two

2.29  Lenora de Barros, Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself ), video still, Imagética exhibition, Fundação Cultural de Curitiba Moinho Rebouças, 2003. Photo: Ivana Vollaro. Courtesy of the artist.

and herself. At this moment, de Barros’s Procuro-­me reflects the psychoanalytical split of the self: the division between consciousness and the unconscious, two subjects that will never coincide with each other. As postulated by Freud, there is another in me: an unconscious that only manifests itself in latent-­dream thoughts, jokes, slips of tongue, and memory.61 From a psychoanalytical perspective, the primary experience of satisfaction is unrepeatable since the original object of desire can never be found again. For Lacan, desire can never be suppressed and, as humans, we will be always lacking and looking for something that doesn’t exist.62 Through Lacanian lenses, de Barros’s Procuro-­me is an eternal search for a desire that can never be fulfilled. As the video reaches its conclusion, de Barros—contemplating her reflection as if it failed to capture its referent—touches up her makeup, leaves the frame that says Procuro-­me around the bathroom mirror, and continues her journey. That moment of intimacy becomes an invitation for other experiences. The next woman who looks at herself in the empty framed mirror will

Discursive Practices

103

perhaps face the same questions that de Barros has been asking: Who am I? Whom do I haunt? Procuro-­me’s final incarnation came in 2007, when de Barros was the subject of an exhibition at Centro Universitário Maria Antonia in São Paulo—the venue where her banners had been defaced five years earlier. The exhibition consisted of a new series of works called Retalhação (Retaliation; fig. 2.31). This was another pun, since in Portuguese the word means both “to take revenge” and “to cut or shred.” This time, instead of searching for herself, de Barros went after the members of the group Art-­Attack who had targeted her work back in 2002, reversing the wording procuro-­me back to its traditional spelling procura-­se (wanted). One work in particular brought de Barros’s history with Procuro-­me to a point of, if not closure, at least repose. Hífen (Hyphen; fig. 2.32) consists sim-

2.30  Lenora de Barros, Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself ), video still, Imagética exhibition, Fundação Cultural de Curitiba Moinho Rebouças, 2003 (video director: Luciano Mariussi; assistant director: Ivana Vollaro). Courtesy of the artist.

104

Chapter Two

2.31  Lenora de Barros, Procura-­se linguagem (Wanted language), from the series Retalhação (Retaliation), 2007, digital print. Courtesy of the artist.

2.32  Lenora de Barros, Hífen (Hyphen), from the series Retalhação (Retaliation), 2007, digital print. Photo: Fernando Laszlo. Courtesy of the artist.

ply of a black hyphen sign painted on canvas, a symbol that simultaneously unites and separates. De Barros explained, “When I was working on Hífen, I thought the route traveled by this work had been concluded—and that this punctuation mark, which somehow joined and separated me from my attackers, would work as the full stop to the story.”63 Despite de Barros’s assertion of conclusion, Procuro-­me continues to express significant issues beyond its own time, as do all of the works discussed 106

Chapter Two

here. They express pain, anger, endurance, vulnerability, self-­mutilation, and astonishment in their resistance against authoritarianism, censorship, pseudo­ science, and normative behaviors. Through the use of tongues, mouths, and close-­ups, these works express an implicit violence in their battle against muteness imposed from within and without. In photographs, photomontages, photocopies, collages, assemblages, posters, installations, poems, woodcuts, sculptures, videos, Super 8 films, propositions, and performances, these artists shared vivências, celebrated poetic language, analyzed the multiple roles of women in society, documented the hardships of dislocation and everyday life, attested to the impossibility of language to fully communicate, and challenged the constructions of fixed identities. Rather than presenting themselves as a unitary self, they come forth as the one and the many.



Discursive Practices

107

3

Become like me and [then] I will respect your difference.

TRANSGRESSIVE

PRACTICES

—Alan Badiou, Ethics

The artist Márcia Pinheiro wore only plastic capes, one transparent and a second made of black trash bags—an outfit she called não-­roupas (nonclothes). Little by little, the black bag was cut away, gradually revealing her naked body beneath the see-­through layer. This action took place at a notorious 1985 performance called Cellofane Motel Suite, done in collaboration with her then partner Alex Hamburger at the II Feira Internacional do Livro (Second International Book Fair), held in a shopping mall in Rio de Janeiro. As the performance progressed, security guards were called, and the duo was escorted out the mall. News of the performance reached the media, and a well-­known fashion designer socialite, also named Márcia Pinheiro, was outraged to be associated with the scandalous seminaked performance artist. To avoid future conflicts with the stylist, Márcia Pinheiro the artist added an X to her first name in reference to the X rating her reputation had attained. By connecting her name to pornography, she aimed to confront conservative social values; further, the letter X is also often used to represent the unknown or the indescribable. For the artist Ricardo Basbaum, by adding X to her name, “Márcia connected herself with the particle that indicates a continuous movement, a permanent alertness to something still undone, to something more yet to be done.”1

This tale reveals much about the state of the visual arts in Brazil in the mid-­1980s. When news of Márcia X and Hamburger’s performance hit the papers, the couple was not yet established in the Brazilian artistic milieu. In fact, Márcia X swam against the current of her generation. She had little to do with the better-­known figures of Geração 80 (80s Generation), the group of Brazilian visual artists who came to the fore with the demise of the dictatorship. Launched with the 1984 exhibition Como vai você geração 80? (How are you, 80s generation?) at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro, Geração 80 was credited with a revival of painting in Brazil, blamed for being depoliticized and for catering to the art market.2 Unlike the Ge­ração 80 artists, Márcia X had no commercial representation during her short life and career, which was rooted in the experimental spirit of the 1970s, when the market for contemporary art in Brazil was virtually non­ existent and fairly amateurish.3 The couple hit the headlines again when the composer John Cage attended a recital in his honor at the Sala Cecilia Meireles Concert Hall in Rio de Janeiro on October 11, 1985. The performance opened with Cage chanting “Muyoce,” a work he had composed in tribute to James Joyce. Cage then left the stage and sat in the audience among the Brazilian cultural elite, including musician Caetano Veloso, filmmaker Cacá Diegues, and poet Waly Salomão. The show was sold out, and the room was packed.4 As the concert reached its grand finale, with Cage’s Winter Music (1957)5 interpreted by six pianists, something unexpected happened: Márcia X and Hamburger invaded the stage and created an impromptu “Happening,” riding creaky tricycles belonging to Márcia X’s two-­and three-­year-­old nephews. The couple moved around the pianos, adding cacophony to an already unusual concert. As she pedaled on stage, Márcia X held a notecard in her mouth bearing the words Ser serrote não é defeito, defeito é viver serrando (To be a saw is not a defect, the defect is to live sawing). The duo called their action Tricyc(l)age: Música para 2 velocípedes e pianos (Tricyc[l]age: Music for two tricycles and pianos; 1985; fig. 3.1)—the first word a mash-­up of tricycle and cage. Known for his Zen worldview and celebrated for such chance compositions as the groundbreaking 4'33" (1952)—where a musician sits at a piano for the titular duration without playing as the audience listens to the sounds of its environment—Cage did not comment on the duo’s abrupt intervention. Undertaken without his consent or knowledge, it was uncertain whether he had approved of it. We do know that Veloso described the action as “ridicule”—and that it was the last time Cage visited Brazil.



Transgressive Practices

109

3.1 

Márcia X and Alex Hamburger, Tricyc(l)age: Música para 2 velocípedes e pianos (Tricyc[l]age: Music for 2 tricycles and pianos), 1985. Photo: Daniela Moraes. Collection of mam-­Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Donated by Therezinha de Jesus Estellita Pinheiro de Oliveira. Donation was made possible by resources of the Prêmio Prócultura de Estímulo às Artes Visuais, 2010-­funarte.

Cage’s concert took place in the year that marked the end of two decades of military rule in Brazil, the culmination of a “slow, gradual, and secure” political opening of the nation.6 After democracy was restored, a general sense of optimism emerged, along with the drive to move into a new era. This was an awakening from the mood of grief that had dominated the country for the previous twenty years. With the end of the authoritarian regime, artists no longer had to circumvent censorship or battle state repression. A sort of political amnesia dominated the cultural sphere, with politically explicit art considered outdated and more properly relegated to the province of panfletária (pamphlets). It was at that moment that Márcia X’s humorous and irreverent interventions appeared; timely and refreshing though they may have been, few art critics or curators took them seriously. 110

Chapter Three

3.2 Márcia X and Alex Hamburger, I Macambiada Volante, 1987, performance. Photo: Aimberê Cesar. Collection of mam-­ Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Donated by Therezinha de Jesus Estellita Pinheiro de Oliveira. Donation was made possible by resources of the Prêmio Prócultura de Estímulo às Artes Visuais, 2010-­funarte.

Márcia X was not affiliated with any artistic group, though she did have connections to a collective called A Moreninha (The Little Brunette), whose members were averse to the market-­oriented production of Geraçāo 80 and advocated for an experimental, multimedia practice beyond the field of painting involving audacious actions and interventions. Though not an official member of the group, Márcia X was close to many of its members. With Hamburger, she participated in one of its events called Lapada Show, held at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeria Brumado in 1987 (fig. 3.2). There, the couple circulated around the gallery in an old red vw Beetle adorned with numbers mimicking those of a racecar. With a megaphone they recited poems they called pamonhas, a term referencing the street vendors who roam Rio de Janeiro’s neighborhoods early in the morning and use loudspeakers mounted on their vans to hawk pamonhas, a dish similar to Mexican tamales.7 Recalling Márcia X and Hamburger’s intervention at the Cage concert, members of A Moreninha in February 1987 invaded the prestigious Galeria Saramenha in Rio de Janeiro, where Italian curator Achille Bonito Oliva, a leading voice of the international “return to painting” movement, was giving a lecture.8 Bonito Oliva was a celebrated figure in the art world for coining (in 1979) the term transvanguardia (beyond the avant-­garde), which described a movement that advocated for the freedom to incorporate different periods, styles, and subjects—including mythology, popular art, classicism, figuration, and abstraction—into works of art. This movement wished to revive the expressive potential of painting in reaction to the more austere conceptual Italian movement Arte Povera.9 Bonito Oliva had visited Brazil several times before, and many artists and critics there considered his concept of the

Transgressive Practices

111

transvanguardia an appropriation of the Brazilian Nova Figuração (Neofiguration) movement of the 1960s. At the same time, Geração 80 was accused of being derivative of the Italian movement. So, when Bonito Oliva came to Rio in 1987, his presence raised a stir among some artists and curators. Members of A Moreninha decided to debunk the claim that Geração 80 was a byproduct of the transvanguardia or, worse, subservient to international artistic trends. The group entered the critic’s lecture wearing donkey ears, some of them dressed as waiters distributing candies from trays—a sarcastic reference to Bonito Oliva’s talk about his “Progetto Dolce” (Sweet Project), which was meant to be an international version of transvanguardia. The artist Enéas Valle took his place in the audience and turned his back to the stage, watching the Italian critic’s lecture through a car’s rearview mirror. One member of A Moreninha brought a tape recorder playing country music mixed with excerpts from the pre-­Socratic philosopher Heraclitus. The group kept interrupting the critic’s talk, standing up and sitting down throughout the presentation. Aware that he was to be targeted, Bonito Oliva had asked gallery staff to make sure any demonstrations occurred before or after his lecture. When the invasion occurred during his talk, the critic became annoyed, lost his composure, and attacked one of the Brazilian artists, throwing his tape recorder on the floor.10 Bonito Oliva unleashed a few insults, and the artist Milton Machado doused the critic in whiskey.11 After the incident, the critic condemned A Moreninha’s action in the newspaper Jornal do Brasil, dismissing the collective as agents of a cultura sambista (samba culture) and casting Brazilian popular and grassroots artistic endeavors as inferior to and less sophisticated than Eurocentric modernity. If A Moreninha’s goal was to affirm Brazilian visual arts as a valued and equal contributor to the international art scene; Bonito Oliva, conversely, reinforced the stereotype of Brazilian culture as an exotic and folkloric byproduct of “samba, sweat, and beer.”12 Either directly or behind the scenes, Márcia X was involved in these performances, though her work would only reach its peak in the 1990s, when she became the first Brazilian woman to engage with erotic art, probing society’s moralism, conservatism, and cynicism. In the series Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory; 1991 – 2004; fig. 3.3), Márcia X ironically addressed women and children’s sexuality at a time when no one was tackling such issues in the visual arts in Brazil. In this series, she juxtaposed plastic and rubber dildos purchased from sex shops at Saara, a popular shopping area in downtown Rio de Janeiro, with feminine and childish adornments including pompoms, fur,

112

Chapter Three

3.3 

Márcia X, Sem título (Untitled), from the series Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory), 1991 – 2004, pair of doll eyes on rubber penis and battery-­powered mechanism. Photo: Vicente de Mello. Gilberto Chateaubriand mam-­Rio Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

buttons, bags, medals, mirrors, plastic dolls, and toy characters from fairy tales. Some of the dildos were ornamented with religious paraphernalia like rosary beads and images of saints (fig. 3.4). Some incorporated cheap vibrators and rotary movements; others featured an audio recording that could be activated by motion sensors. These dildos, “anonymous and impersonal on store shelves,” wrote Márcia X, “ended up embodying diverse ‘personas,’ transforming themselves into phallic and feminine, pornographic and childish, sacred and profane objects.”13 Her main strategy, she said, was “to transform pornographic objects into children’s objects and children’s objects into pornographic objects, merging elements that are situated by social conventions and moral codes in antagonistic positions.”14 These objects play with notions of taboo and transgression, putting into practice Bataille’s assertion that “the taboo is there to be violated. . . . The taboo would forbid the transgression but the fascination compels it.”15 In other words, taboos invite transgression by simultaneously triggering terror and fascination, fear and defiance. The juxtaposition of children toys, religious relics, and pornographic tools also implied a critique of sexual abuse and the pedophilia scandals inside the Catholic Church. As the curator Fernando Cocchiarale noted, “In the Fábrica fallus series, Márcia X began to invest in the systematic demolition of the aesthetic, ethical, and political values of machismo and the most oppressive face of the religious institution of Catholicism.”16 By ironically juxtaposing dildos with religious objects, she scandalously desacralized holy icons in a country where the Catholic Church is the largest denomination. The work solidified her reputation as radical, inconvenient, and irreverent. Though not a self-­proclaimed feminist, Márcia X encouraged female sexual agency in her performative practice and sarcastically criticized the phallocentric order. With the popularization of psychoanalysis among the middle and upper classes in Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s, Freud’s assumptions that all women suffer from penis envy were reinforced on countless analysts’ couches. Elaborating on Freud’s theory, Lacan dislocated the literal penis into a symbolic phallus, which was then converted into a signifier of power and desire. With a mordant sense of humor, Márcia X played with the penis as a fetishist object of desire. As the curator Sérgio Bessa wrote, “It is unlikely that anyone may charge [Márcia X] with suffering from ‘penis envy’ or being a ‘recalcitrant feminist,’ since her art is not accusatory, let alone divisive or defiant.”17 Fábrica fallus is an irreverent critique of the cult of the

114

Chapter Three

3.4 

Márcia X, En nombre del padre (In the father’s name), from the series Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory), 1991 – 2004, silicone phallus, wood, fabric, metal, glass, and electronic components. Collection of mam-­Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Donated by Therezinha de Jesus Estellita Pinheiro de Oliveira. Donation was made possible by resources of the Prêmio Prócultura de Estímulo às Artes Visuais, 2010-­funarte.

3.5 

Márcia X, Sem título (Untitled), from the series Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory), 1991–2004, synthetic hair sewn on plastic over rubber penis and battery-­powered mechanism. Photo: Sérgio Guerini. Gilberto Chateaubriand mam-­Rio Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

phallus in Western societies. In her hands, the penis/phallus conundrum became an object of female playfulness and enjoyment. The biting humor of the Fábrica fallus shares similarities with the Mexican artist Maris Bustamante’s 1992 work El pene como instrumento de trabajo (The penis as a work instrument). Bustamante manufactured three hundred cardboard masks of her own face, replacing the nose with a phallus that was identified by a tag as a “work instrument,” and then distributed them to the audience during the performance Caliente-­Caliente (Hot-­Hot; 1982) by the No-­Grupo in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Bustamante’s masquerade was a performative male parody in which she uses the fake penis as a powerful symbol of success in the professional world. Usually, masks are used to conceal or efface, but here the mask is used to make visible the gender asymmetry in the work force, in which maleness is often a signifier of efficiency. Both Márcia X’s Fabric fallus and Bustamante’s El pene como instrument de trabajo resonate with Paul B. Preciado’s Countersexual Manifesto (2002), in which the philosopher and queer theorist questions the male pretense that a biological penis is equivalent to the symbolic phallus, thus condemning the psychoanalytical equation that “phallus equals power,” and contesting the sovereignty of the phallus in Western society. In his manifesto, Preciado displaced both penis and phallus with the dildo.18 Since the dildo is neither male nor female but a mere artificial prosthesis, it is available to all sexes and genders and therefore can provide pleasure to all people regardless of orientation or identification. (In this regard, it is interesting to note that when Márcia X added the X to her name in 1985, she anticipated the twenty-­first century adoption of X as an inclusive signifier for fluidity beyond the binary male/female gender distinction.) Márcia X continued to play with sexuality and eroticism in her next installation, Kaminhas Sutrinhas (Little Kama Sutras; 1995; figs. 3.6 and 3.7). It consisted of twenty-­eight tiny beds on which headless and unclothed (and thus ungendered) dolls were arranged in couples and threesomes simulating sexual positions. Each bed had a set of sheets and pillows printed and embroidered with juvenile motifs. Originally designed to crawl mechanically, the dolls were rigged to mimic the poses and movements of the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian guide to the intensification of sexual pleasure—all while the Disney song “It’s a Small World” played in the background. These shockingly graphic tableaux performed by dolls elicit laughter as well as discomfort in the viewers. Kaminhas Sutrinhas was the centerpiece of the 1995 exhibition of the same name, curated by Claudia Saldanha at Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto in Rio de Janeiro. According to Saldanha, “It was at that

Transgressive Practices

117

3.6 

Márcia X, Kaminhas Sutrinhas (Little Kama Sutras), 1995, metal beds, padded fabric, dolls, and electric system. Photo: Vicente de Mello. Gilberto Chateaubriand mam-­Rio Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

moment that people realized that something very critical was taking place in Márcia X’s playful performances and installations.”19 An earlier video performance anticipated many of the themes in Kaminhas Sutrinhas. In Lovely Babies (1993), Márcia X wore a white robe that hid a protuberance, as if she were pregnant.20 But when she opened her robe, it was clear that she was not carrying a child but had an object in her panties, one that looked more like an erect penis than a natural “baby bump.” As she lowered her underwear, a mechanical crawling doll emerged. Márcia X called the doll “mommy’s love.” The performance grew creepier as the artist stripped off the doll’s clothes and pulled off its head, throwing it to the audience. She then took another mechanical doll from her pocket and placed the two of them in sexual poses; this was the birth of the Kaminhas Sutrinhas. The performance ended with Márcia X sitting on the floor and having the 118

Chapter Three

headless doll crawl toward her vagina, suggesting an erotic interaction between infant and mother. This work humorously points to biological theories and religious doctrines that preach that the goal of women’s sexuality is procreation. Moreover, Márcia X mocked the myths of universal maternal love, compulsory motherhood, and the psychoanalytical notion that women can only achieve fulfillment by giving birth to a child as a penis substitute.21 Sexuality, religion, and eroticism were at the core of Márcia X’s 2000 installation Desenhando com terços (Drawing with rosaries; fig. 3.8) at Casa de Petrópolis-­Instituto de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro. For six uninterrupted hours she took strings of white rosaries from around her neck and “drew” erect penises with them until the entire floor of the gallery was filled with four hundred rosaries in the shape of phalluses. When the performance was com3.7 



Márcia X, detail of Kaminhas Sutrinhas (Little Kama Sutras), 1995, metal beds, padded fabric, dolls, and electric system. Photo: Vicente de Mello. Gilberto Chateaubriand mam-­Rio Collection, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

Transgressive Practices

119

3.8 

Márcia X, Desenhando com terços (Drawing with rosaries), 2000 – 2001. Photo: Vivia 21. Performance at Casa de Petrópolis  –  Instituto de Cultura (2000), Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro.

pleted, the work became an ephemeral installation for the brief duration of the exhibition titled O século das mulheres—algumas artistas (The century of women—some artists); through a video recording and photographs, it then became a permanent work of art.22 After Márcia X’s death from cancer at the early age of forty-­five in 2005, a photograph of one of her phallic rosaries was displayed in the group exhi­ bition Erótica (Erotic) at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro in April 2006 (fig. 3.9). A Brazilian politician and member of the ultraconservative Catholic Opus Dei sect saw the work and demanded that it be removed from the show immediately; the venue obliged, and a significant protest organized by the artistic community soon followed, giving the artist long overdue and well-­deserved recognition.23 If during her life Márcia X was the sole Brazilian voice desacralizing religious icons, her peers abroad 120

Chapter Three

addressed similar issues—and attracted comparable controversy. In 1989 Andres Serrano’s photograph Piss Christ (1987) was displayed in an exhibition at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-­Salem, North Carolina. The image depicted a plastic crucifix submerged in a small glass tank of the artist’s urine. Upon discovering that an image considered blasphemous and disgusting by many was being exhibited in an institution supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Senator Alphonse D’Amato tore up a reproduction of the work in protest on the floor of the US Senate. A decade later, in October 1999, the exhibition sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection opened at the Brooklyn Museum and included Chris Offili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary (1996), a canvas depicting flut-

3.9 



Márcia X, Desenhando com terços (Drawing with rosaries), 2000 – 2001, photogram and rosaries. Photo: Vivia 21. Collection of mam-­Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Donated by Therezinha de Jesus Estellita Pinheiro de Oliveira. Donation was made possible by resources of the Prêmio Prócultura de Estímulo às Artes Visuais, 2010-­funarte.

Transgressive Practices

121

tering cherubs surrounding a black Virgin Mary with bared breasts made of elephant dung set against a background of women’s buttocks clipped from pornographic magazines. When New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani learned of the work, he pronounced it offensive to the Catholic faith, accused the artist of sacrilege, and threatened to withdraw the city’s financial support from the museum and to close the exhibition.24 In addition to the conservative cultural war against “blasphemous” art, the 1990s was marked by sociopolitical and economic change and turmoil: the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of globalization, the birth of the internet and the digital revolution. Debates on multiculturalism and identity politics revitalized discussions on race, class, gender, and sexuality. The decade also saw the intensification of the aids crisis. In the art world, globalization led to an explosion in the market, the rise of a “star system” wherein a few select artists commanded astronomical prices, and the proliferation of international art fairs and biennials. In Brazil, there was a growing visibility for the visual arts. During the 1990s a few local contemporary galleries started participating in major art fairs, such as Art Basel, Frieze London, and ARCOmadrid, among others. Works by a handful of contemporary Brazilian artists joined important private and institutional collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Despite the reestablishment of a free press and open elections in Brazil, the country soon entered a period of hyperinflation and economic decline. Inequality and violence continued to escalate. Social conflicts—including urban violence, criminalization of the favelas, and rampant government corruption—surged. New agents of repression came to the fore: Drug gangs and paramilitary groups known as militias started imposing terror through organized crime, creating a violent apparatus targeting inhabitants of the favelas and deviant bodies, including homosexual, queer, and trans people, in which torture, assassinations, and disappearances became aspects of a bleak reality. The historian André Mesquita noted, “It would be a mistake to claim that repressive structures were deactivated with the end of the military regime. In the postdictatorship period, their arrangements were bureaucratized and institutionalized, contributing to the ‘naturalization of atrocities.’ ”25 With the democratization of Brazil in the mid-­1980s, no longer were political dissidents and communists persecuted, but the Blacks, the poor, and slum dwellers. The former military and authoritarian regime gave way to new

122

Chapter Three

modes of subjugation, oppression, and violence. Militias seized control of impoverished neighborhoods, putting millions of people under their power and control.26 Concomitantly, new practices of resistance surfaced to undermine and expose these agents of repression. Rosângela Rennó: Scars as Corporeal Inscriptions

In 1989 Fernando Collor de Mello became the first president elected by popular vote in Brazil’s newly democratic era; three years later, he turned into the first to be impeached for corruption, bringing an abrupt end to the optimism his election sparked. Coincidentally, on the last day of Collor de Mello’s presidency (October 2, 1992) 111 inmates were killed by military police in São Paulo’s Carandiru prison complex. The event, which became known as the Carandiru massacre, was triggered by a dispute between rival drug-­ trafficking gangs. The news media featured gruesome images of naked bodies lying in zinc coffins with numbers stamped on them for identification, and the massacre marked the blatant violence and license displayed by Brazil’s police. In the wake of the Carandiru massacre, Rosângela Rennó launched the project O Arquivo Universal (The Universal Archive; 1992 – ongoing; fig. 3.10), consisting of miscellaneous excerpts taken from stories in the media about crime, violence, society, art, and culture, among other subjects. While conducting research for the project, Rennó came across fifteen thousand black-­and-­white glass photographic negatives of male inmates from São Paulo’s state penitentiary (also part of the Carandiru complex) taken between 1920 and 1939 at the direction of the prison’s chief psychiatrist, José de Moraes Mello.27 This image archive had been forgotten for more than fifty years.28 The negatives were kept in the basement of the prison, stored carelessly in cardboard boxes, where they became damaged over time. Their precarious state of conservation, the lack of an established procedure for filing the images, and the inexperience of the personnel involved in maintaining the collection all contributed to the photographs’ poor condition. From the archive, Rennó selected images of prisoners with tattoos on their backs, chests, legs, arms, and hands, depicting such universal symbols as hearts, stars, crosses, flowers, and saints. Combining texts she had gathered for O Arquivo Universal and photographs from the prison registers, Rennó created the series Cicatriz (Scars; 1996), in which she juxtaposed words and images without any direct association.29 For instance, next to a tattoo on a prisoner’s arm depicting an embracing couple, the text read as follows:



Transgressive Practices

123

3.10 Rosângela Rennó, Sem título (Wetbag) [Untitled (Wetbag)], 1998-­ 99, from the series Vulgo/Pirelli (Alias/ Pirelli), 1999, part of Projeto Arquivo Universal (Universal Archive Project), 1992 – . Courtesy of the artist.

A forty-­four-­year-­old kiss is the subject of a complicated French lawsuit. A sexagenarian couple is claiming rights to a 1950 photograph taken by F. F. on a Paris street. The picture has been seen all over the world. Now X. X. and Y. X. want to remove it from circulation and receive royalties from its commercialization. The couple feels that they were caught unaware by F. F. during a moment of newlywed happiness and want to retain the rights over that moment.30 When placed together, the anonymous couple’s story and the image on the prisoner’s arm—though actually unrelated—suggest a possible fictional narrative. According to Rennó, the high quality of the penitentiary’s photographs (despite the indifferent treatment the negatives subsequently received) attests to the fact that they were taken with a measure of respect for the prisoners. In this they are different from the usual mugshots, which are often executed with detachment and an accusatory undertone.31 In Rennó’s hands, the tattoos became symbols of singularity and affection. In the series Cicatriz (Scars; 1996, fig. 3.11), while she cropped out all identifiable features from the photographs, such as the inmate’s prison number and facial features, she opted for images that expressed affect, choosing tattoos that evoked hope, helplessness, love, and longing. When Rennó first encountered the prison archive, she was curious to know if any scientific study had been conducted connecting the inmates’ tattoos to deviant behavior. In 1997 she visited the Museo di Antropologia Criminale Cesare Lombroso (Museum of Criminal Anthropology Ce-

124

Chapter Three

sare Lombroso) in Torino, Italy. There she found a cache of photographs from the São Paulo Penitentiary’s archive taken during the same period as the photos Rennó used in Cicatriz, suggesting that some research had likely been done relating the São Paulo images to Lombroso’s ideas about biological determinism and criminal behavior.32 In the late nineteenth century, Lombroso introduced modern profiling into the criminal justice system. By establishing what he argued was a typology of criminal facial features, Lombroso gave police a pseudoscientific tool that helped popularize the notion of the “born criminal,” as he believed that criminality was a hereditary disposition unconnected to an individual’s social conditions.33 Indeed, Lombroso had addressed in general terms the connection between tattoos and crime: “Although not exclusively confined to criminals, tattooing is practiced by them to a far larger extent than by ordinary individuals: Recidivists and born criminals, whether thieves or murderers, show the highest per3.11  Rosângela Rennó, Sem titulo (mãos com estrelas) [Untitled (hands with stars)], 1996, from the series Cicatriz (Scars), 1996, pigmented ink print on cotton paper. Original from Penitentiary Museum of São Paulo. Courtesy of the artist.



Transgressive Practices

125

centage of tattooing.”34 For Lombroso, tattooing reflected both the insensitivity of criminals to pain and their atavistic love of adornment. The São Paulo prison allegedly recorded prisoners’ tattoos as a way of tracking recidivism and preventing ex-­cons from adopting new identities. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault noted that bodily inscriptions are part of an inventory related to the “semiology of crime,” thus reinforcing criminals’ stigma and their subculture. He deemed such tattoos a “vignette of their deeds or their fate,” an insignia of their crimes.35 Foucault demonstrated how a whole regime of “branding” was created around prison life through tactics of subjection, making inmates the bearers of their own crimes, the displayers of their own offenses. Once convicted, offenders recognize and assimilate their condition as transgressors of social codes, and tattoos become part of prisoners’ self-­regulation of their own bodies.36 Tattoos are undeletable signs that ensure they never forget their deeds and function as a language inscribed on the body as a form of discipline, a mark of belonging to the norms inside the prison. Thus, the tattoo has a twofold role: in the outside world, it is a mark of exclusion; for inmates, it is a sign of inclusion in the prison culture. Ambiguously, these corporeal inscriptions allude both to the anonymity of life in prison and to the desire to create some singularity within that system. While they reinforce the prisoners’ stigma and shame, tattoos also function as marks of resistance, an insistence on one’s own individuality. They can be a way to escape the annihilation of the prisoner’s identity inside the prison complex. As a place of seclusion, the prison deliberately triggers curiosity. Like prison itself, the tattoos are both fascinating and disturbing. As the scholar Elizabeth Seaton argued, “The prisoner’s tattooed body is one more gear of this oiled voyeuristic machine.”37 The photographs of tattooed bodies address both the institutional, disciplined gaze focused on the inmates and their resistance to subjugation. Ultimately, these works pose the question: Who has the right to their own representation? In Rennó’s next series, Vulgo (Alias; 1998 – 99; fig. 3.12), the artist also selected images from the penitentiary archive that pointed to the perversity of the voyeuristic eye on prisoners’ bodies. Some inmates’ heads are shaved and others exhibit patterns of scalp and hair colored by the artist in red, making them seem bloody. Once again Rennó gives no clue about the identity of these bodies. The result, said Rennó, “is a sensation of vertigo . . . because in the search to define the ‘Other’ what we find is a lack, emptiness, and an amnesic failure that blocks any possibility of identification.”38 Both Cicatriz and Vulgo expose a prison system that exists to obscure the existence of the 126

Chapter Three

3.12  Rosângela Rennó, Três buracos (Three holes), 1998, from the series Vulgo (Alias), 1998 – 99, laminated digital Cibachrome print. Original from Penitentiary Museum of São Paulo. Courtesy of the artist.

incarcerated, obliterating their past, present, and future. Rennó’s images and texts are a powerful critique of institutional power and its violent apparatus of effacement. More important than what these images reveal is what they hide. Rennó dislikes the way photographs are usually tied to memory, since memories can be deceitful: “The expression indirectly refers to the process and the ability of photographs to capture an eternal moment, saving the image from a spiritual death. All the sociological discourse on photography is based upon this. I think it is a mistake because you are never able to rescue anything from it, from its past. Like our own memory, they are not truthful.”39 If one of the main functions of an archive is to preserve history, Rennó understands that there is not only “one” history to be told, but rather a plurality of narratives, though oftentimes only the dominant discourse survives. Just as the personal stories of the São Paulo inmates were obliterated, so the site of the Carandiru massacre was erased. In 2002 the Carandiru complex was demolished as part of a state project to eradicate memory of the massacre, one of the deepest scars in Brazil’s violent history. Rosana Paulino: Sutures and Stitchery

In the hands of Rosana Paulino, bodily inscriptions likewise remind us of horrific histories that have been silenced and erased. In the celebrated series Bastidores (Embroidery hoops; 1997), Paulino appropriated six photographs of her female relatives taken from family albums and then chemically transferred them to pieces of fabric attached to wooden embroidery hoops. Paulino then stitched coarse black threads over the eyes, mouths, and throats of the images of these women. Paulino’s sutures point to traces of slavery, torture, and silence imposed on Black bodies, and the series calls attention to the voiceless condition of Black women in Brazil—women who, from slavery up to the present day, have had little or no chance for social mobility. Drawing on her Afro-­Brazilian heritage, Paulino said, “My works question the position occupied by African descendants in the Brazilian social fabric [by] discussing elements such as social-­symbolic passing of the wet nurse to nanny, the maid to the housemaid.”40 Domestic work is still largely performed by women of color in most upper-­and middle-­class households in Brazil, in both conservative and liberal segments of society. Paulino’s mother was a seamstress. Unlike the delicate beauty of her mother’s intricate stitchery, the artist’s needle is violent, resulting in highly

128

Chapter Three

visible patches rather than small hidden stitches. They expose rather than close wounds in Black bodies that have been subject to many centuries of abuse. Paulino explains, “Most of my sewn work applies the stitching technique used in surgery known as suture. Usually people unknowingly put embroidery and sutures in the same box . . . because both use a thread and a needle, when they are [actually] very different. . . . A suture implies a certain amount of force putting the parts together, which indicates violence. My work is miles away from things fancy.”41 Curator Fabiana Lopes notes that Paulino takes embroidery “into a semantic territory of power and violence against woman.”42 Art historian Julia Bryan-­Wilson observes that sewing is a way of keeping memories connected to gender and its traumatic history, asking, “What does it mean to utilize a knitting needle as a dangerous tool, and to envision craft as a process that might harm, injure, or wound?”43 In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir declared, “With the needle or the crochet hook, woman sadly weaves the very nothingness of her days.”44 In Paulino’s working-­class family, needlework was never a sign of idleness or boredom but a tool for economic survival. Paulino’s Bastidores series alludes to the need to write histories that have been suppressed by official narratives. It exposes a dark history that resists being exposed. Her collages of photographs, fabric, wood, and threads become a fictional archive that does not record evidence of the horrific deeds but nevertheless evokes their presence, corroborating curator Okwui Enwezor’s observation that “artistic models become historicizing constructs.”45 Such models serve as tools to awaken viewers to a history that has been obliterated and forgotten. Two of the most emblematic pieces from the Bastidores series feature the stitched mouths of Paulino’s sister (fig. 3.13) and grandmother (fig. 3.14). This muzzling recalls one of the most horrifying images out of Brazilian history: the iron mask the enslaved woman known as Anastacia was forced to wear (fig. 3.15). It consisted of a piece of metal placed inside her mouth and fixed around her head with cords.46 European colonizers used this device to prevent enslaved Africans from eating sugar cane or cocoa beans while working on plantations. It also effectively spread fear, marking the mouth as the site of speechlessness, dispossession, and torture—the part of the body that whites want and need to control. Portuguese artist and writer Grada Kilomba asks, “Who can speak? What happens when we speak? And what can we speak about?”47 These are the very questions Paulino raises, addressing her ancestors’ experiences—as well as her own as an Afro-­Brazilian woman in contemporary times.

Transgressive Practices

129

3.13 + 3.14 Rosana Paulino, from the series Bastidores (Embroidery hoops), 1997, photocopy transferred on fabric, wooden embroidery hoops, and sewing threads. Photo: Rosana Paulino. Courtesy of the artist.

3.15  Slave Anastacia.

Paulino was one of the first Brazilian artists to embrace the banner of identity politics when she entered the art scene in the 1990s. The veiled racial discrimination that permeates the country to this day is at the core of her work. She questions the notion of “racial democracy” in the formation of Brazilian society, a fallacy given form in Gilberto Freyre’s The Masters and the Slaves, an account that presents the relationships between colonizers and slaves as harmonious, thus erasing the brutality that permeated these associations, denying the existence of racism, and undermining the fact that it gave the white male total power over his slaves and his family. Freyre’s notion that slavery in Brazil was benign led to the popular misconception that still there is no racial inequality or race prejudice in Brazil.48 For many scholars and activists, the notion of mestiçagem, or racial miscegenation, lay at the core of the false belief of “racial democracy” as a symbol of Brazilian identity.49 The Afro-­Brazilian writer and activist Sueli Carneiro considers miscegenation to be the result of the colonial rape of Black women by white men in the past and the foundation of the myth of Brazilian racial cordiality and democracy. Often celebrated as a way of constructing an integrated multiracial society, miscegenation is, in Carneiro’s view, a strategy of racial domination that has as its goal the branqueamento (whitening) of the population of Brazil as a modern nation-­state.50 The critical race theorist Denise Ferreira da Silva argues that the lack of a clear division between Blacks and whites in Brazil has helped to maintain a myth of racial democracy, one that furthers the false impression that there is no racial conflict and segregation in the country.51 Unlike the United States, Brazil has never experienced institutionalized segregation or widespread acceptance of racial separation. It is commonly accepted that class distinctions rather than racial differences account for socioeconomic inequalities in Brazil, despite evidence of the wide social, political, and economic gap separating Blacks and whites. In a 1976 national research project the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics/ibge) asked respondents to self-­define their race based on their skin color. The result was 136 skin-­tone classifications.52 This outcome showed that diversity was so widespread that there was no point in attempting to record the races of the population. One effect of this situation can be found in a 2010 interview with the Brazilian soccer idol Neymar. Asked if he had ever experienced racism, Neymar replied, “Never. Not in the field, nor outside of it,” and added, “It’s not like I’m Black, you know?”53 The son of a Black father and a white

132

Chapter Three

mother, Neymar’s lighter skin tone allows him, like many Brazilians, to avoid questions about race in a country that imported the largest number of enslaved Africans during the era of the Atlantic slave trade (nearly five million people), did not abolish slavery until 1888 (making it the last nation in the Americas to do so), and has the largest population of Black descendants outside Africa. Fifty-­two percent of the country’s inhabitants may be Black and mixed race, but that does not translate into equality. The activist and philosopher Djamila Ribeiro states, “When you arrive at the peripheries in Brazil and you look at the people, you will see that the color of poverty is black. . . . We’re a mixed country but police bullets have a target, and they’re killing black bodies.”54 Perverse mechanisms of racial discrimination are likewise addressed in Renata Felinto’s performative practice. Rather than looking at it through the process of branquemento (whitening), Felinto addresses the notion of branquitude (white supremacy and privilege). In her darkly humorous video performance White Face and Blonde Hair from 2012 (fig. 3.16), Felinto dresses as a white executive and wears a long blond wig with straight hair, sunglasses, white shirt, black skirt, high heels, handbag, and pearl necklace. She walks through São Paulo’s upscale Jardins neighborhood, browsing at the high-­end boutiques and sipping coffee at fancy cafes, while waving a hand like an upper-­class lady. A white blonde socialite would pass unnoticed in this situation, but what is a Black woman with obvious white makeup on her face doing in these spaces of privilege? As Felinto applies her white makeup, she scorns the racist theatrical form of blackface. Starting in the nineteenth century, minstrel shows featured white actors who used dark greasepaint on their faces when depicting plantation slaves and free Blacks on stage, mocking and dehumanizing African Americans. Similar to this practice, in Brazilian television it is still common to see white actors imitating Blacks in sitcoms. In her satire of white women, Felinto inverts the offense, making fun of those who usually are the ones who stigmatize the “other.” Felinto says, “I want to return this embarrassment. I want to make these types laughable, in the same way that they make fun of Black people. I want to cause estrangement and provoke a nervous laugh.”55 In a 2012 satirical video performance, Felinto goes to gallery openings in São Paulo holding hands with a Black male partner (the Congolese artist Shambuyi Wetu) as both wear white make up and blonde wigs. After all, she says, the attractive blonde upper-­class woman is never alone (fig. 3.17).56 Felinto’s palpable presence is the reverse of the invisibility of white women in



Transgressive Practices

133

3.16  Renata Felinto, White Face and Blonde Hair, 2012, performance. Photo: Crioulla Oliveira. Courtesy of the artist.

3.17  Renata Felinto, White Face and Blonde Hair, 2012, performance. Photo: Isabella Alves. Courtesy of the artist and Shambuy Wetu.

spaces of privilege. Her work points out spaces of white entitlement that are seen as “neutral” by society. As the psychologist Edith Piza noted, having a white identity is the same of having no identity: it is to be perceived as “natural.”57 To be white is to attribute identity to others: it is the “others” that are seen, evaluated, named, classified, forgotten. Felinto’s caricature of white women from the middle and upper classes puts a magnifying glass on white supremacy and its exclusionary system of power in Brazilian society.58 As the anthropologist Lélia Gonzalez notes, “The whitening ideology is the most effective form of racism in Latin America, because it reproduces and perpetuates the belief that the values of white Western culture are the only true and universal ones. Once established, the myth of white superiority proves its effectiveness through the shattering, fragmenting effects of ethnic identity it produces; the desire to whiten (clean the blood, as they say in Brazil) is internalized with the denial of one’s own race, one’s own culture.”59 Mordantly, Gonzalez asks, “Racism? In Brazil? Who said? This is an American thing. Here there is no difference because everyone is Brazilian above all, thank God.”60

Transgressive Practices

135

Berna Reale: Violence and Power

Tactics of exclusion and discrimination also permeate the performances of Berna Reale. Her work exposes apparatuses of necropolitics, a term employed by the critical theorist Achille Mbembe in 2003 to denote a world plagued by ever-­increasing inequality, militarization, enmity, and terror, as well as a resurgence of racist, fascist, and nationalist forces determined to exclude and kill those who are deemed “surplus, unwanted, or illegal” by society.61 In her video performance Palomo (2012; fig. 3.18), Reale embodies the imposing, authoritarian figure of a police officer: she wears a padded black uniform, leather shoes, and gloves; her hair is shorn into a severe crew cut. She is mounted on Palomo, a horse trained by the military police to disperse protesters in political demonstrations and likely named for Simón Bolívar’s beloved white horse. The artist places a muzzle over her own mouth while riding the horse, which has been painted bright red. The scene takes place in the streets of Reale’s hometown, Belém, the capital of the northern state of 3.18  Berna Reale, Palomo, 2012, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

136

Chapter Three

Pará, in the Amazon region—well beyond the mainstream cultural centers of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Unlike the prosperous south, the northern regions of Brazil lack significant business investment and social safety nets, magnifying economic inequality. In this striking image, a symbiosis exists between Reale and Palomo: an alliance of human and animal, together they compose a majestic body, a herd of two. Palomo and Reale parade down the streets of Belém, keeping the town under surveillance. The performance was filmed at dawn, and the stores are closed, the inhabitants remain indoors. Nothing restrains the synergetic figure of the “rider horse” in its disciplinary mission. In her clothes, haircut, and posture, Reale resembles a male figure. The curator Luis Pérez-­ Oramas situates Palomo within the lineage of classical equestrian portraits and monuments in Western art, such as the bronze statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius at the Capitolium Museum in Rome and Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse (1498).62 For centuries, these images defined the male representation of power in public spaces. Why did Reale submit herself to the semiotics of masculinity? Perhaps because she had to embody male power in order to exert the disciplinary role of a police officer as well as to assert her total control over the horse. The muzzle ambiguously suggests someone restraining or being restrained, somebody exerting authority or whose authority has been denied. In this disturbing image, Reale points to abusive institutional power within the criminal justice system, the arbitrary exercise and abuse of the state through law enforcement. Palomo drew on Reale’s dual career roles. Having received a ba in visual arts from the Federal University of Belém in 1996, she entered the police academy in 2010 with the goal of supplementing her income as an artist. She then became a forensics expert working at the Institute of Criminalistics in Belém and started to incorporate her training into her artistic practice. Reale has suffered discrimination both from her peers in the arts, who accuse her of working as an agent of the state, and from her colleagues in criminology. She says, “It is not easy to be an artist and a criminal expert. It is like having to prove daily that you are competent for the job. . . . Imagine entering a public competition in the criminal justice system, where engineers, architects, doctors, economists compete for the same job with you and you are hired with your degree in the arts.”63 In an earlier performance, Quando todos calam (When everyone is silent; 2009; fig. 3.19), Reale lay naked on a table that is covered by a white cloth, inert, resembling a corpse. This was one of the first public performances to fea

Transgressive Practices

137

3.19  Berna Reale, Quando todos calam (When everyone is silent), 2009, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

ture full nudity by a Brazilian female artist, breaking a long-­held taboo. The scene takes place in Belém’s main public market, Ver o Peso—the biggest in Latin America, and a renowned location for business, tourism, and prostitution. Animal entrails cover her abdomen as vultures swarm around her body. This visceral tableau suggests a sacrificial offering in which Reale symbolically portrays female victims of domestic violence, rape, unsafe abortions, and femicide. Her body is laid bare for the gaze of unknown individuals, implying a figure that has been profaned, exposed, humiliated. The title implies both the silence imposed on abused women and the indifference of a public that passively witnesses the gruesome scene. And what of the vultures? They might refer to state violence, the prison system, extermination commandos, or the patriarchy; they could also signify the insatiable urge of the contemporary art market, which burdens artists with demands for commercial success over creative experimentation. In Limite zero (Zero limit; 2011; fig. 3.20), the artist, head shaved and naked, was strung up on an iron bar like an animal carcass while assistants removed her from a refrigerator truck and paraded her through the streets. 138

Chapter Three

Reale was disturbed by the reaction of the public to this performance. Objections to her nudity were more pronounced than those addressing her tortured and constrained pose. Some passersby called the police and asked that she be covered.64 As in Reale’s other performances, Limite aero evokes ambivalence. The people carrying her are dressed in white and wear rubber boots. Are they butchers hauling an animal carcass, or are they nurses attending to a dead body? Are they slaughterers or caregivers? Perhaps inevitably invoking the Passion of Christ, Limite zero also references a method of torture developed during the Brazilian military regime in which political prisoners were tied to a pole called pau-­de-­arara (parrot’s perch) during interrogation sessions. The work joins a tradition of feminist performances involving the exposure of female flesh in actions involving pain, self-­mutilation, and endurance.65 Among the earliest such performances was Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, first done in 1964. Ono sat motionless on stage, wearing a black dress, with a pair of scissors placed in front of her. Members of the audience were invited to

3.20  Berna Reale, Limite zero (Zero limit), 2011, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.



Transgressive Practices

139

come up to cut off a small piece of her clothing and take it with them. In 1968 Valie Export performed tapp und tastkino (touch and tap cinema), inviting passersby to touch her breasts by reaching behind a curtain, which covered the front of a box that she wore over her torso. Export challenged the public to physically engage with her naked body instead of peeking to see her bare breasts. Where pioneering feminist performances allowed space for improvisation by inviting the audience to interact with the artist’s body, Reale’s bold performances, created much later than these early feminist pieces leave no room for chance. Her pieces are carefully planned, scripted, and rehearsed. Props, hairstyles, costumes, body movements, choreography—everything is calculated down to the most minute detail. Reale’s practice operates in the space between theater and performance art. She commands a remarkable presence and invites a voyeuristic gaze. Reale constructs overaestheticized images for maximum effect. She believes in the immersive power of spectacle to evoke intensity and shock. On occasion, Reale will utilize “props” she has gathered from her work in criminal forensics. These archival materials become performative tools in her hands. Ordinário (Ordinary; 2013; fig. 3.21) shows Reale barefoot, wearing a long black dress, with cropped hair. She pushes a wooden handcart on the streets of Jurunas, one of the most violent neighborhoods of Belém. The wagon is filled with human skulls and bones from anonymous victims of gang warfare and police brutality as well as homeless people whose bodies were never claimed. (The performance required complex negotiations with state officials; Reale was allowed to borrow the bones in exchange for cleaning and cataloging them for the police.) As she makes her way down the street, Reale’s posture is regal, her head is erect, defying abuse, prejudice, and scorn. Bewildered, local residents look at her from their impoverished homes as if the specter of death itself is passing before them. Stray animals roam the dirt roads while children stare at the scene with a mixture of fear and amusement. Reale’s forensics-­based practice shares similarities with that of the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, who in the 1990s worked with dead bodies at a morgue in Mexico City. Margolles earned a certificate in forensic medicine and became a member of the art collective Semefo, which took its name from the acronym for the city coroner’s department. Margoles works in the violence-­ridden streets of the Mexican towns of Ciudad Juárez and Culiacan— hubs for illegal drug cartels—using in her art bodily fluids collected in the morgue as well as objects found at crime scenes. Her work is about the indexical vestiges left by drug violence: the remains of unclaimed corpses. 140

Chapter Three

3.21  Berna Reale, Ordinário (Ordinary), 2013, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

Interested in the “political life” of dead bodies, Margolles strives to render visible the mass of indigents who are immediately forgotten after they die— relegated to the streets and the morgue as nameless victims of Mexico’s daily violence.66 Both Reale and Margolles address the people at the margins of society. Their works evoke debasement and are entrenched in notions of the “abject.” In the 1930s Georges Bataille described the abject as an attraction to the rotten and the wasted. He observed, “What the system cannot assimilate must be rejected as excremental.”67 In examining Bataille’s writings on the abject, art historian Rosalind Krauss points to their association not only with the excretion of bodily fluids but also with social exclusions: “These texts identify social abjection with a violent exclusionary force operating within modern state systems, one that strips the laboring masses of their human dignity and reproduces them as dehumanized social waste.”68 Reale’s work sheds light on state negligence of underprivileged communities. In Cantando na chuva (Singing in the rain, 2014; fig. 3.22), Reale tap dances to the title song from 1952 film Singin’ in the Rain at a massive landfill in the greater Belém area. Arrayed entirely in gold, she wears a gas mask and carries an umbrella, happily dancing on a Hollywood-­style red carpet among

Transgressive Practices

141

trash collectors who earn a living sifting through piles of waste. Protected from the horrific odor and unashamed by her extravagant outfit, Reale embodies the contrast between the haves and the have nots—affluent society versus communities that live on collected trash. That same year Reale anticipated the #MeToo movement with a video performance condemning sexual harassment and abuse. Rosa púrpura (Purple rose; 2014; fig. 3.23) depicts Reale marching alongside fifty teenage girls dressed in traditional Catholic-­school uniforms. The scene might be just another innocuous local school parade if there weren’t something sinister about the girls’ seductive pink pleated skirts and the exaggerated plastic lips—like those inserted into inflatable sex dolls—they hold in their mouths. A local military band tails the girls as they march like a horde of mechanical dolls through the streets of Belém. This group of eroticized teenagers stands for victims of child prostitution, pedophilia, human trafficking, rape, and femicide. Reale said, “I don’t work with the individual body, I don’t talk about individual issues, I don’t care about personal memory; I am interested in the collective, in a body for everyone.”69 3.22  Berna Reale, Cantando na chuva (Singing in the rain), 2014, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

142

Chapter Three

3.23  Berna Reale, Rosa púrpura (Purple rose), 2014, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

Invited to represent Brazil in the 2015 Venice Biennale, she submitted the video performance Americano (American; 2013; fig. 3.24), made at a maximum-­ security prison on the outskirts of Belém. Here, Reale, wearing a tracksuit, runs through the darkened prison corridors carrying a light clearly meant to suggest the Olympic torch. Holding this “heroic” flame she illuminates the crowded, overheated cells as inmates scream and beg for water. Juxtaposing the idealism and glamour of the Olympic games with the inmates’ squalor circumstances, Americano was made at a time when Brazilians were taking to the streets to protest the astronomical sums spent by the state on sporting events such as the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro. It highlights the injustice of erecting monumental stadiums (soon to become abandoned mausoleums) instead of investing in health, education, and social programs for the population. Before the global protests and civil unrest supporting the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, Reale created the controversial performance Ginástica da pele (Skin gymnastics; 2019; fig. 3.25).70 Here she wears the summer uniform of a police officer: navy blue shorts and cap, white tank top and socks,

Transgressive Practices

143

black shoes. She marches in front of one hundred young men who wear only shorts in colors similar to their complexions. The young men are arranged according to their skin tone, darkest to lightest. More than two-­thirds of them are Black, reflecting the racial disparity in Brazil’s prison population.71 Most of the participants in Ginástica da pele were people of color and as such had encountered some form of harassment from law enforcement. Under a scalding sun, Reale rounds up these seminaked young men and organizes them into straight lines, like inmates ready for inspection. Aerial shots show them marching to the shrill command of Reale’s whistle, which signals a series of exhausting physical exercises and orderly movements: one, hands up; two, hands behind the head; three, knees on the ground; four, forehead on the asphalt, hands behind, as if waiting for handcuffs. Reale observes and inspects the kneeling bodies. These repetitive actions are a form of discipline imposing fear, submission, and humiliation, and they recall Foucault’s assertion that “the idea is to produce bodies that are both docile and capable.”72 Addressing corporeal mechanisms of power, Foucault noted, “the body is directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.”73 It is the hu3.24  Berna Reale, Americano (American), 2013, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

144

Chapter Three

3.25  Berna Reale, Ginástica da pele (Skin gymnastics), 2019, performance. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York.

man body that becomes the primary subject of violence in repressive political regimes. Ginástica da pele enacts how active surveillance and punishment produce a subjected and obedient social body. It also suggests an allegory of police violence against racial minorities. More than other polemical pieces by Reale, Ginástica da pele provoked heated controversy. The artist was accused of placing young men, mostly Black, in degrading positions. These detractors accused her of reinforcing the inferior place commonly assigned to Black bodies in society. They considered the work traumatic to a community already assaulted by violence. The issues raised by Reale’s video performance recalls the 2017 controversy around Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold (2012) at the Sculpture Garden of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The large-­scale sculpture made of wood, concrete, and steel recreated the seven gallows built for major executions in US history. One of the gallows was a replica of the one used for the hanging of thirty-­eight Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862—the largest mass execution in US history. The Dakota community protested that the work trivialized a traumatizing chapter in their history. As a result, the sculpture was removed and burned in a ceremony overseen by Dakota spiritual and traditional elders. At the time, Durant released a statement saying, “[Y]our protests have shown me that I made a grave miscalculation in how my work can be received by those in a particular community.”74  Contrary to Durant’s apologetic tone, Reale asserted that her performances come from a place of resistance and should be considered in light of her critical position as an eyewitness to police brutality in her job in law enforcement. Reale’s video performances risk being seen as promoting, glamorizing, or exploiting violence.75 Yet viewing her pieces through the lens of moral guilt misses the point. By mimicking and exposing society’s authoritarianism, Reale’s work is designed to provoke and shock in order to expose mechanisms of injustice, violence, and inequality. There is no way to be indifferent to Reale’s work; you either endorse it or censure it, but there is never a neutral response. In assessing the responses of Márcia X, Rennó, Paulino, Felinto, and Reale to epistemological effacement and brutality, we are presented with a fundamental question: How do we represent violence without turning it into a cliché to the point that it becomes merely symbolic?76 Contemporary artistic practices, specifically those examined here, confront this paradox. If we are indeed shocked and surprised by the casual cruelty and possible disingenuousness displayed in the works discussed here, we should ask why these im146

Chapter Three

ages arouse such visceral responses. Maybe it is because they deny any easy solace. We should consider how we respond to these works: Do they make us question our own privileges and prejudices, or does viewing or sponsoring them absolve us of any responsibility? Do they perversely make us into mere voyeurs (even if compassionate ones), turning us into avid consumers of vio­ lent images, and making us crave ever more spectacular sensations? Susan Sontag said, “So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence.”77 More than just eliciting sympathy or compassion, these works in the end often cause discomfort. If anything, they are a cry against alienation, passivity, and numbness, constituting a form of political resistance and cultural agency.



Transgressive Practices

147

4

What has no space is everywhere —Jota Mombaça

PRACTICES

OF THE SELF

The announcement was posted on Facebook. It resembled an official bulletin from Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage; eav), an important meeting point for the artistic community situated in the upscale South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. attention: Error in the system—nonhygienic work of art without any mental mediation detected. eav recommends that nobody enter the left stall of the men’s bathroom (the one next to the pool) until our janitors take down from the walls these aggressive, marginal, and not marketable objects because of their improper, nonhygienic contents. Calm down. Everything is under control, for real!1 The notice was a response to the removal of queer artist Lyz Parayzo’s photographs from the 2015 exhibition Encruzilhada (Crossroads) at eav. Though not officially invited to participate in the exhibition, Parayzo (a twist on paraíso, which means “paradise” in Portuguese) appeared at the opening event and, without any warning, placed a series of thirty photographs exposing her anus and hairy legs (and manicured pink nails) in a few stalls in the men’s restroom at the venue. Next to the images Parayzo positioned a caption that read, “Secagem rápida, fotografias, 2015, L. Parayzo” (Quick drying, photographs, 2015, L. Parayzo; fig. 4.1), making it look as if these were works

that had been officially selected for the exhibition. The next day the eav staff took down the photographs. Parayzo alleged that her work had been censored, thus attracting media attention. The curator of the exhibition, Bernardo Mosquera, pushed back claiming that Parayzo’s work was removed because of the institutional issues that displaying such explicit sexual imagery without any warning could cause. After all, the photos were placed in the eav restroom, one of the spaces most visited by the public.2 Any respectable art institution would undoubtedly have removed such confrontational images from their public spaces, but Parayzo’s provocation raises broader questions beyond that specific incident. Named Lyzandro Coelho and designated male at birth, Parayzo was by 2015 already known by her nom de guerre, but it was not until that intervention at eav that she officially signed her name as L. Parayzo for the first time.3 Feeling discriminated against, Parayzo—who self-­identifies as nonbinary, opting for gender fluidity (though preferring to be addressed as she)—asks, “Who places alterity on the wall? How to deal with institutional spaces that only assimilate transgression after it has already been incorporated into the system? How to include in exhibitions bodies that are neither curated nor researched nor respected?”4

4.1 



Lyz Parayzo, Secagem rápida (Quick drying), 2015, photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

Practices of the Self

149

Parayzo’s Facebook post is emblematic: “Error in the system.” In fact, many circuits were shorting out and disrupting dominant systems of power at the time of the eav exhibition. Radical changes were taking place in the country as a result of the June 2013 popular demonstrations in several Brazilian cities that followed protests against a small increase in the price of a bus ticket. Discussions of gender inequality and debates on race and class discrimination long overdue finally came to the fore, with artivists and social activists advocating for sexual diversity, social justice, more inclusive public policies, and institutional mechanisms to attend to lgbtqi+ communities. 5 A new artistic generation representing a myriad of interests arrived with that moment. Those artists no longer came exclusively from the upper and middle classes. Parayzo grew up in a working-­class community in Campo Grande, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, outside the city’s economic power and artistic center. She managed to pursue undergraduate studies in theater at Unirio (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro) and to take art classes at eav. Parayzo’s arrival on the scene was symptomatic of a moment when new players started challenging the system through nonnormative behavior, exploding norms imposed by the state, patriarchal society, and conservative morality. In calling her work “nonhygienic” and “not marketable,” Parayzo violated two crucial apparatuses of discipline and control in capitalist society: health (hygiene) and productivity (market). Moreover, Parayzo expanded and challenged the essentialist ontological category of women to include bodies like hers. By cross-­dressing—and undressing—exposing her anus and displaying her long, polished nails, Parayzo followed Judith Butler’s understanding of gender and sex as performative acts constructed through social and cultural apparatuses.6 Lyz Parayzo: Whore-­Porn-­Terrorist

In Brazil, a country with one of the highest death rates for lgbtqi+ community, it is dangerous for people who are assigned male at birth to cross-­dress, wear makeup, or have polished nails exposed in public. For Parayzo, polished nails are a powerful statement of defiance: “I leave with my nails polished from a marginal community in Campo Grande, and I have to travel hours by bus to get to school or to work. I won’t be afraid of anything or anybody.”7 Butler elucidates this sort of a stance: “In the theatre, one can say, ‘this is just an act,’ and de-­realize the act, make acting into something quite distinct from what is real. . . . On the street or in the bus, the act becomes dangerous,

150

Chapter Four

4.2 

Lyz Parayzo, Manicure política (Political manicure), 2016 – 21, performance. Photo: José Caldeira. Courtesy of the artist.

if it does, precisely because there are no theatrical conventions to delimit the purely imaginary character of the act, indeed, on the street or in the bus, there is no presumption that the act is distinct from a reality; the disquieting effect of the act is that there are no conventions that facilitate making this separation.”8 In Butler’s view, it becomes quite clear that there are strict punishments for contesting the normative gender script by failing to perform it “correctly” and accordingly to social expectations. In 2016 Parayzo presented the provocative performance-­installation Mani­ cure política (Political manicure; fig. 4.2) inside an abandoned building that was being used as a pop-­up art space in the neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Parayzo, who had not been invited to participate in the show, set up a nail salon where members of the public were invited to have their nails painted with pink polish. This marked the birth of Parayzo’s adopted character “manicure whore-­porn-­terrorist,” an allusion to a member of Barcelona’s postporn movement, Diana Junyent Torres, aka Diana Pornoterrorista.9



Practices of the Self

151

In 2016 Parayzo once more created uproar at eav when she performed Fato indumento (Indument-­fact; fig. 4.3) in collaboration with the artist Augusto Braz at the opening of the exhibition Quarta-­Feira de Cinzas. The title translates as Ash Wednesday, the day after Carnival, when many feel a sense of melancholia following the euphoria of partying. Not included in the show, Parayzo appeared at the opening wearing a mustache and beard, silver nails, red lipstick, and red women’s underwear. She stood on two bricks that served as precarious platform or unstable sculptural base. Braz then slowly and carefully glued long strips of cheap pink paper (like that used to wrap meat) directly on Parayzo’s body as if creating a custom-­made bridal gown with a long train. Like Cinderella, Parayzo wasn’t invited to the ball but nevertheless crashed the party and stole guests’ attention. In this parodic modern fairytale, the prince and the princess were queer. Parayzo’s “terrorist actions” respond to the exclusion of dissident bodies from hegemonic discourse. In her performative assaults, she confronts heterocentric systems of normatization that have been violently arrayed against bodies like hers. Her surprise “attacks” are similar to strategies adopted by 4.3 

Lyz Parayzo, Fato indumento (Indument fact), 2015 – 18, performance. Photo: Tay Nascimento. Courtesy of the artist.

152

Chapter Four

teenagers from the favelas and the urban periphery who likewise feel alienated from public spaces and are often discriminated against by society. In rolezinhos (little strolls), these young people organize themselves through social media and choose upscale shopping malls as places to hang out. When these unwelcome groups of teenagers (many of them dark skinned) occupy these temples of consumerism (often solely frequented by the white upper-­ middle-­class Brazilians) panic ensues; the malls are closed, and frightened shop owners and shoppers vanish for fear of vandalism, shoplifting, and public disorder. As with the rolezinhos, Parayzo’s unsolicited actions often result in security guards forcing the artist to leave the institutional spaces she has occupied. Not surprisingly, Parayzo has triggered strong reactions: her works have been withdrawn from exhibition sites; she has been expelled from social media; and she has been forcibly removed from art spaces and fired from art-­related jobs.10 As part of her “porn-­terrorist actions,” Parayzo in 2016 started creating leaflets like those some of Rio de Janeiro’s travestis (a term loosely translated as transvestites and used by trans women, especially sex workers) paste in public phone booths to promote their sexual services. Parayzo’s parodic flyers, called Parayzo carioca panfleto (Carioca paradise pamphlet; fig. 4.4), included a photo showing her body in profile, face gazing directly at the viewer, and wearing a tiny golden thong, long pink earrings, and silver chains draped over her shoulders and arms. This pose emphasized her nonbinary features: feminine hairstyle, accentuated buttocks, and mustache. Along with this photo are Parayzo’s name written in bold fuchsia letters, the alluring subtitle “a putinha terrorista” (the terrorist bitch) and this ad: Brunette, sensual, anal, oral, everything without frills Delicious, caring, perfect blowjob Tight butt, very sassy Accepts credit card $100,00 [one hundred reais] Parayzo circulates these flyers at art openings, sometimes simply throwing them in the air and letting them randomly invade institutional spaces. In a pointed comment on the current state of the arts, where to succeed in conventional terms artists must be represented by galleries or be invited to participate in major exhibitions, the leaflets include the telephone and address of the art institution where they are distributed instead of the artist’s personal contact information. Parayzo’s transgressive act is a strategy to combat what Suely Rolnik calls “the pimping of life in capitalist society.” Rolnik asks, “What mechanisms of our subjectivity lead us to offer our creative force for the fulfillment of the

Practices of the Self

153

4.4 

Lyz Parayzo, Parayzo carioca panfleto (Carioca paradise pamphlet), 2016. Photo: Tiago Sant’Anna. Courtesy of the artist.

4.5 

Lyz Parayzo, UnhaNavalha #1 (RazorNail #1), 2016, silver and steel. Photo: José Eduardo Ortega. The Collection of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (masp).

market? . . . How are all of the potentials captured by the faith in the promise of paradise by the capitalist religion? Which artistic practices have fallen into this trap?”11 Like a virus, these softcore ads act as agents of contamination, infiltrating the system, wreaking havoc, and pointing out systematic policies of exclusion and asymmetries of power in society. Parayzo also addresses the poetics of nonconformist bodies in her exquisite pieces of sculptural jewelry called Jóias bélicas (Warfare jewelry). These double-­edged objects, stored like relics in specially crafted wooden or acrylic boxes, are simultaneously delicate and threatening. UnhaNavalha #1 (RazorNail #1; 2016; fig. 4.5) consists of a pointed thimble of silver and steel dis-



Practices of the Self

155

played between two razor blades; the gold-­plated thimble in UnhaNavalha #2 (2017) is studded with tiny rhinestones and possesses a sharp cutting edge. These thimble sculptures resemble the nail protectors of China’s Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), where they served as symbols of noble status since it was impossible to grow long, fashionable nails and undertake manual labor. Parayzo’s thimble artifacts are elegant pieces that can be worn to defend and caress, yet they are also clawlike, razor-­sharp, and scary and can be used to harm and injure. They are made for bodies like hers that must be prepared to attack in order to be protected. In 2018 Parayzo started her series of aluminum sculptures called Bixinhas (Little faggots; fig. 4.6), in which she pays homage to Lygia Clark’s iconic hinged Bichos sculptures from the 1960s. The Portuguese word bichos means “animals” or “critters”; but when spelled with an x, as Parayzo does, it means “faggots.” While Parayzo’s constructions clearly nod to Clark’s Bichos, their edges resemble sawtooth blades and suggest the weapons (like razorblades) travestis often carry to defend themselves, thus adding an aggressive layer to these iconic sculptures. With this mixture of tribute and transgression, Parayzo suggests the possibility of incorporating dissident subjectivities into the celebrated Neo-­Concrete movement, thus expanding the Brazilian artistic canon. Sallisa Rosa: Undoing Clichés

Like Parayzo, Sallisa Rosa performs the discrimination experienced by groups that fall outside dominant modes of existence in Brazil. In Rosa’s case, her attention is focused on her Amerindian roots. Misconceptions about Indigenous communities—often misrepresented as “uncivilized”—are still common in Brazil, just as their survival remains precarious. There are still approximately 250 distinct ethnic groups that speak more than 150 languages and dialects in Brazil. Yet they are lumped under a homogeneous, generic, and unifying umbrella, depriving them of their own singular identities. Born in the city of Goiânia in the north of Brazil, Rosa has never lived in an Indigenous village despite her ancestry. She earned a master’s degree in journalism and audiovisual production from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and she lives in a government-­sponsored low-­income housing complex at Estácio, in the center of Rio, which happens to be built on the site of the first prison in Brazil (Presídio da Frei Caneca). The building is exclusively occupied by people from various Indigenous groups, some of whom still follow their vernacular traditions and speak their native languages. Rosa 156

Chapter Four

4.6 

Lyz Parayzo, Bixinha circular (Circular little faggot), 2020, aluminum. Photo: Daniel Nicolaevsk Maria. Courtesy of the artist.

calls the building an “aldeia multi-­étnica vertical” (a vertical multiethnic village). Inspired by this mode of urban living, Rosa created the installation Oca do futuro (Hut of the future; 2017; fig. 4.7). An oca is a typical Indigenous round dwelling, made with organic materials such as wood or bamboo and roofed with straw or palm leaves, that is often large enough to house several families. Rosa’s wooden structure is covered with fabric, and a colored led above the entrance reads “Futuro Oca” (Future Hut). Inside, visitors find a hammock from the Guajarara community (which previously hung in Rosa’s living room) and the artist’s personal photo album.12 Mixing industrial materials with Indigenous elements, the work upset some of her parentes—a term that literally means “relatives” but is used by Indigenous people to refer to each other even when they don’t share blood ties—many of whom considered the installation inappropriate and a violation of their own traditions. Their objections were triggered by the fear that their mode of living might be annihilated in favor of technology and corporate productivity. The Indigenous leader and philosopher Ailton Krenak contrasts his ancestors’ episte-

4.7 

Sallisa Rosa, Oca do futuro (Hut of the future), 2017, installation view; exhibited at Dja Guata Porã, Museu de Arte do Rio (mar), 2017. Photo: Alexandre Araújo. Courtesy of the artist.

158

Chapter Four

mology with Western ideology, arguing that in the West human beings are only useful when they are productive, since when they stop producing they become an expense. Krenak said, “For a long time we have alienated ourselves from this organism of which we are part—the Earth—thinking that the Earth is one thing and we, the humanity, are another. . . . Everything is nature. The cosmos is nature. All I can think about is nature.”13 Since Jair Bolsonaro became president in 2018, he has opened up the Amazon for mineral extraction and large-­scale farming. His presidency recalls the darkest days of Brazil’s past, when Native people in the Amazon were regarded as impediments to modernization and development. Bolsonaro’s government has undermined the land rights of Indigenous communities, and deforestation has spiked during his tenure. When Krenak was asked how Indigenous people were going to deal with Bolsonaro as president, he said, “The Indigenous communities have been resisting for five hundred years, I’m worried about the whites, how are they going to escape that.”14 Rosa entered the art scene in first decades of the twentieth-­first century, at a moment when Indigenous artists began demanding that their legitimacy be acknowledged. She said, “The tribes today have internet, technology. There is no purity. I am tired of being invited to art openings where people expect me to arrive in a feather headdress with a painted body, and to make smoke-­ colored signals while performing native chants. When the press wants to take my photograph, they usually arrange to have some plants around me. It is annoying.”15 Weary of such expectations, Rosa developed the ironic and humorous series called Identidade é ficçāo (Identity is fiction; 2019), where she plays with exotic clichés of Amerindians.16 In digital self-­portraits she exaggerates folkloric stereotypes to the point of the ridiculous, showing how particular forms of existence are devalued or turned into exotic objects. In one, taken in a children’s playground, Rosa places her head inside a dinosaur’s mouth, mocking the misconception that native people are somehow primeval (fig. 4.8). In one selfie from the series, she crouches next to some foliage wearing a green camouflage dress with a jaguar mask covering her eyes—a sarcastic allusion to the belief that Indigenous people live like wild animals in the jungle (fig. 4.9). Her work addresses cultural racism and strategies to destroy and eliminate any form of alterity outside white supremacy.17 In Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, the philosopher Alain Badiou argues that since no general consensus on a universal ethical principle exists, ethics is a relative concept that depends on context. Is ethics a “consensual” truth, or does it exist to protect property and capital while continually excluding



Practices of the Self

159

4.8 

Sallisa Rosa, photograph from the series Identidade é ficçāo (Identity is fiction), 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

the excluded? Badiou replies, “Become like me and [then] I will respect your difference.”18 Another image from the series shows Rosa wearing a pink mask and hood; red polish on her nails, she holds a cell phone duplicating the same image while she stares at us. In this performative self-­portrait, Rosa creates a double artifice that plays with the simulacra of the Halloween-­like mask and the high-­tech cell phone (fig. 4.10). The photograph suggests that her bizarre image is as fabricated as the exotic social constructions often attached to Indigenous peoples. Her cell phone also hints at the Western imaginary of the “taming of the savage,” in which Indigenous bodies are captured and inserted into society via apparatuses of consumerism, materialism, and technology. Suely Rolnik calls this phenomenon the “politics of desire that characterizes the pimping of subjective and creative forces—a kind of power relation that is basically exerted through the sorcery of seduction.”19 Rosa’s generation of artists is breaking the spell through individual and collective practices of resistance. Old strategies of power are being broken, while outdated forms of subjugation are being discarded and replaced by the assertion of different modes of living. 160

Chapter Four

Fabiana Faleiros, aka Lady Incentivo

Radical changes took place in the visual arts after this younger generation embraced the banner of feminism, a term that had previously been shunned by prominent female artists in Brazil. Having skipped all the previous phases of feminism, this new generation of Brazilian women artists joined the movement’s fourth wave, embracing intersectionality, sexual diversity, and dissident sexualities.20 In 2015 hashtags such as #meuprimeiroassédio (my first sexual harassment) and the slogan “Ni Una Menos” (“Nem Uma a Menos” in Portuguese; “Not One Less” in English) that was widespread elsewhere in South America went viral on Brazilian social media, as women started telling their stories of sexual violence, misogyny, and harassment. In sharing their tales, they became agents of social change at a moment that rocked the country. Explicit discussions of women’s control over their bodies were propagated by street rallies such as Marcha das Vadias (March of the Vagrants), where hundreds of women took to the streets to protest sexual harassment.21 Like the transnational SlutWalk movement, it called for 4.9 



Sallisa Rosa, photograph from the series Identidade é ficçāo (Identity is fiction), 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

Practices of the Self

161

4.10  Sallisa Rosa, photograph from the series Identidade é ficçāo (Identity is fiction), 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

the end of violence against women and rape culture, including victim blaming and shaming of sexual assault victims. The slogan of participants in the march was “Nem santa, nem puta, sou livre” (Not a saint, not a slut, I am free). Like Parayzo and Rosa, Fabiana Faleiros confronts societal norms in her videos and performances. In Faleiros’s case, her work addresses female sexual taboos. In her most audacious piece, the multimedia lecture-­performance Mastur/bar (Mastur/bate; 2015 – 18; fig. 4.11), Faleiros wants to remove the shame—and associations with fear, disease, dirtiness, and madness—from the act of female masturbation. Mastur/bar relies on Faleiros’s dual roles as artist and researcher: She earned a PhD in fine arts from the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (State University of Rio de Janeiro; uerj), and her pseudolecture mixes personal accounts of her own sexual encounters and concepts she learned from critical theory, making it at once educational and artistic, personal and academic. In Mastur/bar, Faleiros symbolically suggests different possibilities of women’s pleasure without necessarily engaging in overt sexual acts herself. She performs the piece in a variety of settings (usually a venue replicating a bar) and forms: in its more public enactments, Fa162

Chapter Four

leiros only simulates the act of masturbation; in more intimate (and safe) settings, she brings the act to completion before the audience—as she did at the alternative cultural center Casa Frasca in Porto Alegre in 2016.22 Faleiros also incorporates projections of images of hands, those body tools for self-­pleasure. Using a laser point, Faleiros shows how the semiology of the hand has changed over time through a variety of disparate images, including Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538), where the goddess’s hand rests on her pubis; archival photographs of female psychiatric patients of the French neurologist Jean-­Martin Charcot; photographs of people voguing;23 and stills from Beyonce’s video for her 2008 song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Faleiros addresses Foucault’s association of power with knowledge, focusing on feminine hand gestures—particularly the wrist drop associated with camp culture. She demonstrates how the effeminate hand was first considered a sign of power at the court of Louis XIV. Later, during Charcot’s experiments at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (1862 – 93), women’s contorted hands were cited as “convulsionary” symptoms of hysteria.24 In analyzing the photographs of female patients at Salpêtrière, the art historian Georges 4.11  Fabiana Faleiros, Mastur/bar (Mastur/bate), 2015 – 18, performance. Photo: Néstor Mart. Courtesy of the artist.



Practices of the Self

163

Didi-­Huberman claimed that “in hysteria, affects are gestures, and gestures are appearances.”25 Twisted movements, epileptic spasms, coarse language: nearly any theatrical behavior could be construed as hysteria. While Huberman’s study is mainly confined to the affect/effect of the facial expressions of the hospital’s patients as a sign of pathology, Faleiros focuses on the women’s hands. In Western heteronormative society, the masturbating hand has been a threat to reproductive labor, as the clitoris has no practical function in the fertilizing of eggs, the gestation and birth of the fetus, and child rearing. Over time, the act has been repressed and disciplined, as in the use of handcuffs to restrain girls from indulging in “perverse” sexual desires. In his thought-­provoking writings, Paul B. Preciado argues that “the nation-­state and the biomedical industry compete for the control of women’s wombs; the former seeking to maintain women’s unpaid reproductive labor as a national resource, the latter dreaming about the transformation of the uterus into a bioenvironment subject to the free-­market economy.”26 Preciado’s analysis of the sex-­gender-­sexuality conundrum follows Donna Haraway’s notion of “cyborg subjectivity,” in which the techno-­body is the result of the permanent negotiation of the borders between human and animal, body and machine, genuine and artificial.27 Faleiros is likewise interested in the body-­machine connection. In our current cybercapitalist society, she sees the cell phone as an extension of the hand, a portable technological tool that reconfigures the intricate relationship of human and manufactured, even creating a new form of sexuality: this digital extension of the body can now even pulsate as a sex toy, simulating the vibrator in the stimulation of erotic pleasure.28 During her live performances, Faleiros lip syncs over a video projection of herself singing. Her musical repertoire includes her take on Amy Winehouse’s 2006 song “You Know I’m No Good.” However, in place of the original refrain (“I’m no good”), Faleiros sings, “Sou foda,” Portuguese slang that translates as “I’m awesome,” implying that she is herself great as well as good in bed. The most satirical of Faleiros’s songs is her version of Donna Summer’s 1977 hit “I Feel Love.” Faleiros transmutes the original lines “It’s so good” and “I’m in love” into the Portuguese masturbei (masturbated), while the refrain “I Feel Love” becomes masturbar (to masturbate). In Faleiros’s version, Summer’s already masturbatory song becomes an endless, eternal act of self-­love. In the video, Faleiros is seated cross-­legged, Buddha-­like, wearing a black leotard with small, colorful, blinking lights marking the chakras of her body. Her hands move through the air in rhythm to the music, while 164

Chapter Four

her whole body vibrates and pulsating colors illuminate her chakras. For Faleiros this act is about the de-­emphasis of genital pleasure in favor of the sexualization of the whole body, as advocated in Preciado’s Manifiesto contra-­ sexual (Countersexual manifesto).29 Likewise, in Mastur/bar, Faleiros privileges the eroticism of women’s sexuality over its reproductive ends. So far, Faleiros has been spared from intimidation and censorship, largely because her work has only been performed for select audiences in alternative venues and private art spaces. But as artists like Faleiros who address sexual content are often targets of moralist and conservative groups, it is worth probing the debate on the boundaries between art and pornography. The common understanding is that pornography exists solely to stimulate (mostly male) sexual arousal. Art exploring sexuality, by contrast, supposedly relies on suggestion and captures the subjectivity of represented persons and not only the sexual act. In pornography, sex is performed, turning sexuality into spectacle; it is exploitative, often degrading, and objectifies women in a way that art does not. Pornographic films and photographs are mass-­produced commodities, while a work of art is not an industrial product but is expected to be conceptually envisioned.30 Yet these distinctions are not as clear cut as they might seem at first. The radical feminist (radfem) Andrea Dworkin, for instance, was outspoken in her judgment that any kind of pornography—even the mildest “depictions of the erotic”—is an instrument of women’s debasement and subordination: a patriarchal and sexist language that triggers violence against women and subjects the female body to masculine power.31 The radfem Robin Morgan coined the provocative motto: “Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice.”32 Faleiros’s Mastur/bar occupies an ambiguous zone between erotic art and pornography. The work undoubtedly carries political agency in its affirmation of the liberation of female sexual pleasure, while it also deliberately engages with pornographic iconography. According to Faleiros, “The difference between pornography and feminist art is that in the latter the body is no longer constructed by the media, the film industry, and the male gaze. When you show your body the way it is, by yourself, under your own control and desire, it creates a potent agent of change.”33 By appropriating elements of pornography, Faleiros should be considered in light of the “postporn movement,” a trend emerging in the 1990s as a response to conventional pornography and its utilitarian representations of sexuality. The postporn movement plays with pornographic stereotypes in order to undo them, advocating for the sexual liberation of dissident bodies, including but not only women’s. A pivotal player of the movement, Annie

Practices of the Self

165

4.12  Annie Sprinkle, Public Cervix Announcement, 1989 – 96, performance. Courtesy of the artist.

Sprinkle left the adult entertainment industry to enter the art scene, performing explicit sexual acts in live shows. Her “Post Porn Modernist Show” (1989 – 96) became iconic for the performance Public Cervix Announcement (fig. 4.12), in which she invited the members of the audience to examine her genitals with the aid of a speculum and a flashlight, as well as for The Temple of the Sacred Prostitute, a masturbation ritual culminating in the performer’s orgasm. Asked whether she makes art or pornography, Sprinkle insists that she is “both an artist and a whore.”34 Unlike Sprinkle, Faleiros does not fit the stereotype of a porn star: she did not work in the porn industry, nor does she have an overly eroticized appearance. Despite the provocative aspects of her performances, her boyish demeanor, soft voice, and intentionally caricature-­like sexual body language reinforce her nonthreatening persona. Yet her artistic practice does have affinities with the work of the postporn Colombian multimedia artist

166

Chapter Four

Nadia Granados, known since 2013 for El Cabaret de la Fulminante (The Cabaret of the Fulminant). Both Faleiros and Granados entered the scene in the early 2010s and are firmly rooted in the fields of performance and combine a number of artistic genres, including poetry, street action, video, and digital media. They both instigate debates on phallocentric discourse, machismo, gender stereotypes, pornography, media representations of women, and gender violence. Both act and speak from outside Eurocentric discourses. In this way their practices reflect decolonial positions as theorized by Anibal Quijano, Enrique Dussel, and Walter D. Mignolo. These scholars oppose Eurocentrism by pointing out that Europe defined itself as the “universal” epistemological center of the world, creating a master ontological narrative of cultural modernity and superiority that would permanently fix Latin America in a secondary, colonial position. Quijano coined the expression “Coloniality of Power,” arguing that Eurocentrism is based on a binary, dualist perspective on knowledge imposed as globally hegemonic and codified according to the categories of East-­West, primitive-­civilized, magic/mythic-­ scientific, irrational-­rational, traditional-­modern.35 Eurocentrism results from Europe’s denial of the production of knowledge from other peoples, imposing a false dichotomy of “superiority/inferiority” that is constantly reinforced by hierarchical economic power structures.36 In Mignolo’s view, decoloniality proposes to decouple knowledge from the traps of Eurocentric epistemic ontology and reconnect it to the richness of pluriversal cosmologies and living practices, which are reduced by the rhetoric of modernity to tradition, folklore, underdevelopment, and the like. He argues that one way to understand this diversity would be through Indigenous knowledge based on the spiritual world and storytelling as tools to envision other existences.37 Maria Lugones expands the notion of decoloniality based on race and class to include gender. She claims that the colonial/ modern gender system subjects both women and men of color in all domains of existence.38 More recently, decolonial studies have been echoed by epistemological extractivist theorists following the work of Indigenous Canadian scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Mississauga Nishnaabeg), who claims that both colonialism and capitalism are based on tactics of extracting and assimilating: “Extracting is stealing—it is taking without consent, without thought, care or even knowledge of the impacts that extraction has on the other living things in that environment. . . . Colonialism has always extracted the Indigenous—extraction of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous women, Indigenous peoples.”39



Practices of the Self

167

Both decolonial and cognitive extractivist studies have been important theoretical tools in the formulation of kuir sudaca, a movement originating in Latin America that advocates for gender and colonial disobedience.40 Sudaca is a derogatory term for a South American person, and kuir is a phonetic play on the English word “queer”—once a pejorative term that became a badge of pride.41 Kuir sudaca practitioners are suspicious of concepts imported from hegemonic cultural centers that tend to universalize and generalize knowledge without acknowledging the disparities between different geopolitical contexts and localities. The Chilean drag artist and social activist Hija de Perra (1980 – 2014), one of the major exponents of kuir sudaca, declared themselves to be a new Latinx mestiza from the Southern Hemisphere who never pretended to identify as an Anglo “queer.”42 The hybrid use of words to counteract hegemonic linguistic constructions suggested by the term kuir is informed by the writings of Glória Anzaldúa, a self-­described Chicana, Tejana, working-­class, dyke-­ lesbian-­feminist poet and writer-­theorist. In Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Anzaldúa explored the contested border between Mexico and Texas beyond its geopolitical implications. For Anzaldúa, the “borderlands” are a region of “la mezcla” (the mixing) and are characterized by those areas that are not uniquely American or Mexican. The term also refers to the current Latinx generation, which has learned to be part of two cultures and therefore can no longer distinguish between the expectations of each. She considers Chicano Spanish a border language that developed from Chicanos’ need to identify themselves as a distinct people. Subverting linguistic styles in her own writings, she switches from English to Spanish to Spanglish, navigating different territories as she transitions from street English to standard Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Spanish dialect, and Chicano Spanish, among other tongues.43 Her hybrid made-­up words create all sorts of linguistic short circuits and often end up lost in translation. Felipe Rivas San Martín, a Chilean visual artist, activist, and a former editor of the magazine Torcida, relates a revealing anecdote about the term kuir. In January 2006 two “gringa” students asked him about the editorial content of Torcida: — What is it about? they asked. — A magazine on kuir studies, he replied, trying to pronounce the word in his best English accent. — What? they reacted. — Kuir, this is about kuir theory, he explained.

168

Chapter Four

— Kuir, they repeated intrigued: What is kuir? — It is kuir, as the homophobic insult, or like the word weird in English. San Martín was getting frustrated as he kept trying different accents to pronounce the word: kuir, kuier, kuiar. Then the students finally understood: — Ah! . . . Queer, queer! They said in a way that San Martín had never heard before in his conversations with other theoreticians from Latin America.44 San Martín’s anecdote makes clear that the English word “queer” has lost its transgressive connotation in Latin American academic circles. He posited that, instead of grasping the term’s full potential, it is simply understood as a glamorous field of knowledge exported from the United States. The Brazilian queer theorist Larissa Pelúcio observed that the English word “queer” sounds soft to Spanish or Portuguese speakers’ ears, almost like a caress, never an offense.45 She provocatively proposes that a teoria do cu (ass theory, cu being a vulgar word for ass in Portuguese) would be useful when considering matters kuir: “Instead of using the polite term ‘queer,’ it would be more disturbing to call ourselves theoreticians of the cu, since we South Americans often refer to our place of origin as being the cu do mundo [meaning the end of the world].”46 Pelúcio jokes that if the world has an ass, it is because it supposedly also has a head, a thinking head that is located on top of the body, in the north. This metaphor delineates a geopolitical order that marks where knowledge allegedly is—and isn’t—produced. It reveals the north/south, west/rest division, silently marking the excluded cultures as producers of folklore rather than theory. Fabiana Faleiros’s pseudonym is Lady Incentivo (Lady Incentive), a fictitious public persona that she used from 2012 to 2016 to question Brazil’s Lei Rouanet (Rouanet Law), designed to promote cultural investment by giving citizens tax breaks on money invested in cultural projects. The official logo of Lei Rouanet consists of two curved horizontal lines in the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag. Lady Incentivo’s parody of this symbol employs the same hues, but the lines are vertical and arranged in a convex shape, with a hole in the center and a red dot at the bottom, suggesting blood dripping from a vagina (fig. 4.13). The image suggests that the nation’s culture is being raped by private capital. Faleiros describes Lady Incentivo as both “a physical and legal entity incorporated in the same body, becoming an in-



Practices of the Self

169

dividual microentrepreneur, an entrepreneur of herself, a law incorporated in her own name.”47 This persona also calls attention to neoliberalism and its dependency on human capital, in which the new figure of the homo economicus is an entrepreneur of himself.48 He serves as his own capital, his own producer, the source of his own earnings, stimulated to invest in the self through education, health, exercise, and so on. In this way, the self becomes human capital, the ultimate commodity to be invested, branded, and marketed. Even our leisure time becomes a potential source for profit. Thus, the boundaries between leisure and work become blurred, creating new mechanisms of power in society. Aware of these apparatuses of social control, Faleiros believes that any space dedicated to leisure should also be a place for social activism. She conducts her performative acts in the “unmediated” spaces of private parties, parks, streets, and nightclubs as well as on “mediated” digital platforms. Faleiros wants to transform these public and private spaces into political zones as she believes that “people in general work in an environment alienated from their social lives, so during the weekend they seek a place where everything is supposed to happen.”49 From 2010 to 2013 she worked as a dj in São Paulo’s nightclubs, where men earn much higher salaries than their female counterparts. She reacted to this inequity by incorporating into her songs lyrics related to women’s pleasure and sexuality, giving voice to women’s agency through a mixture of music and the spoken word. For Faleiros, “there is something of the feminine experience in singing, not the melodic rhythms that we are used to listening to, but a tune in which you speak and sing at the same time and position yourself as a woman.”50 Tellingly, the first song Faleiros recorded and released in 2012 was titled “Mulher também tem cu” (Woman also has an ass). Faleiros’s music draws on Latin rhythms, especially the “favela funk” that originated on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. One of the most powerful cultural manifestations in Brazil, it started in bailes funk (funk dance parties) and evolved into a symbolic act protesting physical violence perpetrated against the mostly Black population of the favelas.51 Over the years these parties have been criminalized and banned on the grounds that they are controlled by organized crime and used to promote drugs, violence, and sex with minors.52 Within the male-­dominant funk scene, the funkeiras (women funk singers) became popular during the mid-­2000s, after decades of being relegated to the margins. The lyrics from these singers overtly celebrate female sexual pleasure and promote the stance that a woman has the right to control and enjoy her own body. The funkeiras both resist and affirm their position as unprivileged women of color, and their 170

Chapter Four

4.13 Fabiana Faleiros, Lady Incentivo logo. Illustration by Aurore Zachayus. Courtesy of the artist.

performances expose the country’s failure to confront the intersectional inequalities of class, race, and sex. Renowned female mcs take stage names such as Tati Quebra Barraco (Shack-­Cracker Tati), Deize Tigrona (Tigress Deize), and Valesca Popozuda (Big-­Bottomed Valesca). Their highly sexualized lyrics, such as “My pussy é o poder” (My pussy is the power), have made them popular icons. Valesca assumed the stage name Popozuda after having her derriere surgically enhanced. With her fake blonde hair, husky voice, and breast implants, she became known for her support of the lgbtqi+ community. Deize Tigrona was a housemaid before she became famous as an mc in 2004.53 Conservative middle-­class women were quick to attack the funkeiras for their shocking lyrics, sensual gestures and choreography, provocative dress (tiny shorts and cleavage-­revealing tops), breast implants, and boosted buttocks. In a patriarchal culture ruled by Christian values, this “dirty funk” has been dismissed as an obscene excuse for women to use crude language to talk about sex. Another criticism is that even if the funkeiras have the agency to assert themselves as women who enjoy sex, they neither challenge phallocentric norms nor propose a radical feminist agenda.54 Yet despite (or because of ) the controversy they stoked, Popozuda, Tigrona, and Quebra Barraco have become feminist icons among working-­class women as they speak out against prejudice and police violence toward Afro-­ Brazilians. Quebra Barraco has addressed the battle for survival that women in the slums of Rio de Janeiro face every day: “We have to work, we have to sup

Practices of the Self

171

port our children. It’s a fight. For me, that’s feminism.”55 By promoting gender and sexual equality, the funkeiras’ strategies have helped empower women in lower-­income communities; they, in turn, were among the first to support and embrace the female mcs. By singing explicitly about women’s sexual pleasure, the funkeiras energized a new generation of artists, including Faleiros. Unlike the typical funkeiras, Faleiros had a white middle-­class upbringing in Pelotas, a city in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Her mellow, soft voice and easygoing demeanor conceals a powerful provocateur. Faleiros admitted, “I suffer because I am white. People ask what is this white woman doing singing funk? As if I could not live through that experience. I do not like glamour; in reality I like this dirty thing. I like to be able to be ugly. I think the funkeiras’ lyrics about their female sexual pleasure are very interesting.”56 For her, the narrative of the funkeiras not only breaks with male-­dominated funk but also with the racist and misogynist perception of a fantasy image of Brazilian woman. Soon enough the funkeiras phenomenon rose from the local bailes funk to mainstream culture as it was appropriated by the entertainment industry. The style made national and international headlines when the video for “Vai Malandra” (Go Badass Girl) by the Brazilian singer Anitta was released in 2017. The clip opens with a close-­up of Anitta’s buttocks and follows the star as she dances in the Vidigal favela of Rio de Janeiro wearing a tiny bikini made of masking tape—a favela-­favored fashion designed to leave perfect tan lines.57 And she was praised for revealing her physical imperfections. Anitta’s celebrity even transcended pop culture: At the Brazil Conference at Harvard University in April 2018, the funk star got a standing ovation after she spoke about the adversity she had endured growing up in a favela of Rio de Janeiro. As Anitta moved from outsider to mainstream pop star to academic darling, a Brazilian deviant feminism was born. Aleta Valente: Material Girl

The quest for female sexual liberation and reproductive rights is at the core of Aleta Valente’s digital practice. Valente (born Gomes Vieira) grew up on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, in Bangu, the home of Brazil’s largest prison complex. The artist adopted the name Valente, meaning fearless or valiant, from the popular comic strip Prince Valiant by the cartoonist Hal Foster; Aleta is the prince’s wife.598 Notwithstanding her self-­aggrandizing moniker, Valente assumed a self-­deprecating alter ego when she created the avatar @ ex-­Miss Febem (roughly translated as Former Miss Youth Detention Center), an ironic persona that she carefully constructed through selfies taken 172

Chapter Four

and posted online between 2015 and 2017. febem is also the acronym for Fundaçāo Estadual do Bem-­Estar do Menor (State Foundation for the Well-­ Being of Minors). Officially charged with protecting minors, the agency is responsible for an overcrowded juvenile rehabilitation center in São Paulo where, according to human-­rights campaigners, youngsters are groomed into professional delinquents. Valente was never a resident at febem. The character @ex-­Miss Febem was inspired by the 1987 rap song Kátia Flávia, Godiva do Irajá by the Brazilian singer-­songwriter Fausto Fawcet, in which a blonde bombshell is described as “ex-­Miss Febem” and an “incarnation of the dog world,” married to a “bigwig” offender and living among drugs and violence at the periphery of Rio de Janeiro as she navigates the underground nightlife of the bustling, middle-­class Copacabana neighborhood. As @ex-­Miss Febem, Valente playfully constructs and stages her self-­representation on social media, exposing and eroticizing her body, carefully choosing her clothing (or lack of it), making faces, and sensually enacting provocative poses. Engaging tactics of exhibitionism, transgression, and spectacle, Valente exaggerates what is expected of women like her. Coming from the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Valente is conscious of the ways in which she can be pigeonholed as a victim of social immobility in a system based on privilege. It all started with her participation in the 2007 metadocumentary Jogo de Cena (Stage Play) by the acclaimed filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho. Valente appeared in the film alongside other ordinary women who were asked to tell their life stories; these were then reenacted by well-­known actresses in a tug-­ of-­war between reality and fiction. The renowned actress Fernanda Torres performed the role of Valente, portraying her as helpless, with no control over her life. Faced with this (mis)representation of herself, Valente was outraged and ashamed. She refused to let this construction of her as a pathetic oppressed subject stand unchallenged and decided to create a proactive narrative of her life and self through images, photographs, memes, and selfies posted on Instagram, thus launching her career in the visual arts. Valente took ownership of her image, reclaiming it through digital performativity. As the scholar Hille Koskela asked, “If practically anyone else can circulate one’s images, why not do it oneself ?”59 In the series Not-­Pregnant from 2015, Valente posted images of her monthly menstrual cycles on Instagram, creating a makeshift birth-­control chart. The most controversial work in the series is a photo-­performance in which ex-­Miss Febem—long braids falling over her body, wearing white leggings—is seen trying to pull her leg behind her shoulder, an awkward, contorted, yogi-­

Practices of the Self

173

like pose that reveals a red bloody stain at her crotch. In the background, tainted walls with a discarded piece of paper laying on the cement floor signal a site of decrepitude, while ex-­Miss Febem’s display of menstrual blood creates an “open intimacy,” blurring the divide between public and private. Valente originally intended to share this selfie only with friends and Instagram followers, but in the digital era such images escape one’s control. As technology and social media scholar danah boyd states: “The internet lacks walls. [In this space] conversations spread and contexts collapse.”60 Valente’s image soon circulated widely on the internet. Having disrupted accepted codes of decorum and femininity, public humiliation followed. Soon after Valente posted the image, it was appropriated without the artist’s knowledge or permission and reposted by an antifeminist Facebook group called “Moça nāo sou obrigada a ser feminista” (Girl, I am not obliged to be feminist). Hateful and misogynist insults soon followed, as Valente became the target of cyberbullying. In this virtual tribunal, the lines between fiction and reality imploded. The detractors vilified the artist, taking her for her fictional character. Boundaries became totally blurred: Person or personage? Creator or creation? Commenters called the sight of the menstrual blood (and the smell they imagined the body exuding) as repugnant, finding it loathsome that Valente (not ex-­Miss Febem) would expose herself in such a graphic way. Valente incorporated the misogynistic messages from her detractors into the work, displaying them on Instagram next to the selfie. She then transformed her initial photo-­performance into the video A misoginia está vazando (Misogyny is leaking; 2016; fig. 4.14), an eight-­minute loop of the vicious comments posted by the antifeminist Facebook group. Valente (as ex-­Miss Febem) freezes as she scrolls with her fingers over comments that seem to petrify her. Over the image of the scrolling screen she wrote the phrase, “O patriarcado está vazando, a misoginia está vazando. Não seremos censurados” (Patriarchy is leaking, misogyny is leaking. We won’t be censored), which she borrowed from the Canadian artist Rupi Kaur’s 2015 photo series Period.61 The Portuguese rendering of this statement has a twist, as vazando can mean both “leaking” and “departing.” Valente’s Instagram account was suspended in January 2017, allegedly because it violated the site’s terms of use. That marked the death of her avatar @ex-­Miss Febem.62 If Valente’s attackers saw menstruation as degrading and offensive, she understood it as a sign of freedom. She had become pregnant at the age of seventeen. Like many young women with few resources, abortion was not an option, since it is officially prohibited in Brazil, and she could not afford 174

Chapter Four

a private, clandestine clinic. During her pregnancy and over the subsequent two years of breastfeeding, Valente felt disgusted and vexed by her body. After giving birth to her daughter Sophia in 2004, Valente’s life became bound to motherhood: she felt trapped. Like Bangu’s overshadowing penitentiary, maternity became her prison. “I have learned to think from this place where there seems to be no escape, and the imaginary creation of other realities has become a possible way out,” she said.63 Publicly exhibiting evidence of her period was a way of asserting ownership of her body. As Koskela said, “Conceptually, when you show ‘everything’ you become ‘free’: no one can ‘capture’ you anymore, since there is nothing left to capture.”64 Since the 1970s menstrual blood has been a recurring theme in the visual arts, with many women artists around the world using it as a medium. In 1971 Judy Chicago created Red Flag, a photolithograph of a woman’s hand removing a bloodied tampon from her vagina. With this piece, Chicago affirmed her biological essentialist identity. A year later Chicago and Miriam Schapiro created the landmark installation Womanhouse, turning the rooms of a dilapidated mansion in Hollywood into sculptural environments.65 Chi4.14  Aleta Valente, A misoginia está vazando (Misogyny is leaking), 2016, digital photograph. Photo: Aleta Valente. Courtesy of the artist.



Practices of the Self

175

cago’s contribution to the piece was the Menstruation Bathroom, a pristine, white-­tiled space with boxes of tampons and sanitary napkins on an open shelf and a garbage basket overflowing with used tampons. In Blood Work Diary (1972) Carolee Schneemann dried her menstrual blood on pieces of tissue paper during her cycle, used egg yolk to set in place, and exhibited the resulting works in framed serial grids. The artist allegedly made the piece after one of her partners said he felt sick when he saw a drop of her blood on the bed.66 In 1979 the British artist Catherine Elwes performed Menstruation I and Menstruation II at the Slade School of Art in London. Enclosing herself in a small makeshift room with a glass partition separating her from the public, Elwes, wearing a white dress, bled, drew, and wrote on top of a white sheet. In 1981 the Colombian artist Maria Evelia Marmolejo spent several days naked in a gallery while menstruating in the performance 11 de Marzo, 1982— ritual a la menstruación, digno de toda mujer como antecedente del origen de la vida (March 11, 1982—ritual in honor of menstruation, worthy of every woman as a precursor to the origin of life; 1982; fig. 4.15). In an Indigenous-­inspired ritual, she covered her body with sanitary napkins, imprinted her bloody pubis on two walls adjacent to the gallery, and walked on a sheet of paper, leaving bloody tracks in her wake, as she celebrated her menstrual cycle as a vital force and discharged it from aseptic medical discourse.67 These pieces were displayed as commodified art objects (Chicago, Shapiro, and Schneemann) or inside cultural spaces and art schools (Chicago, Elwes, and Marmolejo). Only through their documentation could these works be transmitted to a broader audience, usually consisting of members of the art world. Conversely, Valente’s photo performance, posted on digital media, was denied such a protected space dedicated to art followers and was cannibalized by broad groups of internet users who were not only unversed in the visual arts but averse to feminist issues. Even if she engages with blood—an essentialist symbol of womanhood—Valente’s work is not about universalism; on the contrary, it is concerned with specificity and locality. Indeed, Valente’s major contribution to the discussion is that the exposure of her menstruation is not presented as an ontological signifier of gender identity but rather as an emblematic symbol of prochoice activism and the battle for women’s reproductive rights. Menstruation—or more precisely, its absence—came back to haunt Valente in May 2017, when she learned she was pregnant for the second time and chose to navigate the intricate network of illegal abortion in Brazil. At that time the streets were full of billboards celebrating Mother’s Day, and tv commercials were filled with promises of happy motherhood, promoting a cheerfulness at odds with her own experi176

Chapter Four

4.15  Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de Marzo, 1982—ritual a la menstruación, digno de toda mujer como antecedente del origen de la vida (March 11, 1982—ritual in honor of menstruation, worthy of every woman as a precursor to the origin of life), 1982, print on cotton paper. Courtesy of the artist and Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani, Milan-­Lucca, Italy.

ence. In reaction to the false advertisement, Valente created the billboard “Let’s Talk about Abortion” at Institute Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo, claiming a woman’s right not to be a mother. As the Italian philosopher and activist Silvia Federici claimed, “We are housemaids, prostitutes, nurses, shrinks; this is the essence of the ‘heroic’ spouse who is celebrated on ‘Mother’s Day.’ We say: stop celebrating our exploitation, our supposed heroism. From now on we want money for each moment of it, so that we can refuse some of it and eventually all of it.”68 In addition to the outdoor signage, Valente answered calls from the public around the clock and issued an open letter that stated, “Motherhood is compulsory, that is, we are pushed into this direction from an early age as our reproduction rights are legally denied in Brazil. . . . Therefore we need to talk about abortion. . . . I propose to answer calls and offer to listen throughout the month of May to people who feel the need to break the silence.”69 Valente’s discussion of reproductive rights finds a corollary in Costa Rican artist Priscilla Monge’s work. In Overol (Overalls; 1996; fig. 4.16), Monge fashioned overalls with sanitary pads; in Room (2001), she used sanitary napkins as surrogates for bricks to build the walls of a room; and in the performance Bloody Day (1998), she wore cargo pants with visible evidence of menstrual blood while standing among callers in a row of pay phones in the street. In Monge’s work, overalls, cargo pants, and bricks (all elements related to blue-­collar workers) become connected to menstrual blood, creating a material agency between female reproductive labor and male manual construction work. In Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004), Federici showed how in capitalist society the (domesticated, reproductive) body is for women what the factory has been for male waged workers: the primary ground of their exploitation and resistance, a form of work on which the accumulation of wealth depends—the difference being that men receive wages for their manual labor, while women’s work—be it maternity, child rearing, sexual work, or household tasks—is totally devalued and (usually) unpaid.70 Federici notes, “Many of us still have the illusion that we marry for love. A lot of us recognize that we marry for money and security; but it is time to make it clear that while the love or money involved is very little, the work which awaits us is enormous.”71 Of women’s double shift inside and outside the household, Federici sarcastically explained that many of us have discovered that the overalls did not give us more power than the apron. On the contrary, now that we have to wear both, we have even less time and energy to struggle against them.72

178

Chapter Four

4.16  Priscilla Monge, Overol (Overalls), 1996, sewn garment of sanitary pads. Courtesy of the artist.

4.17  Aleta Valente, Self-Love (2015), digital photograph. Photo: Aleta Valente. Courtesy of the artist.

Valente further disdained feminine taboos related to hygiene and bodily fluids, provoking discomfort, shock, and disgust in 2015 with Self-­Love. A selfie shows Valente riding on a bus, wearing dark glasses, headphones, and a turban, and licking her underarm hair (fig. 4.17). Since ancient times the ideal of female beauty has corresponded to the image of a young woman, portrayed as an allegorical Venus or a saintly Madonna, with no pubic or axial hair. Art historian Kenneth Clark drew a subtle but critical distinction between the “nude” and the “naked” in Western art: The artistic nude was associated with beauty, while the naked body was a distasteful revelation of flesh, establishing a sharp contrast between the divine nude and impure nakedness.73 Clark asserted that the nude body is produced by culture through art, while the naked is simply a body without clothing. The nude elicits murmurs of aesthetic appreciation; nakedness elicits shock and embarrassment. Valente deliberately constructs her selfies around the naked body and in opposition to the canonical idealized female nude. Self-­Love is a conscious response to the clean-­shaven, antiseptic body promoted by the media, the pornography industry, and classical art history. Like her bloody white pants, Valente’s unshaved armpit is both a sign of the abject and a rejection of ideal female beauty. Her appearance falls outside the realm of seductive images promoted by advertising and cultural industries. Such self-­representations violate norms of the modern beauty industry, which promotes expensive 180

Chapter Four

products and procedures for women’s self-­care both for hygienic and seductive purposes. Moreover, a woman’s hairy underarm remains a social taboo for many people, not something easily accepted by polite society. Valente has also targeted the Brazilian educational system, a further source of disappointment in her life. For ten years she struggled to pursue an academic degree, periodically attending the Faculdade de Belas Artes (School of Fine Arts) in the Universidade Federal of Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). Valente chose to study art history as a strategy to gain access to the university, selecting a program with a low candidate-­ to-­vacancy ratio. Feeling unwelcome in academia, she never finished the degree—and took her revenge in the 2013 performance Retire aqui o seu diploma de artista (Pick up here your artist’s diploma) at Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Valente gathered a group of performers who served as surrogate students. Each applicant filled out a form with their personal information, which was subsequently endorsed by official-­looking stamps. Then, the participants went through a mock commencement ceremony in which they dressed in academic gowns and other paraphernalia to receive fake fine ­arts diplomas. Photos of the staged event were posted on social media, and the “graduates” were congratulated for their “achievement.” For Valente, this was an act of self-­legitimation after spending so many years in academe without earning a credential: “I always felt too poor to be an intellectual, and too white and beautiful to be poor. I could never belong to any identity group. I was always an outsider.”74 Despite her sense of being an outcast, Valente has been able to navigate in the city’s cultural circuit, taking classes at eav and working as a museum guide, artist aide, and curatorial assistant; she has collaborated with a network of national and international artists and curators in the art residency program Capacete in Rio; she has been nominated twice, in 2017 and 2019, for the Prêmio Pipa (Pipa Prize), one of the most prestigious art awards in Brazil; she had a solo exhibition at the gallery A Gentil Carioca in downtown Rio de Janeiro in 2019, and then became represented by the same gallery. Both Valente and the soccer superstar Neymar show that while everyone has their place in society based on class, race, and gender, there are a few avenues for social mobility, including sports and beauty. Unfortunately, as Sueli Carneiro noted, these individual exceptions only confirm the discriminatory rule: “If one can, the others didn’t try hard enough.”75 Valente once more addressed social immobility in the photograph Ascenção social (Social ascent) from 2015 (fig. 4.18). In this photo she displays the full power of her seductiveness, accentuating her buttocks in a tiny thong bi

Practices of the Self

181

kini while stepping up on an unsteady ladder that ultimately leads nowhere. In this mordant critique, Brazilian sensuality and attractiveness are seen as useless attributes in the ascent to cultural, academic, or professional success for those with no access to the system of privilege based on wealth, pedigree, or education. For the film critic Ivana Bentes, Valente’s selfies “mark the emergence of new subjects that produce their [own] place of discourse: the pobre-­stars (poor stars), minorities, who are related [to] an entire Brazilian pop and popular culture, ironic and devastating.”76 In one of her most polemical self-constructed images titled Homeless or Hipster from 2016, Valente as @ex-­Miss Febem is shown with short platinum hair, a black bathing suit, a fake moustache, and a long beard made from her own dark hair (fig. 4.19). The artificiality of the image is highlighted; leaving no doubt that this is a woman posing as a nonbinary person. At first glance this work recalls Ana Mendieta’s Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), a suite of seven color photographs from 1972 in which the artist documented the process of transferring the beard of a fellow male student onto her own face, thereby positing traditional gender roles as social constructions. Like Men­ dieta, Valente plays with gender performativity, donning masculine postures, poses, and clothing. Though visually similar to Mendieta’s piece, Valente’s

4.18  Aleta Valente Ascenção social (Social ascent), 2015, digital photograph. Photo: Sophia Valente. Courtesy of the artist.

182

Chapter Four

4.19  Aleta Valente, Homeless or Hipster, 2016, digital photograph. Photo: Sophia Valente. Courtesy of the artist.

image raises different questions. Her body is seen in profile while her face stares directly at the viewer. She leans over a large plastic bag filled with aluminum cans like those carried by homeless people who earn money by recycling trash. The most disturbing aspect of this image is not Valente’s portrayal of a homeless figure but her transmutation—through the artifice of a false moustache and beard—into a gender-­fluid person, a figure she criticizes as the new “hipster” of society. Valente shares the perspective of some radfems who believe that anyone born a cis man retains male privilege in society even if they choose to live



Practices of the Self

183

as a woman and accept a correspondingly subordinate social position. This movement became popular during feminism’s second wave in the 1970s, and since then its transexclusionary radical feminist (terf) adherents—such as Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys, and Robin Morgan—have been engaged in an acrimonious battle with the lgbtqi+ community. They often criticize trans women for embracing stereotypical femininity and lacking intrinsic female experiences. terf views are at odds with more recent perspectives on gender and body politics that constitute a more inclusive position. Rejecting Butler’s and Preciado’s notion of sex as a product of discursive and performative practices, Valente assumes a biologically essentialist approach that endorses binary sexual distinctions based on the idea of the existence of “real” women. Stirring the polemical pot, Valente says, “Men wearing pink nails and a wig neither advance the feminist cause nor contribute to women’s fight against femicide and prochoice rights. . . . Why should men with beards occupy the same space that women fought for so long?”77 Valente’s view of transgender women has alienated her from some of her peers and produced accusations of transphobia. Valente’s stance made her work the target of vandalism at the 2017 exhibition Experiências n 10: Uterutopias (Experiences #10: Uterutopias) at Espaço Mesa, a small nonprofit art space in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The wall upon which images from the series Misogyny is leaking was projected was defaced by the word “transphobia” in spray paint. It was as if earlier assaults launched upon her via social media had left the virtual world to become a frightening reality. This time, antifeminists could not be blamed, since the attack was carried out by trans artists and activists. During a panel discussion, the activist Bernardo de Castro Gomes protested Valente by taking off their clothes. The trans performer, writer, and visual artist Tertuliana Lustosa joined Gomes in this impromptu action.78 In 2021 this controversy resurfaced after a trans woman allegedly accused Valente of being transphobic in a private party. In response, Valente posted a note on Instagram saying that her detractors had found a new form of misogyny to silence women. Many internauts immediately demanded punitive consequences for the artist, cancelling her, and sending her death threats. 79 In the midst of the loud controversy, the art world remained mute. Pushing back on Valente’s views on trans women, the Brazilian filmmaker Tania Cypriano finds the term “real women” troubling. Cypriano is the director of the acclaimed documentary Born to Be (2019) about trans and non-

184

Chapter Four

binary people who choose to go through gender confirmation surgeries such as facial feminization, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty as part of their transition.80 Identifying as a cisgender woman, Cypriano argues, “The need of a ‘communal realness’ that adopts politics of exclusion seems too close to a patriarchal society modeled around religion, morality, and power. What is ‘real’ to someone, is not to someone else. Some women menstruate, others don’t. Some can and have children, others can’t or don’t want to have children. Some women are born in the wrong body.”81 Valente, who also identifies as a cis feminist, has been accused of enjoying the privilege of being an attractive woman and dismissed for taking too much pleasure in her body to be able to challenge patriarchal values. Like Hannah Wilke before her, Valente has faced attack for indulging in what some sees as narcissistic acts that serve only to reinforce the exposure of the female body. Like Wilke’s, Valente’s sexy images can be viewed as a controversial tactic of self-­objectification aimed to reclaim the eroticized female body from the domain of male sexual desire.82 Indeed, Valente’s selfies pose intriguing questions: Are they just a manifestation of exhibitionism and self-­promotion, or even a form of “belated” feminism? Or are they a form of self-­empowerment and female agency? I would argue that Valente’s strategies embody a term coined by Hille Koskela: “empowering exhibitionism.”83 Through her self-­created images—and avatar—she speaks her mind by bringing additional layers of complexity to controversial debates on gender identity and female emancipation. Valente, Rosa, Faleiros, and Parayzo, all invert the objectification of women, protest female abuse, and reclaim public spaces. They question “invisible” systems of power and privilege. By inviting viewers to reassess established ideas of self-­representation, taboos, and public norms of behavior, they attract criticism and hostility. Even if some of them have attained degrees, they perceive the academy to be entrenched in intellectual elitism, racism, classism, and conservatism. For these artists, the naked body is no longer taboo. They freely expose themselves, collapsing the boundary between public and private. As they unceremoniously remove their clothes in public, they reclaim the radical performances of the pioneering US feminists of the 1970s, recognizing the ways in which the past informs the present and history gives form and meaning to new agencies. Though acknowledging their predecessors, this new generation of Brazilian artists introduces fresh strategies for political action, thus broadening the movement. Through their bold practices and decentered narratives, they reveal territories that



Practices of the Self

185

have been so far invisible, creating antipostcards of a country in which poverty, drugs, and guns are part of daily reality. Their work is a testimony to their time. As they strategically employ pussy, ass, and tits as potent weapons to promote multiple agendas, they become the new face of Brazilian feminism and the innovative agents of social change.

186

Chapter Four

TO BE CONTINUED

All entrances are good as long as the exits are multiple. —Suely Rolnik

The final pages of this book were written during the covid-­19 pandemic in 2020 – 21. As social distancing became the new norm, bodies were confined to domestic spaces, and social interaction was restricted to technological apparatuses such as Zoom video teleconferencing, social media, email, and the phone. Between friends and colleagues the exchanges often ended up with the expression “Take care of yourself.” And that is how this study comes to an end: thinking how the artists analyzed here took care of themselves during difficult times—not necessarily like those of a global pandemic, but surely during significant periods of struggle. They fought the oppressions of their time, envisioning new ways of living as they stood up against authoritarianism, patriarchal values, and moral conservatism. If this book started with Foucault’s call for action through the notion of “practices of resistance,” it ends with his later proposed ethics of “the care of the self.” More than just a command to “look after” oneself—as in keeping safe and healthy—Foucault’s understanding of the care of the self is equivalent to “the arts of existence.”1 It means to live one’s life in a state of continuous renewal and creation as if it were a work of art. It entails moving against the tide, dreaming of new and better possible worlds, and questioning old values. It suggests reimagining and transforming the present—and, if necessary, leaving behind established morals and regulations that no longer serve us.

Suely Rolnik calls this embrace of new potentialities a “micropolitical insurgency,” involving resistance to the perverse operations of the colonial-­ capitalistic regime and defiance of everything that would obstruct life affirmation.2 For both Rolnik and Foucault, the care of the self is not a form of self-­indulgence since it implies taking care of others as well. Rolnik claims that this mode of existence can be achieved through various forms of cooperation—such as producing collective synergies and weaving networks from distinct situations, agencies, relationships, experiences, and languages— that are unified by an ethical perspective on transformation.3 In On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, Maggie Nelson uses the term “aesthetics of care” to refer to a twentieth-­first century model that considers the audience to be damaged, in need of healing, aid, and protection, in lieu of the twentieth century concept of an “aesthetics of shock,” in which the audience is seen as numb, constricted, and in need of being awakened and freed.4 This marks the beginning of a new era in which affect and camaraderie may be considered indispensable staples. If at times the practices of the artists addressed in this book seemed individualistic (as artists’ practices will), that does not mean they were not interested in collective social transformation. Aleta Valente, for instance, transformed herself into a character (@ex-­Miss-­Febem) through narcissistic selfies to create audacious and transgressive conduct outside the norms of etiquette imposed on women in polite society. Renata Felinto made us confront our zone of comfort by showing that being white is not the same as being neutral or universal. Sallisa Rosa defied outrageous misconceptions of Indigenous people. By scandalizing and provoking the viewer, these artists force us to rethink our own privileges and biases. While some might characterize them as selfish, in fact they created spaces of freedom, not only for themselves, but for many others affected by their work. By confronting power relations, they show how it is possible to be an agent of change and to live by one’s own code of conduct. In their determination to avoid clichés and stereotypes, these artists shifted modes of self-­representation beyond fixed identities. Some explored a multiplicity of subjectivities—asking, Who am I? Who do I want to be?—as they questioned cultural constructions of femininity. The fight for women’s agency was only one among many dissident practices. They stood against state repression, opposed police brutality, and faced down racial discrimination. Rather than positioning themselves as victims of the system, they acted as agents of change often under dire circumstances. At times these artists were ridiculed, shamed, and even “canceled,” not only by the public but also by their own peers. That did not stop them for 188

To Be Continued

standing up for their beliefs. In their resilience, they produced polemics and controversy. Lygia Pape had a solo exhibition censored and subsequently closed, allegedly because of the inclusion of pornographic objects. Lenora de Barros had posters of her face vandalized. Berna Reale was vilified for reenacting police violence in her performances. Gretta Sarfaty was alienated from her conservative family as she engaged her naked body in her performances. Márcia X provoked the Catholic Church and traditional sectors of society as she desecrated religious artifacts by juxtaposing them with sexual objects. A so-­called antifeminist group attacked Valente in social media after she publicly exposed her menstrual flow on digital platforms. Lyz Parayzo ignited the fury of curators and arts administrators when she stormed exhibitions without an invitation. These artists not only produced laughter but also rendered visible the horrors of their time. When Sonia Andrade wrapped her face with thread to the point of deforming it, when Letícia Parente covered her eyes and mouth with surgical tape, when Anna Maria Maiolino blindfolded herself with black cloth, when Anna Bella Geiger obsessively and aimlessly climbed endless stairs, they produced sensations of asphyxiation that many Brazilians who had lived through the military regime could relate to. Maiolino simulated the severing of her tongue in protest of censorship. Rosana Paulino stitched coarse thread over photographs of her female relatives to express the systematic silencing of Afro-­Brazilians. Rosângela Rennó made us think about the horrors hidden behind prison doors. Reale exposed herself to vultures in a public square and was carried like a carcass through the streets as a cry against violence perpetrated on women’s bodies. Wanda Pimentel dwelt on a feminine universe, Regina Vater fought against women’s stereotypes, and Fabiana Faleiros confronted female sexual taboos. Each one of the artists discussed here presents a singular universe. As they invite us to ponder a multiplicity of issues posed by their works, they instigate conversations with many women writers and theoreticians cited throughout the book: Silvia Federici (wage compensation for domestic work), Judith Butler (the social construction of gender and sex), Suely Rolnik (the pimping of the colonial-­racializing-­capitalistic regime), Djamila Ribeiro (the social place of speech), Grada Kilombo (who can speak? who can produce knowledge?), Sueli Carneiro (racial discrimination), Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (cultural extractivism), and Nelly Richard (the false neutrality of patriarchal discourse), among others. The voices of these artists and writers comprise a myriad of conflicting, controversial, and competing views, making the discussion intellectually productive and stimulating.

To Be Continued

189

Some refused the term feminism (Sonia Andrade, Lygia Pape, and Anna Bella Geiger), others were ambivalent toward it (Wanda Pimentel, Anna Maria Maiolino, Márcia X), one advocated for radical feminism (Aleta Valente), and a few practiced queer feminism (Lyz Parayzo and Fabiana Faleiros). As one discussion permeated another, none was privileged. By choosing not to turn a chosen perspective into a prescription, this study gives voice to stances that welcome diversity and the tensions it generates. Since the beginning of this project, many changes have taken place in regard to the state of the arts in Brazil and the lives and careers of this book’s protagonists. A few recent exhibitions have addressed the artistic production of Brazilian women artists. Among the most significant are Histórias das mulheres, histórias feministas (Women’s histories, feminist histories; 2019) and Histórias da sexualidade (Histories of sexuality; 2018), both at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (Museum of Art of São Paulo; masp); and Invenção da Mulher Moderna: Para além de Anita e Tarsila (Modern women and their inventions: Beyond Anita and Tarsila; 2017) at Instituto Tomie Ohtake (Tomie Ohtake Institute) in São Paulo. New agents have entered the artistic scene. Sandra Benites, from the Guaraní Ñandeva people in the village of Porto Lindo, became Brazil’s first Indigenous art curator at masp. Breakthrough exhibitions such as Histórias Afro-­Atlânticas (Afro-­Atlantic histories; 2018) took place there and at Instituto Tomie Ohtake. On an individual level, some of the artists have accumulated financial and cultural capital. As Valente became represented by the commercial gallery A Gentil Carioca in Rio de Janeiro in 2019, her small-­format, low-­ resolution selfies made with a cellular phone camera, originally posted in the cyberspace of social media, were blown up into large-­scale photographs more palatable for the art market. Parayzo left behind her guerrilla-­style invasions and moved to Paris to pursue a degree in the visual arts at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-­Arts and obtained representation with the established Galeria Triângulo in São Paulo. Maiolino had her first comprehensive US solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), in 2017 and became represented by the powerful Hauser and Wirth gallery. Also in 2017 Pape had her first monographic exhibition in the United States, Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Geiger had acclaimed solo exhibitions all over the world, including Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, and the United States. Lenora de Barros and Rosana Paulino were invited to participate in the fifty-­ninth edition of the Venice Bienale, titled The Milk of Dreams and curated by Cecilia Alemani in 2022. Assuredly, 190

To Be Continued

the practices and legacies of these artists will take new contours and courses yet to be seen. Much has changed over the sixty years covered by this book. Artists no longer only come from the white middle and upper classes, but also from diverse social backgrounds. By incorporating what still remains at the margins of Brazilian culture into their artistic practices, they challenge asymmetries in power relations and demand more inclusion in the art scene. They engage with new technologies, promoting their works through social media and no longer depending on the validation and legitimation of museums, galleries, and art institutions. They communicate directly with various audiences, creating new forms of patronage, new modes of self-­representation, and decentered narratives based on alterity. With the advent of social media, old mechanisms of power gave way to new apparatuses of discipline and exclusion, as the potency of cancel culture proves. Spaces of judgment—museums, galleries, biennials, and art fairs, with their arsenal of powerful curators, art critics, and juries—were relocated to the digital public domain, where anyone can participate in virtual tribunals. Radicalized by social platforms, cancel culture became a new form of “discipline and punish.” As Maggie Nelson puts it, “These days, instead of fearing the bogeymen of yesteryear (the humiliation of silence, or a bad review), many fear being trolled, doxed, mobbed, or ‘called out’ almost as soon as they make their efforts public (or beforehand, as in prepublication cancellation campaigns).”5 Moreover, Brazilian society continues to discipline bodies, locating them within a stratified socioeconomic order marked by an alarming level of vio­ lence—one where women, Afro-­Brazilians, Indigenous people, and members of lgbtqi+ communities remain the designated targets of brutality and discrimination.6 Despite many ruptures and positive transformations, not everything has improved, and much work needs yet to be done. The international community was shocked by the assassination of Rio de Janeiro city council member Marielle Franco on March 14, 2018. Franco was a human-­ rights activist, born and raised in Complexo da Maré (a low-­income community in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro) and member of the lgbtqi+ community. Paramilitary groups are believed to be responsible for her death. Franco became a symbol of resistance against police violence, machismo, and racism in the country.7 Like Franco, many of the artists from the new generation come from the periphery of the country’s cultural centers, creating short circuits in the system through their radical sociopolitical agendas, as they affirm their differences and produce diversity.

To Be Continued

191

As the writing of this book comes to an end, new dissident practices are already responding to existing and emerging apparatuses of power and tactics of domination, such as biosecurity, cybersurveillance, environmental degradation, sustainability, anthropocentrism, and big data. More will come, producing new strategies of emancipation and promoting varied forms of subjectification. The story begun here, with its multiple turns, rhythms, and movements, will continuously evolve and adapt accordingly to new challenges and transformations in times to come.

192

To Be Continued

Notes Introduction

Epigraph: Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart, 61. Originally published in Portuguese as Perto do coração selvagem (1943). 1 Just to cite a few more: Vera Chaves Barcellos, Pietrina Checcacci, Odila Ferraz, Yolanda Freire, Iole de Freitas, Mona Gorovitz, Carmela Gross, Nelly Gutmacher, Judith Lauand, Wilma Martins, Ana Vitoria Mussi, Vilma Pasqualini, Jeannette Priolli, Ione Saldanha, Maria do Carmo Secco, Mira Schendel, Theresa Simões, Regina Silveira, Terezinha Soares, Amélia Toledo, Celeida Tostes, and Cybéle Varela. For a detailed analysis of the production of Brazilian female artists from the 1960s and 1970s, see Trizoli, “Atravessamentos feministas.” 2 In the 1920s and 1930s, modernist painters Anita Malfatti and Tarsila do Amaral laid the foundation for subsequent generations of Brazilian women artists. In the 1950s and 1960s Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, and Mira Schendel came to the forefont—all of whom have recently enjoyed international recognition with exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London. The trend persisted in the 1980s, when artists such as Adriana Varejão and Beatriz Milhazes became leading artists in the market being represented by Gagosian Gallery and Pace Gallery, respectively. 3 Herkenhoff and Buarque de Hollanda, Manobras Radicais, 45. 4 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” 5 Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, 101. 6 The Lava Jato operation began in 2014 to uncover bribery, kickbacks, illicit funding of political parties, and the plunder of public assets on an immense







194

scale, all centered on the oil giant Petrobrás and its contractors. The scandal led to the arrest of several business tycoons and elected officials, who were accused of an unprecedented scheme of corruption, and plunged the Brazilian elite into crisis. 7 Evangelicals make up 22 percent of Brazil’s population of roughly 209.3 million and represent the fastest-­growing religious demographic in the country. Between 1991 and 2000 the number of Catholics in Brazil decreased by 1 percent each year, while the number of Evangelicals rose by roughly 0.7 percent. In more recent years, it is believed that the decline of Catholicism has reached 1.2 percent per year, while the rise of Evangelicals has reached 0.8 percent a year. By 2022 Catholics are estimated to shrink to less than half of the total population, and by 2032 they will be surpassed by Evangelicals. Balloussier, “Evangélicos podem desbancar católicos.” 8 Freyre, Casa Grande e Senzala: Formação da família brasileira sob o regime da economia patriarchal, 211 – 12. The book was first published in 1933. 9 Cena de interior II addresses several sexual practices, including some drawn from shunga, the classic erotic images of Japanese popular art. In 2021 Roger Moreira, the vocalist of the rock band Ultraje a Rigor, was ordered to pay R$100,000 (approximately US$20,000) to Varejão for his misogynistic attacks on the internet in 2017 concerning the inclusion of Cena de interior II in the Queermuseum exhibition. Other polemical works in the exhibition, curated by Gaudêncio Fidélis, included Antonio Obá’s Et verbum (And the word; 2011), in which communion wafers were scrawled with words such as vulva, tongue, and asshole; and Fernando Baril’s Cruzando Jesus Cristo com Deusa Shiva (Crossing Jesus Christ with the Goddess Shiva; 1996). Bia Leite’s series Crianças viadas (Gay children; 2017), showing images of smiling children juxtaposed with inscriptions such as Queer Child: Queen of the Waters, was accused of promoting child prostitution. Leite had appropriated the humorous subtitles from social media users who identified themselves as being queer in their childhood and gave full consent for their use in the captions. 10 Name, “Falta ‘queer’ em ‘Queermuseu.’ ” O Globo, August 19, 2018. See also Name, “Imagem, ficção e gueto,” 67 – 71. 11 Evangelical Christians and members of Movimento Brasil Livre (mbl), the same right-­wing group that was instrumental in the impeachment of President Rousseff, targeted mam-­sp and its employees. The mayor of São Paulo, João Doria, refused to condemn the attacks. Marcelo Crivella, an Evangelical Christian and the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, blocked a proposed restaging of the Queermuseum exhibition at the Museu de Arte do Rio (mar). Through a crowd-­funding initiative, the exhibition was restaged in Rio de Janeiro’s Parque Lage in August 2018. The then director of the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage), Fábio Szwarcwald, was fired a month before the opening of the exhibition and rehired after a large protest organized by the 342Artes group, a self-­defined “supra-­partisan

Notes to Introduction











movement against corruption [that was] supportive in the struggle for a better Brazil,” led by the cultural producer Paula Lavigne. 12 Luiz Camillo Osório, the curator of the 35th Brazilian Art Panorama—the event that included Schwartz’s performance—was required to testify, along with Schwartz and Elizabeth Finger, the mother of the girl who touched the artist’s feet, before the Congressional Investigative Committee at the Federal Senate in Brasília, a body that addresses child and teenager abuse. A judge later ruled that there was no erotic or pornographic content in the performance. 13 Simões, “Brazil’s Polarizing New President.” 14 Calirman, “ ‘Epidermic’ and Visceral Works”; Calirman, “Lygia Pape,” 183 – 86. Herkenhoff ’s book recounts the adversities endured by Brazilian women artists since the nineteenth century and highlights their artistic contributions to modern and contemporary art. 15 Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985 originated at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (September – December 2017) as part of the Getty-­ sponsored initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. The exhibition traveled to the Brooklyn Museum (April – July 2018) and the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (August – November 2018). I was honored to be part of the advisory team for the exhibition and to participate in the symposium at the Hammer Museum in 2017. Andrea Giunta’s Feminismo y arte Latinoamericano: Historias de artistas que emanciparam el cuerpo (Latin American feminism and art: Histories of artists who emancipated the body) is also important in providing a theoretical and visual analysis of feminist practices and works by selected women artists from Latin America. 16 In Portuguese, I would also highlight Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda’s Explosāo feminista: Arte, cultura, política e universidade (Feminist cxplosion: Art, culture, politics, and the university). It gives an interdisciplinary analysis of the advances of feminism in the visual arts, poetry, cinema, theater, music, and academia in Brazil. Luana Saturnino Tvardovskas’s Dramatizaçāo dos corpos: Arte contemporânea e crítica feminista no Brasil e na Argentina (Body dramatizations: Contemporary art and feminist critique in Brazil and Argentina), analyzes theoretically and historically works by Brazilian and Argentine women artists from the 1980s and 1990s. Margareth Rago’s A Aventura de contar-­se: Femi­ nismos, escrita de si e invenções da subjetividade (The adventure of self-­telling: Feminisms, self-­writing, and inventions of subjectivity), offers an insightful narrative of the sagas of seven Brazilian feminist militants born between 1940 and 1950. Rago investigates how these women were instrumental in opening spaces for their peers in the political life of the country since the fall of the military regime. 17 Rolnik, “Spheres of Insurrection.” Rolnik is coauthor with Félix Guattari of Micropolítica. 18 Federici, Wages against Housework and Caliban and the Witch. 19 For Butler, gender identity is not an ontological manifestation of any in-



Notes to Introduction

195

trinsic essential subjectivity, but rather the product of language, speech utterance, actions, dress codes, and social behaviors—and thus, a result of performative actions. See Butler, Gender Trouble. 20 Djamila Ribeiro’s O que é lugar de fala? denounces the ways in which power relations legitimize or delegitimize the speech—or even existence—of certain categories of people. Also relevant are Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought and Grada Kilomba’s Plantation Memories. 21 On decoloniality see Quijano and Ennis, “Coloniality of Power”; Mignolo, “Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference”; Dussel, “Eurocentrism and Modernity”; and Lugones, “The Coloniality of Gender.” On extractivism, see Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, “Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa.” 22 The #MeToo movement was founded by activist Tarana Burke in 2006 to help survivors of sexual violence. It gained national and worldwide attention in 2017 with allegations of sexual harassment against film producer Harvey Weinstein. The independent ngo Think Olga was an instrumental player in spreading and documenting women’s mobilization in Brazil. See the Think Olga website, https://thinkolga.com/. 23 Anjos, Contraditório, 46 – 47. This insightful book analyzes the conundrums raised by the discussion of local production in a globalized world.

Chapter One. Political Practices

Epigraph: “É o tempo da travessia: e, se não ousarmos fazê-­la, teremos ficado, para sempre, à margem de nós mesmos.” From the poem “Tempo de Travessia” (Time of Crossing) by Fernando Teixeira de Andrade (1946 – 2008). 1 Galeria Arte Global was founded in 1973 by the private media conglomerate tv Globo; it sold artists’ multiples at affordable prices and advertised on tv Globo during prime time, just before the evening’s telenovelas (soap operas). Prominent dealers Raquel Arnaud and Franco Terranova spearheaded the Arte Global galleries in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, respectively. Arte Global closed in 1983, and its collection was transferred to the Roberto Marinho Foundation. Pape’s Eat Me is a ten-­minute experimental 35mm film, made after a first 16mm attempt. 2 For the closing of Pape’s exhibition, see Trizoli “ ‘Eat Me.” See also Sneed, “Sex, Satire, and Censorship.” 3 Sonia Andrade, interview with the author, August 4, 2014, Rio de Janeiro. 4 Osthoff, “De musas a autoras,” 78. 5 Freitas, “Entrevista à Ana Maria Machado,” 94. 6 Chiarelli, “Sobre a exposição mulheres artistas,” 7. 7 Amaral, “A mulher nas artes,” 221. Author’s translation. 8 As Simioni notes, despite being enrolled at the school, Brazilian women artists still had no effective access to live models—an essential training tool for creating the most prized paintings by the academy. Simioni, Profissão artista, 29.

196

Notes to Introduction

9 Lobato, “A propósito da exposição Malfatti,” O Estado de São Paulo, December 20, 1917. 10 Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, interview with the author, April 10, 2021. See also Simioni’s Mulheres modernistas. 11 Tarsila do Amaral, letter to her parents, April 19, 1923. Tarsila was in Paris during the celebrated São Paulo’s Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week) in 1922, a multidisciplinary event that became the catalyst of modern art in Brazil, including art exhibitions, poetry readings, concerts, and lectures. 12 MoMA’s exhibition Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil led to the acquisition of Amaral’s painting A Lua (The Moon; 1928) for approximately US$20 million by the museum in 2019. 13 Tarsila’s statement in Leo Gibson Ribeiro, “Entrevista: Tarsila do Amaral.” See also Small, “Plasticity and Reproduction,” 47. 14 Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, interview with the author, June 4, 2021, Zoom. 15 Herkenhoff, “The Two and the Only Tarsila,” 104 – 14. 16 See Roffino, “Why MoMA’s Exhibition of Towering Brazilian Modernist Tarsila do Amaral Misses the Mark.” 17 Andrade, “Cannibalist Manifesto.” 18 André Breton, “Maria,” in MARIA. In 1943 Martins had two shows at the Valentine Gallery in New York. The second, Maria: New Sculptures, coincided with Piet Mondrian’s Mondrian: New Paintings. When Martins learned that Mondrian had not sold a single work, she bought Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942 – 43) for US$800 and gave it to MoMA. Martins was also instrumental in establishing the São Paulo Biennial. 19 Martins served as the model for the body in Étant donnés; his second wife, Alexina (Teeny), posed for the figure’s arm. 20 Pedrosa, “Maria, the sculptor,” in Mário Pedrosa, 276; originally published as “Maria, a escultora,” Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), April 27, 1957. Pedrosa (1900 – 1981) was arguably the most influential art critic in Brazil. Born in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, he studied in Switzerland and Germany. In 1957 he became vice president of the International Association of Art Critics. He regularly participated in the São Paulo Biennials as organizer and jury member between 1953 and 1963, and he was the general director of the 1961 biennial. He wrote regularly for several newspapers, including Tribuna da Imprensa and Jornal do Brasil. Pedrosa was also a nonpracticing lawyer, a Trotskyist Communist, and a literary critic. He was the first member of the Brazilian Workers’ Party, founded in 1980, one year before his death. 21 Veronica Stigger in conversation with Graça Ramos, moderated by Paula Terra-­Neale, in “Maria Martins: A Conversation about Aspects of the Work,” at the online event We Weave Ourselves from One Another, organized by terra-­ arte, April 19, 2021. 22 The exhibition was held from December 1960 to January 1961 at mam-­s p. It was initially conceived by Paulo Mendes de Almeida, the museum’s director



Notes to Chapter One

197

from 1959 to 1960, but was finalized by Pedrosa, who was director from 1961 to 1963. 23 Lourival Gomes Machado, “O sexo dos anjos.” Quoted in Cerchiaro, Simioni, and Trizoli, “The exhibition ‘Contribuição da mulher às artes plásticas no país’ and the silence of Brazilian art criticism,” 220. 24 Cerchiaro, Simioni, and Trizoli, “The Exhibition ‘Contribuição da mulher às artes plásticas no país’ and the Silence of Brazilian Art Criticism,” 220. 25 Amaral, “A propósito de um questionário de Sheila Leirner,” 256. Author’s translation. 26 Barbosa, “Mulheres: Arte, artesanato, design,” 236. 27 Richard, Masculine/Feminine, 30. 28 Amaral and Herkenhoff, Ultramodern, 24. 29 Fischberg, “Entrevista,” 19. 30 Bechelany, “A Vida dos Objetos,” 67. Pimentel was a student of Ivan Serpa, the founder in 1956 of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente (Frente Group), which, like Grupo Ruptura (Rupture Group) in São Paulo, favored geometric abstraction. 31 Mendes, “Nossos homens em Nova Iorque,” 44 – 47. 32 “A Conversation between Anna Maria Maiolino and Helena Tatay,” in Anna Maria Maiolino, 45. 33 The installation Tropicália Penetráveis pn2, pn3 (Tropicália Penetrables pn2, pn3), known as Tropicália (Tropicália), was comprised of two booths made out of wood and covered with colorful printed fabrics. As participants walked barefoot through these spaces, they encountered paths of sand and pebbles, plastic bags filled with dirt and powdered pigments, tropical plants, and live parrots inside a large cage. In the main booth, the viewer encountered a dark passageway leading to a television set, from which emanated a series of noises. The second booth was an open structure that displayed the inscription “Pureza é um mito” (Purity is a myth) at the top of one of its walls. 34 Herkenhoff, “The Contemporary Art of Brazil,” 106. 35 Carneiro and Pradilla, Lygia Pape, 60. Author’s translation. 36 Amaral, “A propósito de um questionário de Sheila Leirner, 255. Author’s translation. 37 Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil, 56. 38 Freyre, Casa Grande e Senzala (The Master and the Slaves), 8. Other relevant essays on Brazilian patriarchy are Antonio Candido’s “The Brazilian Family” and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Raízes do Brasil. 39 Matos and Paradis, “Desafios à despatriarcalização do Estado Brasileiro,” 79. Only in 2002 was the term “honest woman” removed from Brazilian civil law. 40 Cleary, Race, Nationalism, and Social Theory in Brazil, 9. 41 For an analysis of the formation of the Brazilian family, see Almeida, ed., Colcha de retalhos; and Corrêa, “Repensando a família patriarcal Brasileira;” 5 – 16.

198

Notes to Chapter One

42 More recently, the notion of patriarchy has been questioned in feminist circles. For instance, Lia Zanotta Machado has argued that a rigid reading of patriarchy is no longer possible in contemporary society, where traditional definitions of gender have been shattered and new models of family constructions are taking place. Machado, Perspectivas em confronto, 2 – 3. 43 Schwarz, Cultura e política, 1964 – 1969; 7. 44 The ai-­5, originally intended to be in effect for one year, would define the interchange between Brazilian civilians and their government for a decade, until its long-­awaited, eagerly anticipated demise on December 31, 1978. 45 See Reis, Ridenti, Sá Motta, O golpe e a ditadura militar, 23. 46 Sonia Andrade, interview with the author, August 4, 2014, Rio de Janeiro. 47 Hanisch, “The Personal Is Political,” 76 – 77. The term “second wave” was coined by Martha Weinman Lear in the New York Times Magazine, March 10, 1968, to distinguish the resurgence of women’s activism in the 1960s from the first wave of the suffragist and abolitionist women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century. The second wave was spurred by the civil rights movement, countercultural protests, and the publication of crucial texts, including Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963). 48 Alvarez, Engendering Democracy, 70. Among the pioneering Brazilian feminists, the writer Rose Marie Muraro and the journalist Heloneida Studart, for instance, focused their attention on women’s introduction to the workforce. Studart is the author of Mulher, objeto de cama e mesa. Muraro published A mulher na construção do mundo futuro and Sexualidade da mulher Brasileira: Corpo e classe social no Brasil. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, originally published in 1949, was only translated in Brazil in 1960. 49 For a discussion of the role of the church on women’s issues in Brazil, see Alvarez, Engendering Democracy, 60 – 70. 50 See Jandrić and McLaren, “Paulo Freire and Liberation Theology.” 51 Alvarez, Engendering Democracy, 71. Originally published in Memórias das Mu­ lheres do Exílio (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1980), 248. 52 Betty Friedan in As grandes entrevistas do Pasquim 2 (Rio de Janeiro: Codecri, 1976), 73 – 76. 53 Sarti, “O feminismo Brasileiro desde os anos 1970,” 37. 54 Soihet, “Preconceitos nas charges de O Pasquim,” 42. Also in Rachel Soihet, “Zombaria como arma antifeminista: instrumento conservador entre li­ bertários,”Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis 13, no. 3 (September – December, 2005): 591 – 611. 55 Jaschik, “Judith Butler Discusses Being Burned in Effigy and Protested in Brazil.” 56 “Entrevista com Leila Diniz,” O Pasquim (Rio de Janeiro), November 20 – 26, 1969. After the interview was published, the actress was persecuted by the military police, having to hide in the home of the television host Flávio Cavalcanti. 57 Gretta Sarfaty, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. See



Notes to Chapter One

199

Trizoli, “Atravessamentos feministas,” 263 – 65. See also Dimambro, “Imagens de Gretta Sarfaty.” 58 Evocative Recollections was first performed at Palazzo dei Diamanti in the city of Ferrara, Italy, in 1978. In 1979, Sarfaty was undressed in the presentation of Evocative Recollections at the Center Pompidou in Paris, but she appears fully clothed in later performances of the piece. 59 Gretta Sarfaty, interview with the author, November 25, 2021, Zoom. 60 Fernando Gabeira is a prominent progressive member of Brazil’s congress. In his early years he was a member of the guerilla group Movimento Re­ volucionário 8 de Outubro (8th of October Revolutionary Movement), responsible for the kidnapping of the US ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in September 1969. After nine years in exile, Gabeira returned to Brazil under the 1979 amnesty. 61 For an analysis of Ipanema Beach, see Huguenin, “As praias de Ipanema.” 62 Bordo, The Male Body, 178. 63 The Porn Art movement produced three zines, two anthologies, and many other publications. See Gilbert, “Transgressive Bodies.” 64 Kac, Porneia, 5. The group also performed their poems at Rio de Janeiro’s downtown landmark public square known as Cinelândia. 65 The term Amerindians refers to the Indigenous population from South America, particularly from the Amazonian region. 66 On the myth of marginality in Brazil, see Calirman, “Marginália in Brazil’s ‘Stone-­Throwing Age.’  ” 67 For the confluence of pedagogical and artistic experiences in Geiger’s trajectory, see Bernardo Mosqueira, “Anna Bella Geiger, circa MMXIX,” 38 – 49. 68 Mário Pedrosa, “Anna Bella Geiger,” Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro), February 6, 1968; in Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents; 324. 69 Shtromberg, Art Systems, 140. 70 The filmmaker Vivian Ostrovsky, director of the documentary Anna Bella Geiger (2019), found the record by Los Chaynas in Geiger’s studio in Rio de Janeiro. 71 Navas, Anna Bella Geiger, 227. The postcards were published by the media conglomerate Bloch Editores. On the reverse of each postcard Geiger printed a phrase stating that she was not pretending to be an Amerindian. 72 Anna Bella Geiger, interview with the author, November 12, 2018, New York. 73 Schwarcz, Sobre o autoritarismo Brasileiro, 110. Author’s translation. 74 Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, interview with the author, June 4, 2021, Zoom. 75 Diego, Anna Bella Geiger, 44. 76 Pape’s work encompasses a diverse variety of media and genres including sculpture, engraving, painting, drawing, performance, filmmaking, video, and installation. Pape was also a student of the printmaker Fayga Ostrower.

200

Notes to Chapter One

Geiger invited Pape and Antonio Manuel to teach the experimental course Atividade-­criatividade (Activity-­Creativity) at mam-­rj in 1971. 77 For an analysis of the relationship of the Tupinambá people and cannibalism, see Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics. 78 Dunn, Brutality Garden, 8. See also Dunn, Contracultura. 79 Veloso, Tropical Truth, 156. 80 Pedrosa, “Discurso aos tupiniquins ou nambás”; 169–72. After the mam-­Rio fire, Pedrosa proposed the construction of a Museu das Origens (Museum of Origins) illustrating the five sources of creation in Brazilian culture: Indigenous, Black, contemporary, popular, and the art of the unconscious. As the art historian Paula Terra-­Reale points out, this project would be extremely timely if proposed to any museum today. Paula Terra-­Neale, “Pedrosa e as Lygias Clark e Pape,” in We Weave Ourselves from One Another, cycle of conversations between curators and researchers about ten Brazilian women artists. Online event, organized by terra-­arte, May 3, 2021. 81 Pape, “Catiti-­Catiti,” 72 – 73. 82 Pape, “Catiti-­Catiti,” 69. 83 Oiticica wrote about the role of the artist as an “experimenter of the new” in the article “Experimentar o experimental” (March 22, 1972), document no. 0380.72, Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro. The text was first published in the magazine Navilouca (Rio de Janeiro) in 1974. Later, he further elaborated on the term “artist-­inventor” in Hélio Oiticica, letter to Bena Marley Caymmi (Biscoitos Finos) (November 11, 1979), document no. 0057.79, Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro. 84 Lygia Clark, Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Pape, Reynaldo Jardim, and Theon Spanudis also signed Gullar’s “Manifesto Neoconcreto.” Oiticica joined the group later. For more on the Neo-­Concrete movement, see Brito, Neoconcretismo. For a perspective on the schism between the Concrete and Neo-­Concrete movements, see Martins, Constructing an Avant-­Garde. Kaira M. Cabañas argues that the contact with Dr. Nise da Silveira’s psychiatric patients at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro’s Engenho de Dentro neighborhood was critical to the Neo-­ Concrete artists’ creative process. See Cabañas, Learning from Madness, 103. See also Blanc, “The Disorder and Progress of Brazilian Visual Culture in 1959.” 85 Both Pape and Oiticica were influenced by Pedrosa’s celebrated notion of “O exercício experimental da liberdade” (The experimental exercise of freedom; 1967), where the critic called upon artists to create impermanent experiences, collective actions, propositions, situations to be lived, rather than finished objects of art. It was originally published in his article “O ‘bicho da seda’ na produçāo de massa,” Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro), August 14, 1967; translated as “The ‘silkworm’ in mass production,” in Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents, 147 – 50.



Notes to Chapter One

201

86 Carneiro and Pradilha, “Lygia Pape, 18. In 1981 Pape received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to develop the project “Arquitetura dos Índios e Favelas do Brasil” (Architecture of Indigenous People and Favelas from Brazil). 87 Oiticica left Rio de Janeiro on December 3, 1968—just ten days before the military regime decreed the ai-­5—returning only in 1978, two years before his death, at age forty-­two. He first went to London to organize his solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery (opened on February 25, 1969). In 1970 he moved to New York, thanks to a Guggenheim Foundation grant, and stayed in the city until 1978. Other artists who left Brazil during the dictatorship included Lygia Clark, who also opted for a voluntary exile, living intermittently in Paris from 1964 until 1976; Rubens Gerchman, who in 1967 got a travel fellowship from the National Salon of Modern Art and moved to New York, where he stayed until 1973; and Antonio Dias, who left to study in Paris for six months in 1965 after receiving the prize for painting at the IV Paris Bienal, and then moved to Milan in 1968. 88 Mattar, Lygia Pape, 85. Paula Pape, in conversation with the author, July 30, 2014, Rio de Janeiro; June 19, 2017, Rio de Janeiro; March 27, 2017, New York; and May 20, 2016, Lisbon. 89 Lygia Pape, “Cinema Marginal,” 134. An English translation appears in Borja-­ Villel et al., Lygia Pape-­Magnetized Space, 328. 90 Lygia Pape, “Objetos de sedução: eat me,” in Lygia Pape (Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1983), 47. 91 Pape, “Fala, Hélio,” 19; first published in Revista de Cultura Vozes (Rio de Janeiro), no. 5 (1978): 363 – 70. 92 Pape published a print version of Eat Me: Gluttony or Lust? in the short-­lived journal Malasartes, no. 2 (December – January – February 1976), in which she emphasized the sensorial aspects of the installation. Despite the brevity of its existence (only three issues between September 1975 and June 1976) and its relatively small run of five thousand copies per edition, Malasartes became one of the most celebrated artists’ journals published in Brazil during the mid-­1970s. 93 Conduru, “Contra a domesticação,” 193 – 94 94 “Outside the Frame of the Screen: Lygia Pape Interviewed by Angélica de Moraes,” in Candela, Lygia Pape, 44. 95 Gill, “Empowerment/Sexism.” 96 Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, 157. 97 Gill, “Empowerment/Sexism.” 98 Lygia Pape, “A mulher na iconografia de massa” (The woman in mass iconography) (1979), cedoc Archive, Funarte: Rio de Janeiro; 21. 99 From 1963 until 1985 Cláudia ran a well-­regarded column by the journalist and psychologist Carmen da Silva titled “A arte de ser mulher” (The art of being a woman). For the reception of feminism in the Brazilian press in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, see Mendez, “Feminismo, imprensa e poder no Brasil contemporâneo.”

202

Notes to Chapter One

100 Morin, L’Ésprit Du Temps Eco, Opera Aperta; Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception; Barthes, “Éléments de sémiologie.”

Chapter Two. Discursive Practices

1 Food is also the subject of Maiolino’s installations Monumento à fome (Monument to hunger; 1978) and Estado escatológico (Scatological state; 1978). Mo­numento à fome consisted of two sacks, one filled with rice and the other with beans, in a nod to the food staples of the lower classes in Brazil. In Estado escatológico she displayed various types of toilet paper on the wall, arranged from the cheapest to the most expensive, humorously including a newspaper and a leaf from a plant. With these two works, Maiolino connected the ends of the digestive system—ingesting food and excreting waste. Subsequent works such as Arroz and feijão (Rice and beans; 1979; remade for the 2010 São Paulo Biennial), consisted of a large table covered with a black cloth and set up for a meal. Seeds of rice and beans germinate from white plates filled with soil. The work addressed unequal access to consumer goods, separating those with means from those who are disenfranchised from consumer society. 2 Brenner, “Mouth over Matter,” 104. 3 Brenner, “Mouth over Matter,” 107. 4 Sylvester, Brutality of Fact, 57. The source for the pope’s wide-­open mouth is the image of the screaming nurse with the broken glasses at the Odessa Steps in Sergei Eisenstein’s classic 1925 film Battleship Potemkin. 5 Deleuze notes “Bacon creates the painting of the scream because he establishes a relationship between the visibility of the scream (the open mouth as a shadowy abyss) and invisible forces, which are nothing other than the forces of the future.” See Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 51. 6 For an assessment of the visual arts under the dictatorship see Calirman, Brazilian Art under Dictatorship; published in Portuguese by Réptil Editora in 2014. 7 In conjunction with É o que sobra (What is left over), Maiolino created X, II (1974), also from the series Fotopoemaçāo, in which she placed a pair of scissors next to her eye as if ready to cut it. 8 Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife, 30. 9 Y, directed by Maiolino, with cinematography by Max Nauenberg and music by Vânia Dantas Leite (Rio de Janeiro, 1974); black-­and-­white Super 8 film, sound; 2:23; transferred to video in 2000. In conjunction with Y, Maiolino did the Super 8 film X, in which her eye is seen through a black-­lace mourning veil. A piece of white paper lying on the floor is gradually covered with drips of red, perhaps blood. The eye fills the whole frame and searches for a threatening presence; the eye closes as a metal blade suddenly appears on screen. The eyes shut tightly as tears begin running down her face. The increasing flow of red drops onto the white paper would appear to be the result



Notes to Chapter Two

203

of extreme injury. X was directed by Maiolino, with cinematography by Max Nauenberg and music by Vânia Dantas Leite (Rio de Janeiro, 1974), color film, 3:00. 10 Anna Maria Maiolino, email to the author, March 16, 2020. The script in Portuguese reads: “Ana Vieira Ruiz, cabra, que vive de lavar roupas . . . Manuel da Costa Ataíde, crioulo; Manuel da Gama, que vive da arte da pintura; Ana Teodora de Castro, parda, que vive de tecer; Francisco da Silva Maciel, que ainda vive de sua arte de música; não diga jamais.” Anna Maria Maiolino, Y (1974). Author’s translation. 11 Anna Maria Maiolino, “Escritos 1970 – 2001,” 264. 12 In-­Out (Antropofagia) was directed and edited by Anna Maria Maiolino, with cinematography by Sigmund Zehr and music by Laura Clayton; with João Eduardo Osório and Anna Maria Maiolino (Rio de Janeiro, 1973 – 74); color Super 8 film, 8:27. 13 Brater, “The ‘I’ in Beckett’s Not I,” 192. 14 Brenner, “Mouth Over Matter,” 103. 15 Ivone Margulies, “Filminhos” in Anna Maria Maiolino, exhibition catalog, ed. Helena Tatay (Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies/Koenig, 2011), 118. 16 Clark also developed the propositions Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic slobber, 1973), Canibalismo (Cannibalism, 1973), Rede de elástico (Elastic net, 1974), and Relaxação (Relaxation, 1974 – 75), among others. During this period, Clark underwent psychoanalysis with Pierre Fédida, who in 1972 published “Le cannibale mélancolique” in Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse 6 (Fall 1972): 123 – 28. 17 Lygia Clark, 1980, 39. Author’s translation. 18 Fabião, “The Making of a Body,” 296. 19 Lepecki, “Affective Geometry, Immanent Acts,” 279. In a text published in 1975 but probably written a year earlier, Clark rejected performance and body art, citing the artist Gina Pane in reference to Pane’s piece The Conditioning, First Action of Self-­Portrait(s) (1973), in which the artist lay on a metal bed above lit candles for approximately thirty minutes, with her pain from the heat visible to the audience. Clark, “Da supressão do objeto (anotaçōes)” 264. 20 “A Conversation between Anna Maria Maiolino and Helena Tatay,” in Anna Maria Maiolino, exhibition catalog, ed. Helena Tatay (Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies/Koenig, 2011), 44. 21 Searle, Speech Acts, 163. 22 Butler, Gender Trouble, 186 – 87. 23 Doane, “The Close-­Up,” 90. 24 Gretta Sarfaty, interview with Nadiesda Dimambro, in Dinambro’s “Images of Gretta Sarfaty,” 42. Author’s translation. 25 Gretta Sarfaty, interview with the author, November 23, 2021, Zoom. See also Trizoli, “Atravessamentos feministas,” 263 – 65; and Sarfaty, Auto-­Photos. Transformações I originated from earlier black-­and-­white negatives taken by

204

Notes to Chapter Two

the photographer Julio Abe Wakahara for Sarfaty’s 1975 series Auto-­Photos I, II, III. 26 Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, 28. 27 A morte do horror (Horror’s death; Paris, 1981) is a video with seven episodes: “Ação,” “Silêncio,” “Confrontação,” “Aviação,” “Conversação,” “Iluminação,” and “Apresentação” (Action, Silence, Confrontation, Aviation, Conversation, Illumination, and Presentation). Cinematography by Olivier Morel. Color, 11:56. 28 The pioneering video art group included Geiger, Andrade, Fernando Cocchiarale, Ivens Machado, Letícia Parente, Paulo Herkenhoff, Ana Vitória Mussi, and Miriam Danowski. Since video equipment was too expensive and difficult to be accessed, most of the group’s works were done with a borrowed Portapak (an early portable system of video camera and recorder) brought from the United States by the filmmaker Jom Tob Azulay. 29 Cesar, “Sobre servidões e liberdades” [On servitudes and freedoms], 27. 30 Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 140. 31 Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 55, 139. Parente’s installation Medidas was first exhibited in the Experimental Area of the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro in 1976. 32 André Parente and Katia Maciel, interview with the author, March 6, 2020, New York. 33 Maciel, A pele das coisas. Author’s translation. 34 Lombroso introduced modern profiling into the criminal justice system in his book L’uomo delinquente (The criminal man; 1876). See Finn, Capturing the Criminal Image, xiv; and Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 168. 35 Parente and Maciel, interview with the author. 36 See Biczel, “Cracking Open the Systems.” 37 Foucault, History of Sexuality: Vol. 1, 110. 38 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 29. 39 Parente, “Alô, é a Letícia?” 9. 40 In the video In (1975), Parente suspends herself by her shoulders on a dress hanger inside a closet. In Preparação II (Preparation II, 1976), the artist injects herself with four vaccines labeled anti-­cultural colonialism, anti-­racism, anti-­ political mystification, and anti-­art mystification. In the 1982 video Tarefa I (Task I), she lays down on an ironing board in order to have her clothes pressed by a Black servant. Together, they are visual manifestoes against gender, race, and class discrimination. 41 Trizoli, “ ‘Tina América.’ ” According to Trizoli, the female characters were selected from a survey published by the magazine Veja seeking to define the new modern Brazilian woman. The magazine was one of the largest in circulation at the time, and in 1975 it had prepared a special edition for the un Women’s Year. In 1985 Vater moved with her husband, the video artist Bill Lundberg, to Austin, Texas, where she further developed her interests in feminism and ecology.



Notes to Chapter Two

205

42 Arantes, ISSOÉOSSODISSO, 11. 43 Butler, Gender Trouble, 116. Julia Kristeva discusses the relationship of language and the masculine order in Revolution in Poetic Language. Kristeva further elaborates on the semantic possibilities of poetic language in her essay “From One Identity to an Other,” 124 – 47. 44 Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa.” 45 Deleuze and Guatarri, A Thousand Plateaus, 291. 46 Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard (A throw of the dice will never abolish chance; 1897) anticipated the twentieth-­century Concrete poetry movement in its radical experiments with typography and layout. Spread over twenty pages, drawing on various typefaces and font sizes amidst large blank spaces, it stresses form as content. 47 De Barros states that her interest in linguistics stemmed from her mother, the writer Electra D. de Barros, while her curiosity for images came from her father, Geraldo de Barros. Lenora de Barros, interview with the author, August 11, 2017, New York. 48 Língua vertebral was first presented at the 1998 São Paulo Biennial, known as the “Anthropophagy Bienal,” curated by Paulo Herkenhoff. (The work was remade in color with Photoshop in 2009.) For the biennial, de Barros also created the video performance No país da língua grande, dai carne a quem quer carne (In the country of the big tongue, give meat to those who want meat). De Barros said that in this work “she chewed her tongue in an autophagic gesture, suggesting the devouring of someone’s own tongue, and all the metaphors and signifiers associated with the notion of tongue as language.” Lenora de Barros, email to the author, April 12, 2020. 49 Finn, Capturing the Criminal Image, 105. See also Chinoy, “The Racist History Behind Facial Recognition.” 50 De Barros’s photographs were originally taken in 1994 with computer software that allowed hairdressers at a São Paulo shopping mall to show clients different hairstyles. She first published these self-­portraits in her weekly column “Umas,” which ran from 1993 to 1996 in the São Paulo newspaper Jornal da Tarde. Articles from the column are collected in Lenora de Barros: Umas. 51 Lenora de Barros, interview with the author, August 11, 2017, New York. For a detailed description of all phases of Procuro-­me, see Arantes, ISSOÉOSSODISSO. 52 Augusto de Campos, “De onde se vê a não quero nem ver” (From where it’s seen to I don’t even care to see), in de Barros and Mello, RELIVRO Lenora de Barros, 122 – 23. 53 Another antecedent to Procuro-­me was Pape’s installation Wanted (1974), from the series Poemas visuais (Visual poems), where the artist placed the word Wanted over the image of a skull, as if death itself was being sought. 54 Originally in Portuguese as “Quem eu? / Nāo, ela . . . / Eu? / Ela? / Ela nāo / A cara dela / É ela / Eu . . . ela / A mesma? / A cara dela / Procuro ela / Aquela

206

Notes to Chapter Two

/ A cara dela / Ela / Aquela / A cara dela / Ela . . . aquela / A cara dela / A mesma? / Sou eu? / Ela?” Author’s translation. 55 Brater, “The ‘I’ in Beckett’s Not I,” 193. 56 Breton, Nadja, 11. 57 For a reading of Breton’s relationship to Nadja, see Levitt, Genres and Genders of Surrealism, 52. 58 Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, 224. 59 Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, 218. 60 Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, 218. 61 See Sigmund Freud, “The Unconscious” (1915) and “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. J. Strachey (New York: Norton, 1953). 62 Lacan, Le seminaire, livre VII [The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII], 52, 68. 63 Arantes, ISSOÉOSSODISSO, 11.

Chapter Three. Transgressive Practices

1 Basbaum, “X,” 165. 2 Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage; eav) is a multidisciplinary art school founded by Rubens Gerchman in 1975. For an analysis on the foundational principles of the eav, see Calirman’s “Rubens Gerchman e a pedagogia do cotidiano” [Rubens Gerchman and the pedagogy of daily life]. The exhibition Como vai você geraçāo 80? at eav was curated by Marcus Lontra, Sandra Maeger, and Paulo Roberto Leal. Among the artists from the Geraçāo 80 were Adriana Varejão, Daniel Senise, Beatriz Milhazes, Luiz Pizarro, Leonilson, Luiz Zerbini, Leda Catunda, Sérgio Romagnolo, Cristina Canale, and Suzana Queiroga. 3 The few galleries in place at that time were mainly operated by European immigrants that came to Brazil after World War II. Among them were Jean Boghici, Paolo Businco, Arturo Franco Terranova, Giuseppe Baccaro, and Pietro Bo Bardi; a few women dealers such as Raquel Arnaud and Luisa Strina entered the market in the 1970s, though they only became established a decade later. In the 1980s the art-­market boom centered on galleries in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. New dealers such as Thomas Cohn, Rubem Breitman, Victor Arruda, Paulo Klabin, Paulo Bittencourt, João Pedrosa, Luiz Buarque de Hollanda, Anna Maria Niemeyer, Ricardo Trevisan, André Millan, and, later, Marcantonio Vilaça energized the scene. A collector-­turned-­gallery owner, Vilaça helped internationalize the Brazilian market in the 1990s. 4 Alex Hamburger, email to the author, January 27, 2020. The composer John Cage was in Brazil at the invitation of the Concrete poet Augusto de Campos to participate in the 1985 São Paulo Biennial. The concert at Sala Cecilia Meireles saw the premiere of Cage’s piece “aslsp (As Slow as Possible),” played by Brazilian pianist Jocy de Oliveira. 5 Winter Music (1957) consists of a score of twenty unbound pages that can be



Notes to Chapter Three

207

played by any number of pianists, with duration determined by the performers. In Rio, Jocy Oliveira played it for twenty minutes among other musicians. 6 In 2012 Brazil instituted the Comissão Nacional da Verdade (National Truth Commission) to investigate human rights violations perpetrated in the country during the dictatorship. The commission issued its report in December 2014, providing a detailed accounting of repression, the names of the victims, and the identities of the perpetrators; it concluded that the military governments and their repressive apparatuses committed crimes against humanity, such as illegal detentions, torture, extrajudicial executions, and enforced disappearances. 7 Alex Hamburger, interview with the author, January 24, 2020. See also Hamburger, “Biografema,” 99 – 113. 8 The event was intended to publicize Bonito Oliva’s “Progetto Dolce” and to mark the opening of a solo exhibition, curated by him, of work by the Italian artist Paola Fonticoli. For more on the project, see Bonito Oliva, Progetto dolce. 9 Bonito Oliva first traveled to Brazil in 1975, when he stayed for three months to collect data for an exhibition on Brazilian art. The project was never realized because of its high cost. A second stay came in 1986, when he gave talks at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (mam-­s p) and the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (mam-­Rio). The transvaguardia included the Italian artists Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicolo de Maria, and Mimmo Paladino. 10 Reinaldim, “Em torno de uma ação de ‘A Moreninha,’” 36. Members of A Moreninha included Ricardo Basbaum, Márcio Doctors, Alexandre Dacosta, Jorge Barrão, Márcia Lemos, and Lucia Beatriz. 11 Reinaldim, “Em torno de uma ação de ‘A Moreninha,’” 42. 12 Márcio Doctors, interview with the author, June 3, 2020, Zoom. An art critic and curator, Doctors was one of the founders of A Moreninha and the owner of Brumado gallery in Rio de Janeiro. 13 Márcia X, “Natureza Humana,” Márcia X. (website), accessed June 24, 2020, http://marciax.art.br/mxText.asp?sMenu=3&sText=44. 14 Márcia X, “Natureza Humana.” 15 Bataille, Erotism, 64, 68. 16 Cocchiarale, “Uma Obra Iconoclasta”; republished in Lemos, Márcia X., 442. 17 Bessa, “X-­rated.”; republished in Lemos, Márcia X., 507. 18 Preciado, Countersexual Manifesto). Paul B. Preciado, formerly known as Beatriz Preciado, is a philosopher, queer activist, and a leading theorist of gender and sexual politics. He is also the author of Testo Junkie. In 2010 Preciado began the process of transitioning to male, at which point he changed his name to Paul B. Preciado. 19 Claudia Saldanha, interview with the author, May 25, 2020, Zoom. 20 The performance Lovely Babies took place at the event cep 20.000 at Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro.

208

Notes to Chapter Three

21 See Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, 8. 22 Desenhando com Terços was first performed at Casa de Petrópolis-­Instituto de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro, in 2000. 23 Ricardo Ventura, interview with the author, July 31, 2020, phone. 24 The exhibition Sensation was initiated at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (1997) and then traveled to Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof Museum (1998 – 99) and the Brooklyn Museum (1999 – 2000). 25 Mesquita, Esperar não é saber, 12. 26 Manso, A república das milícias, 128. 27 José de Moraes Mello worked at the São Paulo State Penitentiary in the Departamento de Medicina e Criminologia da Academia Penitenciária (Department of Medicine and Criminology at the Penitentiary Academy). The department was housed in a former women’s prison, which had been maintained after most of the premises of the Carandiru complex were destroyed. The penitentiary was part of the Carandiru prison complex from its opening in the 1920s until 2002, when it was deactivated. 28 In May 1995 Rennó asked to access the archival material. Initially denied permission was finally granted in February 1996. 29 Cicatriz was first presented in a homonymous exhibition curated by Alma Ruiz at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles from August to October 1996. The exhibition consisted of photographs from the São Paulo State Penitentiary archive and texts from the series O Arquivo Universal. Images and texts were combined, enlarged, and printed on watercolor paper, giving the wall the appearance of wrinkled skin. See Ruiz, Rosângela Rennó, 8. 30 Ruiz, Rosângela Rennó, 8. 31 Desembola na Idéia, “Desembola na Idéia entrevista Rosângela Rennó,” July 6, 2017, video, 3:54, https://youtu.be/Z2FOqI1LcVU. 32 Rennó, email to the author, February 2, 2020. 33 For Lombroso’s theories on the “born criminal,” see Lombroso, Criminal Man, 3 – 51. Originally published in 1876 as l’Uomo Delinquente. 34 Lombroso, Criminal Man, 46. See also Finn, Capturing the Criminal Image, xiv. Based on Lombroso’s theories, the Austrian architect Adolf Loos wrote the influential essay “Ornament and Crime” (1908), in which he discussed the relationship between tattooing and a predisposition to delinquency. Loos associated tattoos with criminals’ atavistic attachment to adornment, advocating against all forms of aesthetic decoration. For Loos, the body should abandon its passions and only be guided by reason, with no place for adornments. Loos, “Ornament and Crime,” 20. While Rennó did find a brief study about the São Paulo inmates’ relationship to alcoholism and crime in Torino, she never found any material related to the prisoner’s tattoos. 35 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 259, 260. 36 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 272. 37 Seaton, “Profaned Bodies and Purloined Looks,” 17. 38 Best, Reparative Aesthetics, 119.



Notes to Chapter Three

209

39 Best, Reparative Aesthetics, 119. 40 Paulino, “Artist Statement,” 913. The idea for the series Bastidores originated in conversations between the artist and her sister, a social worker who counsels victims of domestic violence. Paulino was the first Black Brazilian contemporary female artist to have a solo exhibition at a major museum in São Paulo, the Pinacoteca, in 2018. 41 Garcia, “Artist of the Suture.” 42 Lopes, “Rosana Paulino,” 172. 43 See Bryan-­Wilson, “Knit Dissent,” 245, and Bryan-­Wilson’s discussion of the Chilean Arpilleras in Fray, 143 – 78. 44 Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 634. 45 Enwezor, Archive Fever, 22. 46 The biography of the slave Anastacia is little known. Some claimed she was a former African princess who was taken to Brazil as a slave; others believed she was born in the state of Bahia in northeast Brazil. Anastacia supposedly died of tetanus from the collar around her neck. She is thought to have had healing powers and performed miracles. Anastacia is a symbol of resistance in African nations and the African Diaspora. She is considered a saint by some, though the Catholic Church does not recognize her as a holy figure. 47 Kilomba, Plantation Memories, 16. 48 Sousa, “Casa-­Grande e Senzala e o patriarcado,” 62. 49 By choosing to use mestiçagem instead of the more common mestizaje, I separate Brazil from Spanish-­speaking Latin America. 50 Carneiro, “Gênero, Raça e Ascenção Social,” 546. In 1988 Carneiro founded the Geledés Instituto da Mulher Negra (Geledés Institute of Black Women), the first independent Black feminist organization in São Paulo. 51 Silva, “Facts of Blackness,” 213. 52 For more on the 1976 ibge research project, see Schwarcz, “Nem preto nem branco, muito pelo contrário,” 173 – 244. 53 Sonia Racy, “Quero um Porsche e Uma Ferrari na garage,” O Estado de São Paulo, April 26, 2010. Cleuci de Oliveira, “Is Neymar Black? 54 Mier, “Djamila Ribeiro.” 55 Renata Felinto, interview with the author, July 5, 2021, Zoom. 56 Felinto, interview with the author. 57 Piza, “Porta de vidro,” 72. 58 Santos, “A Branquitude de White Face and Blonde Hair,” 147. See also Bento, “Pactos Narcísicos no Racismo,” 28. 59 Gonzalez, Por um feminismo Afro-­Latino-­Americano, 143 – 44. 60 Gonzalez, “Racismo e sexismo na cultura Brasileira,” 226. 61 Mbembe, Necropolitics, 97. 62 Luis Pérez-­Oramas, “Cross-­Cuts: Chapter II, Paul Ramirez Jonas and Berna Reale,” conversation, Galeria Nara Roesler, New York, January 21, 2021. Available as a video at Galeria Nara Roesler’s website. 63 Geísa Agrício, “O corpo, no meu trabalho, é um elemento simbólico.”

210

Notes to Chapter Three

64 “Berna Reale: Conversation between Claudia Calirman and Christian Viveros-­Fauné, moderated by Fabiana Lopes” (Galeria Nara Roesler, June 5, 2019, New York). This event was hosted at the occasion of the exhibition Berna Reale: While You Laugh, curated by the author, at the same venue (April 24 – June 5, 2019). See also Bernstein, “The Flesh and the Remains.” 65 For insight into female performances involving violence, see Princenthal, Unspeakable Acts. Princenthal asserts that, for several reasons, confronting sexual violence was not the primary challenge undertaken by women artists at the dawn of performance art. 66 Bibliographical sources on Margolles include Giasson, Teresa Margolles, and Medina, Teresa Margolles. 67 Bataille, “The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade,” 91 – 102. 68 Krauss, “Informe without Conclusion,” 90. 69 Agrício, “O corpo, no meu trabalho.” 70 The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. The movement advocates for nonviolent civil disobedience to protest incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against African Americans. The Black Lives Matters protests gained momentum after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020. 71 Reale conducted research at Infopen, the statistical information agency of the Brazilian penitentiary system. According to data from 2018, more than half of the country’s inmate population is comprised of people age eighteen to twenty-­nine, and 64 percent of them are Black. Only the United States, China, and Russia incarcerate more people than Brazil. Reale’s Ginástica da pele took two years to prepare and involved the participation of more than two hundred people. 72 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 294. 73 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 25. 74 Sam Durant’s Statement Regarding Scaffold at the Walker Art Center, May 29, 2017. 75 Nelson, The Art of Cruelty, 252. For a discussion of images and violence, see Linfield, Cruel Radiance. 76 Downey, “Camps,” 39 – 47, 110 – 13. 77 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 102.

Chapter Four. Practices of the Self

Epigraph: Jota Mombaça, “O que não tem espaço está em todo lugar,” in Todos os Gêneros: Mostra de Arte e Diversidade (São Paulo: Itaú Cultural, 2017), unpag. 1 The original text in Portuguese said, “atenção! Erro no sistema: obra de arte não higienizada e sem mediação mental detectada. A Escola de Artes Visuais recomenda que ninguém entre no box do sanitário esquerdo do ba-



Notes to Chapter Four

211











212

nheiro masculino (próximo a piscina) até que nossos funcionários retirem esses objetos agressivos, reais, marginais, e de difícil vendabilidade por seu conteúdo impróprio, ou seja, não higienizados, de nossas paredes. Fiquem tranquilxs. Está tudo sob controle, mesmo!” Author’s translation. Guilherme Altmayer, “A Secagem Rápida de Lyz Parayzo,” accessed July 13, 2018, https:// www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ah UKEwiuz-­bxx_73AhWytJUCHTJ6CTAQFnoECAMQAQ&url=https%3A%2 F%2Fwww.e-­publicacoes.uerj.br%2Findex.php%2Fconcinnitas%2Farticle%2 Fdownload%2F25920%2F18488&usg=AOvVaw2BQIsncHMj0at6tgXAaNNE. 2 Bernardo Mosquera, interview with the author, November 3, 2020, Zoom. 3 Lyz Parayzo, interview with the author, September 1, 2021, Zoom. 4 Lyz Parayzo, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. In 2017 Parayso was nominated for the pipa Prize. In 2018 Facebook blocked Parayzo’s account when it received an anonymous complaint that her page was not registered under her given male name, Lyzandro Coelho, but under the fictitious Lyz Parayzo. (Facebook later reversed its decision and allowed Parayzo to use her chosen female name.) 5 The 2013 protests were arguably the largest public demonstrations in Brazil since 1984, when, after the demise of the military dictatorship, a million people took to the streets to demand direct presidential elections in the civil movement known as Diretas Já (Elections Now). 6 Butler, Gender Trouble. 7 Lyz Parayzo, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. 8 Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution,” 527. 9 Diana Junyent Torres wrote Pornoterrorismo and Coño potens. 10 In 2015 Parayzo protested the opening of eav’s new upscale bistro, which boasted prices beyond the means of fellowship students like her, by producing a zine/manifesto titled eav ave yz that consisted of the word fome (hunger) stamped several times across the eatery’s menu. Lyz Parayzo, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. 11 Rolnik, “The Geopolitics of Pimping,” republished in Critique of Creativity, 23 – 40; and “Spheres of Insurrection.” 12 Oca do futuro (2017) was first exhibited at the group exhibition Dja Guata Porã: Rio de Janeiro Indígena, curated by Sandra Benites, José Ribamar Bessa, Pablo Lafuente, and Clarissa Diniz at Museu de Arte do Rio (Museum of Art of Rio de Janeiro) in 2017 – 18. 13 Krenak, O amanhã não está à venda, 6. Author’s translation. 14 Krenak, Idéias para adiar o fim do mundo, 15. 15 Sallisa Rosa, interview with the author, September 15, 2020, Zoom. Viveiros de Castro’s celebrated notion of “multinaturalist perspectivism” contrasts the Western concept of “multiculturalism” with the Amerindian perspective of “multinaturalism.” See Castro, A inconstância da alma selvagem and Castro, “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism.”

Notes to Chapter Four

16 On the intersection of representation and Indigenous subjects see Flores, “Art, Revolution, and Indigenous Subjects.” 17 Mbembe, Necropolitics, 130. 18 Badiou, Ethics, 25. 19 Rolnik, “The Geopolitics of Pimping,” republished in Critique of Creativity, 30. 20 Intersectionality theory views gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality as interlocking. Women’s oppression is never experienced simply along one of these axes since the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. I am avoiding the term “postfeminism,” which became a catchphrase in the early 1990s to suggest there is no longer a need for feminism. Postfeminist dissenters include Elizabeth Fox-­Genovese, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Camille Paglia, among others. 21 The first SlutWalk was held in Canada in 2011. The movement began after a Toronto police officer told a crowd of college students that if they wanted to avoid sexual harassment they shouldn’t dress as sluts. In Brazil the first Marcha das Vadias was organized by Simone De-­Ré and Madô Lopez in São Paulo on June 4, 2011. 22 Faleiros, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. Faleiros also performed Mastur/bar at the Berlin Biennale in 2018; at the Fabrica de Arte Cubano, in Havana, as part of the 2016 exhibition Pórtate bien: De lo erótico y de lo heroico: Sexo y resistencia cultural; and in the Solo Gallery, São Paulo, owned by the curator Tobi Maier, in 2015. 23 Voguing is a pose-­striking dance genre that emerged from the queer Harlem ballroom scene in New York in the 1980s as a transgressive gender performative act. In the 1980s, vogue dancers incorporated the effeminate gesture as a parody of the photographic poses of high fashion models as seen in Vogue magazine, appropriating movements from mime, ballet, jazz, and modern dance. This history is captured in Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning. 24 Faleiros, O pulso que cai e as tecnologias do toque, 51 – 56. 25 Didi-­Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 150. 26 Preciado, “Pharmaco-­pornographic Politics,” 110. 27 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” 32. Originally published in Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The cyborg manifesto grew out of “New Machines, New Bodies, New Communities: Political Dilemmas of a Cyborg Feminist,” a paper presented at the conference “The Scholar and the Feminist X: The Question of Technology,” Barnard College, New York, April 1983. 28 Fabiana Faleiros, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. 29 Preciado, Countersexual Manifesto, 22. 30 For the distinctions between art and pornography, see Maes, “Drawing the Line”; and Vasilaki, “Why Some Pornography May Be Art.” 31 Dworkin, “Pornography,” 146 – 49 32 Morgan, Going Too Far, 259.



Notes to Chapter Four

213

33 34 35 36

Faleiros, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. Williams, “A Provoking Agent,” 118. Quijano and Ennis, “Coloniality of Power,” 542. Quijano and Ennis, “Coloniality of Power,” 533 – 80; Mignolo and Walsh, On Decoloniality, 57; and Dussel, “Eurocentrism and Modernity,” 65 – 76. 37 From a keynote lecture from Walter D. Mignolo at the online conference “Decoloniality and the Politics of History,” moderated by Alexander Alberro and organized by the Department of Art History and Archaeology and the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, New York, with support from the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (islaa), April 29, 2021. 38 Lugones, “The Coloniality of Gender,” : 1 – 17. 39 Klein, “Dancing the World into Being.” See also Simpson, Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. For an overview of extractivist aesthetics, see Cusicanqui, “Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa”; and Gómez-­Barris, Extractive Zone. 40 For a selected bibliography on kuir theory, see Pereira, “Queer decolonial,” 411 – 36; Louro, Um corpo estranho; Perlongher, O negócio do Michê; Trevisan, Devassos no paraíso; Muñoz, Cruising Utopia; and López, Caderno Sesc Videobrasil 11-­Alianças de corpos vulneráveis. 41 In 1990, the scholar Teresa de Laurentis coined the term queer theory as the title of a conference in California. Besides de Laurentis, Eve K. Sedgwick, David Halperin, Judith Butler, Paul B. Preciado, and Lee Edelman are also key contributors to the development of queer studies. 42 Perra, “Interpretaciones inmundas.” This text was first read during the symposium “El sexo no es mio,” which was part of Santiago’s biennial in 2012. Author’s translation. 43 Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, 55. 44 Martín, “Diga ‘queer’ con la lengua afuera,” 59. 45 Pelúcio, “Traduções e torções ou o que se quer dizer quando dizemos queer no Brasil?,” 72. 46 Pelúcio, “Traduções e torções ou o que se quer dizer quando dizemos queer no Brasil?,” 77 – 78. 47 Faleiros, “Lady Incentivo,” 28. 48 Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, 226. 49 Faleiros, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. 50 Faleiros, interview with the author. As Lady Incentivo, Faleiros recorded her first live album, Novas formas de amar e de gravar cd (New forms of loving and recording cd), during the 2012 São Paulo Biennial. 51 Favela funk is a hybrid style resulting from the appropriation of hip-­hop, rap, African drumbeats, the movements of samba dancers, and electronic rhythms. 52 The bailes funk shutdown has come as part of a crackdown under the Unidade de Policia Pacificadora (Pacifying Police Units), a program created to dismantle drug gangs in the favelas. This operation was launched during

214

Notes to Chapter Four

the preparations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, which protesters saw as an effort done solely for the sake of appearances and to show that violence was under control. 53 Deize Tigrona hailed from one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent favelas, Cidade de Deus (City of God), in the city’s West Zone, known for its heavily armed drug-­trafficking gangs and gun crime. Cidade de Deus became known worldwide after the 2002 eponymous film directed by Fernando Meireles was nominated for an Academy Award. 54 Lopes, Funk-­Se quem quiser, 195. 55 Kamille Viola, “Songs of the Slums.” 56 Faleiros, interview with the author, February 5, 2018, São Paulo. 57 Anitta grew up in Onório Gurgel, one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods. While the singer won plaudits from some feminists for the video’s audacity, she also faced attacks for hiring the fashion photographer Terry Richardson to direct the video shortly after he was blacklisted by Vogue magazine following repeated allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. 58 Foster, Prince Valiant. 59 Koskela, “Webcams, tv Shows, and Mobile Phones,” 206. Koskela is a professor of human geography at the University of Turku, Finland. She has conducted research on video surveillance and the politics of control over gender relations. 60 boyd, “Social Network Sites,” 3. 61 The image of Rupi Kaur lying in bed and exposing a large bloody stain on her underwear was uploaded to Instagram in 2015 and then quickly removed for violating the site’s murky “Community Guidelines.” The image was later reposted after Instagram received complaints. 62 Instagram’s terms of use give the company the right to modify or terminate access to the service for any reason without notice. According to its “Community Guidelines,” nudity is not allowed in any form: “This includes showing sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-­ups of fully-­nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-­mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed, as well as nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures.” Valente has since reestablished her avatar as ex_Miss_Febem_3 on Instagram, posting mostly humorous memes. 63 Aleta Valente, interview with the author, August 22, 2019, Rio de Janeiro. 64 Koskela, “Webcams, tv Shows, and Mobile Phones.” 65 Womanhouse (January – February 1972) was an installation organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, cofounders of the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. Twenty-­one women artists presented and performed works about domesticity and stereotypical “feminine” tasks, including scrubbing floors, ironing sheets, cooking, sewing, crocheting, and knitting. 66 Battista, Renegotiating the Body, 38. 67 Maria Evelia Marmolejo based her performance on an Indigenous legend



Notes to Chapter Four

215

about the origins of the human race that stated: “First came the woman. She menstruated, mixed her blood with mud, and made a phallus. She buried it, and out came man.” See Jaramillo, “In the First Person,” 263. See also Reyes, “Radical Women,” 2. 68 Federici, Wages against Housework, 6. 69 Aleta Valente’s “An Open Letter” was part of her work Vamos falar de aborto (Let’s talk about abortion), presented at the exhibition qap: Tá na Escuta?, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, May 2017. 70 Federici, Caliban and the Witch, 16. 71 Federici, Wages against Housework, 3. 72 Federici, Wages against Housework, 8. 73 Clark, The Nude, 3. 74 Aleta Valente, interview with the author, February 23, 2018, Rio de Janeiro. 75 Carneiro, Racismo, sexismo e desigualdade no Brasil, 102. Author’s translation. 76 Bentes, “Feminist Biopolitics and Subversive Aesthetics,” 107. 77 Valente, interview with the author, February 23, 2018, Rio de Janeiro. 78 Lustosa is the creator of Bandeira bafo 1 (2015), a banner that bears the inscription “Nāo se nasce mulher, torna-­se traveca” (One is not born a woman, but becomes a transvestite), a paraphrase of Simone de Beauvoir’s famous 1949 motto, “One is not born a woman, but becomes one.” Tertuliana Lustosa, interview with the author, May 9, 2018, Rio de Janeiro. 79 Cancel culture is the phenomenon of promoting the “canceling” of people, brands, shows, and movies due to what some consider offensive or problematic acts, remarks, or ideologies. It was named word of the year by the Australian Macquarie Dictionary in 2019. 80 The documentary follows the work of Dr. Jess Ting, a pioneering surgeon at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, as he performs gender-­transformative procedures in his patients. Cypriano, Born to Be. 81 Tania Cypriano, interview to the author, November 3, 2021, email. 82 Wilke’s radical narcissism culminated in her acerbic, witty, and tragic Intra Venus, the last project she completed before she died of lymphoma in 1993. See Jones, Body Art/Performing the Subject, 185 – 84; and Jones, “Intra-­Venus and Hannah Wilke’s Feminist Narcissism,” 4 – 13. 83 Koskela, “Webcams, tv Shows, and Mobile Phones.”

To Be Continued

Epigraph: Suely Rolnik, “Todas as entradas são boas, desde que as saídas sejam múltiplas,” in Cartografia Sentimental: Transformações contemporâneas do desejo (São Paulo: Editora Clube do Livro, 1989), 66. Author’s translation. 1 Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 2, 10. 2 Rolnik, “Spheres of Insurrection.” 3 Rolnik, “Spheres of Insurrection.”

216

Notes to Chapter Four

4 Nelson, On Freedom, 26. 5 Nelson, On Freedom, 47. 6 In Brazil, the rate of femicide in 2016 was roughly 4.8 per 100,000 women, which, according to the World Health Organization, was the fifth highest in the world. However, racial disparities exist within these statistics: from 2003 to 2013, the number of Black women murdered increased by 54 percent, while the number of white women decreased by 9.8 percent. “onu: Taxa de feminicídios no Brasil é quinta maior do mundo; diretrizes nacionais buscam solução,” Nações Unidas Brasil, April 9, 2016, https://brasil.un.org/pt-­br/72703 -­onu-­taxa-­de-­feminicidios-­no-­brasil-­e-­quinta-­maior-­do-­mundo-­diretrizes -­nacionais-­buscam/.   The criminalization of hate crimes against the lgbtqi+ community in Brazil has been inconsistent and lax, making them difficult to quantify. Overall, 8,027 lgbtqi + people were murdered in Brazil between 1963 and 2018 for discrimination based on gender identity of sexual orientation. Wanderley Preite Sobrinho, “Brasil registra uma morte por homofobia a cada 16 horas, aponta relatório,” uol, February 20, 2019, https://noticias.uol.com.br /cotidiano/ultimas-­noticias/2019/02/20/brasil-­matou-­8-­mil-­lgbt-­desde-­1963 -­governo-­dificulta-­divulgacao-­de-­dados.html. 7 The police and the militias are complicit, since many of the militia members are active or former police officers. The war between militias and drug gangs for control of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro resulted in a massacre of the community of Jacarezinho on May 6, 2021, when twenty-­nine people were killed by the police.



Notes to To Be Continued

217

This page intentionally left blank

Bibliography Agrício, Geísa. “O corpo, no meu trabalho, é um elemento simbólico.” Revista continente, July 1, 2020. https://revistacontinente.com.br/edicoes/235/ro -­corpo-­-­no-­meu-­trabalho-­-­e-­um-­elemento-­simbolicor. Alberro, Alexander, and Blake Stimson. Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2000. Almeida, Maria Suely Kofes de, ed. Colcha de retalhos: Estudos sobre a família no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1982. Alvarez, Sonia E. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movements in Transition Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Amaral, Aracy. “A mulher nas artes.” In Textos do Trópico de Capricórnio: Artigos e ensaios (1980 – 2005), Vol. 3: Bienais e artistas contemporâneos no Brasil; 221 – 33. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2006. Amaral, Aracy. “A propósito de um questionário de Sheila Leirner: Existe uma arte especificamente feminina?” In Arte e meio artístico: Entre a feijoada e o x-­burguer, 254 – 56. São Paulo: Nobel, 1983. Amaral, Aracy, and Paulo Herkenhoff. Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil. Exhibition catalog. Washington, DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1993. Andrade, Oswald de. “Cannibalist Manifesto.” Translated by Leslie Barry. Latin American Literary Review 19, no. 38 (1991): 35 – 37. Anjos, Moacir dos. Contraditório: Arte, globalizacao e pertencimento. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Cobogó, 2017. Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.

Arantes, Priscila, ed. ISSOÉOSSODISSO. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Paço das Artes, 2016. Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970. Badiou, Alain. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. New York: Verso, 2013. Balloussier, Anna Virginia. “Evangélicos podem desbancar católicos no Brasil em pouco mais de uma década.” uol, January 14, 2020. https://www1.folha.uol .com.br/poder/2020/01/evangelicos-­podem-­desbancar-­catolicos-­no-­brasil -­em-­pouco-­mais-­de-­uma-­decada.shtml. Barbosa, Ana Mae. “Mulheres: Arte, artesanato, design.” Revista trama interdisciplinar 7, no. 1 (April 2016): 233 – 48. Barbosa, Ana Mae. Redesenhando o desenho: Educadores, política e história. São Paulo: Cortez Editora, 2015. Barker, Michele, and Anna Munster. “The Mutable Face.” In Imaging Identity: Media, Memory and Portraiture in the Digital Age, edited by Melinda Hinkson, 101 – 16. Canberra, Australia: anu Press, 2016. Barros, Lenora de, and Luiza Mello, eds. RELIVRO Lenora de Barros. Exhibition catalog. Rio de Janeiro: Automática/Oi Futuro, 2011. Barros, Roberta. Elogio ao toque: Ou como falar de arte feminista à Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Relacionarte, 2016. Barthes, Roland. “Éléments de sémiologie.” Communications 4 (1964): 91 – 135. Basbaum, Ricardo. “ ‘X’ percursos de alguém além de equações.” Concinnitas: Revista do Instituto de Artes da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro 1, no. 4 (March 2003): 165 – 73. Bataille, Georges. Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo. New York: Walker and Company, 1962. Bataille, Georges. Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Translated by Mary Dalwood. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1986. Bataille, Georges. “The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade.” In Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927 – 1939. Edited by Allan Stoekl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. Battista, Kathy. Renegotiating the Body: Feminist Art in 1970s London. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013. Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-­Chevallier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Bechelany, Camila, and Adriano Pedrosa, eds. Wanda Pimentel: Envolvimentos. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis de Chateaubriand, 2017. Beckett, Samuel. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. New York: Grove Press, 2009. Bentes, Ivana. “Feminist Biopolitics and Subversive Aesthetics.” MATRIZes 11, no. 2 (2017): 93 – 109. Bento, Maria Aparecida Silva. “Pactos narcísicos no racismo: Branquitude e poder nas organizações empresariais e no poder público.” PhD diss., Instituto de

220

Bibliography

Psicologia da Universidade de São Paulo, 2002. https://doi.org/10.11606 /T.47.2019.tde-­18062019-­181514. Benveniste, Émile. Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971. Bernstein, Ana. “The Flesh and the Remains: Looking at the Work of Berna Reale.” In Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times, Erin Diamond, Denise Varney, and Candice Amich, eds., 283 – 95. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Bessa, Antonio Sérgio. “X-­rated (duas ou três coisas qu’eu sei dela).” Item, no. 4, Rio de Janeiro (November 1996): 79 – 83. Best, Susan. Reparative Aesthetics: Witnessing in Contemporary Art Photography. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. Biczel, Dorota. “Cracking Open the Systems: Media, Materiality and Agency in Teresa Burga’s Self-­Portrait. Structure. Report. 9.6.72,” Alter/Nativas, no. 3 (2014), https://alternativas.osu.edu/en/issues/autumn-­2014/visual-­culture1 /biczel.html. Blanc, Aleca Le. “The Disorder and Progress of Brazilian Visual Culture in 1959.” In Breathless Days, 1959 – 1960, edited by Serge Guilbaut and John O’Brian, 234 – 54. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. Blanco, Maria Luisa, Manuel J. Borja-­Villel, and Teresa Velásquez, eds. Lygia Pape: Magnetized Space. Exhibition catalog. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and jpr | Ringier, 2015. Blundell, Sue, and Margaret Williamson, eds. The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece. London: Routledge, 1998. Bonito Oliva, Achille. Progetto dolce: Nuove forme dell’arte italiana. Milano: Nuova Prearo, 1986. Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. boyd, danah. “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” Knowledge Tree 13 (2007). https://www.danah.org/papers/KnowledgeTree.pdf. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity, 2013. Brater, Enoch. “The ‘I’ in Beckett’s Not I.” Twentieth Century Literature 20, no. 3 (July 1974): 189 – 200. Brenner, Fernanda. “Mouth Over Matter.” Frieze, no. 205 (August 2019): 102 – 7. https://www.frieze.com/article/i-­allowed-­myself-­be-­eaten-­anna-­maria -­maiolino-­cultural-­cannibalism-­brazil. Breton, André. MARIA. Exhibition catalog. New York: Julien Levy Gallery, 1947. Breton, André. Nadja. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Grove Press, 1971. Brito, Ronaldo. Neoconcretismo: Vértice e ruptura do projeto construtivo Brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1985. Brito, Ronaldo, and Paulo Venancio Filho. Lygia Clark. Exhibition catalog. Rio de Janeiro: Edição Funarte, 1980. Bryan-­Wilson, Julia. Fray: Art and Textile Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.



Bibliography

221

Bryan-­Wilson, Julia. “Knit Dissent.” In Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present, edited by Alexander Dumbadze and Suzanne Hudson, 245 – 53. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2013. Butler, Cornelia H., and Lisa Gabrielle Mark. wack!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art/mit Press, 2007. Butler, Cornelia H., and Luis Pérez-­Oramas, eds. Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948 – 1988. Exhibition catalog. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2014. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, 2006. Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (December 1988): 519 – 31. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.2307/3207893. Cabañas, Kaira M. Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Calirman, Claudia. Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Calirman, Claudia. “ ‘Epidermic’ and Visceral Works: Lygia Pape and Anna Maria Maiolino.” Woman’s Art Journal 35, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2014): 19 – 27. Calirman, Claudia. “Lygia Pape: A gula e a luxúria.” In Invenções da mulher moderna: Para Além de Anita e Tarsila, edited by Paulo Herkenhoff, 182 – 85. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Tomie Ohtake, 2017. Calirman, Claudia. “Marginália in Brazil’s ‘Stone-­Throwing Age.’ ” Art Journal 78, no. 1 (May 16, 2019): 48 – 65. Calirman, Claudia. “O jogo de esconde-­esconde: A aborTagem do feminism na arte Brasileira.” In Histórias das Mulheres, Histórias Feministas: Vol. 2: Antologia, edited by Adriano Pedrosa, Amanda Carneiro, and André Mesquita, 404 – 11. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2019. Calirman, Claudia. “Rubens Gerchman e a pedagogia do cotidiano.” In Espaço de emergência, espaço de resistência: Escola de artes visuais do Parque Lage 1975/1979, uma experiência radical e coletiva idealizada e dirigida por Rubens Gerchman, edited by Clara Gerchman, 41 – 59. Rio de Janeiro: Azougue, 2019. Candela, Iria, ed. Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms. Exhibition catalog. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017. Carneiro, Lúcia, and Ileana Pradilla. Lygia Pape: Entrevista a Lúcia Carneiro e Ileana Pradilla. Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda Editores, 1998. Carneiro, Sueli. “Gênero, Raça e Ascensão Social.” Revista estudos feministas 3, no. 2 (January 1, 1995): 544 – 52. Carneiro, Sueli. Racismo, sexismo e desigualdade no Brasil. São Paulo: Selo Negro, 2011. Carone, Iray, and Maria Aparecida da Silva Bento, eds. Psicologia social do racismo: Estudos sobre branquitude e branqueamento no Brasil. Petrópolis, Brazil: Editora Vozes, 2002. Castro, Eduardo Viveiros de. A inconstância da alma selvagem e outros ensaios de antropologia. São Paulo: Cosac and Naify, 2002.

222

Bibliography

Castro, Eduardo Viveiros de. Cannibal Metaphysics. Translated by Peter Skafish. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2014. Castro, Eduardo Viveiros de. “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4, no. 3 (September 1998): 469 – 88. Cerchiaro, Marina Mazze, Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, and Talita Trizoli. “The Exhibition ‘Contribuição da mulher às artes plásticas no país’ and the Silence of Brazilian Art Criticism.” Artl@s Bulletin 8, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 210 – 24. Cesar, Marisa Flórido. “Sobre servidões e liberdades” [On servitudes and freedoms]. In Sonia Andrade: Retrospectiva 1974 – 1993, edited by André Lenz, 11 – 23. Exhibition catalog. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, 2011. Chiarelli, Tadeu. “Sobre a exposição mulheres artistas: As pioneiras 1880 – 1930.” In Mulheres artistas: As pioneiras 1880 – 1930, edited by Elaine Dias and Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni, 7 – 9. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Pinacoteca do Estado, 2015. Chinoy, Sahil. “The Racist History Behind Facial Recognition.” New York Times, July 19, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/facial -­recognition-­race.html. Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer 1976): 875 – 93. Clark, Kenneth. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972. Clark, Lygia. “Da supressão do objeto (anotaçōes).” In Lygia Clark, 264. Exhibition catalog. Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1998. Cleary, David. Race, Nationalism, and Social Theory in Brazil: Rethinking Gilberto Freyre. Oxford: University of Oxford, 1999. Cocchiarale, Fernando. “Uma Obra Iconoclasta.” Jornal do Brasil, Caderno B, February 15, 2005. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Conduru, Roberto. “Contra a domesticação: Lygia Pape, educação, arte e Afro-­ Brasilidade.” In Educação experiência estética, edited by Mailsa Passos and Rita Ribes. Rio de Janeiro: Nau, 2011. Corrêa, Mariza. “Repensando a família patriarcal Brasileira.” Cadernos de pesquisa, no. 37 (May 1981): 5 – 16. https://publicacoes.fcc.org.br/cp/article/view /1590. Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera. “Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” South Atlantic Quarterly 111, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 95 – 109. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876 – 1472612. Cypriano, Tania, dir. Born to Be. Documentary. Kino International, 2019. D’Alessandro, Stephanie, and Luis Pérez-­Oramas, eds. Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil. Exhibition catalog. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2017.



Bibliography

223

Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-­Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature, Vol. 30. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Didi-­Huberman, Georges. Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière. Translated by Alisa Hartz. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2004. Diego, Estrella de. Anna Bella Geiger: Physical and Human Geography. Exhibition catalog. Madrid: La Casa Encendida; Sevilla, Spain: Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo; and Buenos Aires: Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, 2017. Dimambro, Nadiesda. “Imagens de Gretta Sarfaty: Fotografia, performance e gênero.” ma diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2018. Douane, Mary Ann. “The Close-­Up: Scale and Detail in the Cinema.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 14, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 89 – 111. Downey, Anthony. “Camps (or the Precarious Logic of Late Modernity).” Fillip 13 (Spring 2011): 38 – 47, 110 – 13. Dunn, Christopher. Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Dunn, Christopher. Contracultura: Alternative Arts and Social Transformation in Authoritarian Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Dussel, Enrique. “Eurocentrism and Modernity (Introduction to the Frankfurt Lectures).” Boundary 2 20, no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 65 – 76. Dworkin, Andrea. “Pornography.” In Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin, edited by Johanna Fateman and Amy Scholder, 146 – 49. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2019. Eco, Umberto. Opera Aperta: Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee. Milano: Bompiani, 1965. Enwezor, Okwui. Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art. Exhibition catalog. New York: International Center of Photography, 2008. Fabião, Eleonora. The Making of a Body: Lygia Clark’s Anthropophagic Slobber.” In Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948 – 1988, edited by Cornelia H. Butler and Luis Pérez-­Oramas, 294 – 99. Exhibition catalog. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2014. Faleiros, Fabiana. “Lady Incentivo: sex 2018 um disco sobre tese, amor e dinheiro.” PhD diss., Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, 2017. Faleiros, Fabiana. O pulso que cai e as tecnologias do toque. São Paulo: Ikrek, 2016.

224

Bibliography

Fajardo-­Hill, Cecilia, and Andrea Giunta, eds. Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985. Exhibition catalog. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum/DelMonico Pretzel, 2017. Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia, 2004. Federici, Silvia. Wages against Housework. London: Power of Women Collective/ Falling Wall Press, 1975. Ferreira, Glória, and Paulo Herkenhoff, eds. Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents. Translated by Stephen Berg. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015. Finn, Johnathan M. Capturing the Criminal Image: From Mug Shot to Surveillance Society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Firestone, Shulamith, and Anne Koedt, eds. Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation, Major Writings of the Radical Feminists. New York: Radical Feminism, 1970. Fischberg, Josy. “Entrevista: Roberta Barros.” Revista O Globo, March 20, 2016. Flores, Tatiana. “Art, Revolution, and Indigenous Subjects.” In The Routledge History of Latin American Culture, edited by Carlos Manuel Salomon, 115 – 29. London: Routledge, 2017. Foster, Hal. Prince Valiant, Vol. 10: 1955 – 1956. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 1990. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978 – 1979, edited by Michel Senellart. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Allan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981 – 1982., edited by Frédéric Gros. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador, 2005. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Random House, 1985. Freitas, Iole de, “Entrevista à Ana Maria Machado” (September 1987). In Quase catálogo 2: Artistas plásticas no Rio de Janeiro, 1975 – 1985, edited by Heloísa Buarque de Holanda, 94. Rio de Janeiro: ciec, 1991. Freyre, Gilberto. Casa Grande and Senzala: Formação da família Brasileira sob o regime da economia patriarcal. São Paulo: Global Editora, 2003. Garcia, Cynthia. “Artist of the Suture: How Rosana Paulino Became the First Woman of Color with a Retrospective at the Pinacoteca.” Newcity Brazil, January 15, 2019. https://www.newcitybrazil.com/2019/01/15/artist-­of-­the -­suture-­how-­rosana-­paulino-­became-­the-­first-­woman-­of-­color-­with-­a -­retrospective-­at-­the-­pinacoteca/. Giasson, Patrice, ed. Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread. Exhibition catalog. Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, 2015. Gilbert, Zanna. “Transgressive Bodies.” Art in America 103, no. 19 (November 2015): 118 – 25.



Bibliography

225

Gill, Rosalind. “Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising.” Feminism and Psychology 18, no. 1 (2008): 35 – 60. Gill, Rosalind, and Christina Scharff. New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Giunta, Andrea. Feminismo y arte Latinoamericano: Historias de artistas que emanciparon el cuerpo. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2018. Gómez-­Barris, Macarena. The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. Gonzalez, Lélia. Por um feminismo Afro-­Latino-­Americano: Ensaios, intervenções e diálogos, edited by Flavia Rios and Márcia Lima. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2020. Gonzalez, Lélia. “Racismo e sexismo na cultura Brasileira.” In Revista ciências sociais hoje, anpocs (1984): 223 – 44. Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1981. Guattari, Félix, and Suely Rolnik. Micropolítica: Cartografias do desejo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1986. Translated as Molecular Revolution in Brazil. (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007). Gullar, Ferreira. “Entrevista de Antônio Dias e Rubens Gerchman.” Revista Civilização Brasileira, December 1966. Hamburger, Alex. “Biografema.” In Márcia X., edited by Beatriz Lemos, 99 – 113. Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Moderna, 2013. Hanisch, Carol. “The Personal Is Political.” In Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation, Major Writings of the Radical Feminists, edited by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt, 76 – 77. New York: Radical Feminism, 1970. Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-­ Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Manifestly Haraway, edited by Donna J. Haraway and Cary Wolfe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books, 1991. Herkenhoff, Paulo, ed. Invenções da Mulher Moderna—Para Além de Anita e Tarsila. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2017. Herkenhoff, Paulo, and Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda. Manobras Radicais: Artistas Brasileiros 1886 – 2005. Exhibition catalog. Brasília: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2006. Herkenhoff, Paulo. “The Contemporary Art of Brazil: Theoretical Constructs.” In Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil, edited by Aracy Amaral and Paulo Herkenhoff, 34 – 107. Exhibition catalog. Washington, DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1993. Herkenhoff, Paulo. “The Two and the Only Tarsila.” In Tarsila do Amaral: Cannibalizing Modernism, edited by Adriano Pedrosa and Fernando Oliva, 98-­115. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2019. Holanda, Sérgio Buarque de. Raízes do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1936.

226

Bibliography

Hollanda, Heloísa Buarque de. Explosão feminista: Arte, cultura, politica e universidade. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Hollanda, Heloísa Buarque de. Quase Catálogo 2: Artistas Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro, 1975 – 1985. Rio de Janeiro: ciec, 1991. Huguenin, Fernanda Pacheco da Silva. “As praias de Ipanema: Liminaridade e proxemia à beira-­mar.” PhD diss., Universidade de Brasília, 2011. Jaramillo, Carmen María. “In the First Person: Poetics of Subjectivity in the Works of Colombian Women Artists, 1960 – 1980.” In Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985, edited by Cecilia Fajardo-­Hill and Andrea Giunta, 261 – 70. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum; New York: DelMonico Books | Prestel, 2017. Jandrić, Petar, and Peter McLaren. “Paulo Freire and Liberation Theology: The Christian Consciousness of Critical Pedagogy.” Vierteljahrsschrift Für Wissenschaftliche Pädagogik 94, no. 2 (2018): 246 – 64. Jaremtchuk, Dária. Anna Bella Geiger: Passagens conceituais. Belo Horizonte: Editora C/Arte; São Paulo: edusp / fapesp, 2007. Jaschik, Scott. “Judith Butler Discusses Being Burned in Effigy and Protested in Brazil.” Inside Higher Ed, November 13, 2017. https://www.insidehighered .com/news/2017/11/13/judith-­butler-­discusses-­being-­burned-­effigy-­and -­protested-­brazil. Jones, Amelia. Body Art/Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Jones, Amelia. “Intra Venus and Hannah Wilke’s Feminine Narcissism.” In Intra Venus/Hannah Wilke, 4 – 13. Exhibition catalog. New York: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, 1995. Kac, Eduardo. Porneia. Brooklyn: Nightboat Books, 2022. Kilomba, Grada. Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism. Münster: Unrast Verlag, 2008. Klein, Naomi, “Dancing the World into Being: A Conversation with Idle-NoMore’s Leanne Simpson.” YES Magazine, May 5, 2013. Accessed July 24, 2019, https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/dancing-the-world-into-being-a -conversation-with-idle-no-more-leanne-simpson. Koskela, Hille. “Webcams, tv Shows, and Mobile Phones: Empowering Exhibitionism.” Surveillance and Society 2, no. 2/3 (September 1, 2002): 199 – 215. Krauss, Rosalind. “Informe without Conclusion.” October 78 (Fall 1996): 89 – 105. Krenak, Ailton. Idéias para adiar o fim do mundo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019. Translated by Anthony Doyle as Ideas to Postpone the End of the World (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2020). Krenak, Ailton. O amanhã não está à venda. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2020. Kristeva, Julia. “From One Identity to an Other.” In Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art., edited by Leon S. Roudiez, translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez, 124 – 47. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.



Bibliography

227

Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language. Translated by Margaret Walker. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Lacan, Jacques. Le séminaire, livre VII: L’Éthique de la psychanalyse, 1959 – 1960 [The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII]. Paris: Les Editions du Seuil, 1986. Lago, Maria, ed. Lenora de Barros: Umas. São Paulo: Família Editions, 2020. Lavin, Maud. Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Lehman, Peter. Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. Lemos, Beatriz, ed. Márcia X. Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Moderna, 2013. Lepecki, André. “Affective Geometry, Immanent Acts: Lygia Clark and Performance.” In Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948 – 1988, edited by Cornelia H. Butler and Luis Pérez-­Oramas, 278 – 89. Exhibition catalog. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2014. Levitt, Annette Shandler. The Genres and Genders of Surrealism. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Linfield, Susie. The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Lispector, Clarice. Near to the Wild Heart. Translated by Alison Entrekin. New York: New Directions Books, 2012. Livingston, Jennie, dir. Paris Is Burning. Documentary. Miramax, 1990. Lobato, Monteiro. “A propósito da exposição Malfatti.” O Estado de São Paulo. December 20, 1917. http://m.acervo.estadao.com.br/noticias/acervo,a-­proposito -­da-­exposicao-­malfatti-­-­monteiro-­lobato,13042,0.htm. Lombroso, Cesare. l’Uomo delinquente [Criminal Man]. Turin, Italy: Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1876. Lombroso, Cesare. Criminal Man [l’Uomo delinquente]. Translated by Mary Gibson and Nicole Hahn Rafter. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. Loos, Adolf. “Ornament and Crime.” In Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-­Century Architecture, edited by Ulrich Conrads. Cambridge, MA: mit Press 1971. Lopes, Adriana Carvalho. Funk-­Se quem quiser: No Batidão Negro da Cidade Carioca. Rio de Janeiro: Bom Texto, 2011. Lopes, Fabiana. “Rosana Paulino: O tempo de fazer e a prática de compartilhar.” In Rosana Paulino: A costura da memória, edited by Valéria Piccoli and Pedro Nery, 163 – 81. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Pinacoteca de São Paulo, 2018. López, Miguel Angel, ed. Caderno Sesc Videobrasil 11—Alianças de corpos vulneráveis. São Paulo: Sesc, 2016. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984. Louro, Guacira Lopes. Um corpo estranho: Ensaios sobre sexualidade e teoria queer. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica Editora, 2004. Lugones, Maria. “The Coloniality of Gender.” Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise 2 (Spring 2008): 1 – 17. Coloniality of Gender,” Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise 2, no. 2 (April 2008): 1–17; Reprinted in The Palgrave Handbook of Gender

228

Bibliography

and Development, edited by Wendy Harcourt (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Machado, Lia Zanotta. “Perspectivas em confronto: Relações de gênero ou patriarcado contemporâneo.” Série Antropologia, Brasília-­DF 284 (2000); 1 – 19. Machado, Lourival Gomes. “O sexo dos anjos.” Correio da manhã, January 14, 1961. Maciel, Katia, A pele das coisas: O primeiro vídeo de Letícia Parente. Rio de Janeiro: Lume Editora, 2022. Maes, Hans. “Drawing the Line: Art versus Pornography.” Philosophy Compass 6, no. 6 (June 2011): 385 – 97. Maiolino, Anna Maria. “Escritos 1970 – 2001.” In Anna Maria Maiolino: Vida Afora / A Life Line, edited by Catherine de Zegher, 264. Exhibition catalog. New York: Drawing Center, 2002. Mallarmé, Stéphane. “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.” La Nouvelle Revue Française, 1914. https://writing.upenn.edu/library/Mallarme-­Stephane _Coup_1914_spread.pdf. Manso, Bruno Paes. A república das milícias: Dos esquadrões da morte à era Bolsonaro. São Paulo: Todavia, 2020. Marino, Katherine M. Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Martín, Felipe Rivas San. “Diga ‘queer’ con la lengua afuera: Sobre las confusiones del debate latinoamericano.” In Por un feminismo sin mujeres, 59-­75. Santiago, Chile: Territorios Sexuales Ediciones, 2011. Martins, Sérgio B. Constructing an Avant-­Garde: Art in Brazil, 1949 – 1979. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2013. Matos, Marlise, and Clarisse Goulart Paradis. “Desafios à despatriarcalização do Estado Brasileiro.” Cadernos Pagu, no. 43 (April 19, 2016): 57 – 118. Mattar, Denise. Lygia Pape: Intrínsecamente Anarquista. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2003. Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Medina, Cuauhtémoc. Teresa Margolles: What Else Could We Talk About? Exhibition catalog. Mexican Pavilion, 53rd International Biennale di Venezia. Barcelona: Editorial rm, 2009. Mendes, Lucas. “Nossos homens em Nova Iorque.” Revista Fatos e Fotos, July 30, 1970: 44 – 47. Mendez, Natalia Pietra. “Feminismo, imprensa e poder no Brasil contemporâneo.” metis: História and Cultura 6, no. 12 (December 2007): 269 – 88. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1945. Mesquita, André. Esperar não é saber: Arte entre o silêncio e a evidência. São Paulo: Self-­ published, 2015. Mier, Brian. “Djamila Ribeiro: The Fight against Racism and Sexism in Post-­Coup Brasil.” Brasil Wire, November 10, 2017. https://www.brasilwire.com/djamila -­ribeiro-­the-­fight-­against-­racism-­sexism-­in-­post-­coup-­brasil/.



Bibliography

229

Mignolo, Walter D. “The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference.” South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 57 – 92. Mignolo, Walter, and Catherine E. Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Mitchell, Juliet. Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A Radical Reassessment of Freudian Psychoanalysis. New York: Pelican Books, 2000. Molesworth, Helen, and Bryan Barcena, eds. Anna Maria Maiolino. Exhibition catalog. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art/DelMonico Pretzel, 2017. Morgan, Robin. Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist. New York: Random House, 1977. Morin, Edgar. “O ‘Eros’ Quotidiano.’ ” In Cultura de massas no século XX: O espírito do tempo—neurose e necrose. 11th edition, translated by Maura Ribeiro Sardinha, 119 – 24. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária, 2018. Originally published as L’Esprit du temps. Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1962. Mosqueira, Bernardo. “Anna Bella Geiger, circa MMXIX: A ponta afiada do eixo do compasso.” In Anna Bella Geiger: Brasil nativo/Brasil alienígena, edited by Adriano Pedrosa and Tomás Toledo, 38 – 49. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2019. Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: nyu Press, 2009. Muraro, Rose Marie. A mulher na construção do futuro. Petropolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1966. Muraro, Rose Marie. Sexualidade da mulher Brasileira: Corpo e classe social no Brasil. Petropolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1983. Name, Daniela. “Falta ‘queer’ em ‘Queermuseu.’” O Globo. August 19, 2018. https://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/artes-­visuais/critica-­falta-­queer-­em -­queermuseu-­22992951#ixzz5OpmPzVdO. Name, Daniela. “Imagem, ficção e gueto,” Revista Jacaranda, no. 6 (2018): 67 – 72. Navas, Adolfo Montejo, ed. Anna Bella Geiger: Territórios, passagens, situações. Rio de Janeiro: Casa da Palavra, 2007. Nelson, Maggie. The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2011. Nelson, Maggie. On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint. Minneapolis: Greywolf Press, 2021. Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Art News, January 1971, 22 – 39. https://www.artnews.com/art-­news/retrospective/why -­have-­there-­been-­no-­great-­women-­artists-­4201/. Oliveira, Cleuci de. “Is Neymar Black? Brazil and the Painful Relativity of Race.” New York Times, June 30, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion /is-­neymar-­black-­brazil-­and-­the-­painful-­relativity-­of-­race.html. Osthoff, Simone. “De musas a autoras: Mulheres, arte e tecnologia no Brasil.” ars 8, no. 15 (2010): 74 – 91. Pape, Lygia. “A mulher na iconografia de massa.” Research Paper, cedoc Archive. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1978.

230

Bibliography

Pape, Lygia. “Catiti-­Catiti, na terra dos Brasis.” ma diss., Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais—Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1980. Pape, Lygia. “Cinema Marginal.” In Cinema marginal Brasileiro e suas fronteiras: Filmes produzidos nos anos 60 e 70, edited by Eugênio Puppo, Vera Haddad, and Heloísa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque. São Paulo: Heco Produções, 2001. Pape, Lygia. “Eat Me—A gula ou a luxúria?” Malasartes, no. 2, December 1975. Pape, Lygia. “Fala, Hélio.” ars 5 (2007): 16 – 25. http://www.scielo.br/j/ars/a /nVGkjbHPVQqZSHCLGcDndvt/?lang=pt Pape, Lygia, Mário Pedrosa, and Luis Otávio Pimentel. Lygia Pape. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1983. Parente, André. “Alô, é a Letícia?” eRevista Performatus, Vol. Inhumans 2, no. 8 (January 2014):1 – 18. Paulino, Rosana. “Artist Statement.” Callaloo 37, no. 4 (2014): 913 – 16. Pedrosa, Adriano, and Fernando Oliva, eds. Tarsila do Amaral: Cannibalizing Modernism. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2019. Pedrosa, Mário. “Variações sem tema ou a arte da retaguarda.” In I bienal Latino-­ Americana de São Paulo. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1978. Pedrosa, Mário. “Anna Bella Geiger.” In Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents, edited by Glória Ferreira and Paulo Herkenhoff, translated by Stephen Berg, 324. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015. Pedrosa, Mário. “Discurso aos tupiniquins ou nambás,” Versus, no. 4 (1976); “Speech to the Tupininquin or Nambá Peoples.” In Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents, edited by Glória Ferreira and Paulo Herkenhoff, translated by Stephen Berg, 169 – 72. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015. Pedrosa, Mário. “Maria, a escultora,” Jornal do Brasil, April 27, 1957; “Maria, the sculptor.” In Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents, edited by Glória Ferreira and Paulo Herkenhoff, translated by Stephen Berg, 276. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015. Pelúcio, Larissa. “Traduções e torções ou o que se quer dizer quando dizemos queer no Brasil?” Revista Periódicus 1, no. 1 (January 7, 2014): 68 – 91. Pereira, Pedro Paulo Gomes. “Queer decolonial: Quando as teorias viajam.” Revista semestral do Departamento do Programa de Pós-­Graduação em Sociologia da UFSCar 5, no. 2 (October 28, 2015): 411 – 36. Perlongher, Néstor. O negócio do Michê: Prostituição viril em São Paulo. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1987. Perra, Hija de. “Interpretaciones inmundas de cómo la teoría queer coloniza nuestro contexto sudaca, pobre, aspiracional y tercermundista, perturbando con nuevas construcciones genéricas a los humanos encantados con la hetero­ norma.” Revista punto género 0, no. 4 (December 2014): 9 – 16. Piza, Edith, “Porta de vidro: Entrada para branquitude.” In Psicologia social do racismo: Estudos sobre branquitude e branqueamento no Brasil, edited by Iray Carone, and Maria Aparecida da Silva Bento. Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes, 2002. Preciado, Beatriz (Paul B.). “Pharmaco-­pornographic Politics: Towards a New Gender Ecology.” Parallax 14, no. 1 (January 2008): 105 – 17.



Bibliography

231

Preciado, Paul B. Countersexual Manifesto. Translated by Kevin Gerry Dunn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. First published as Beatriz Preciado, Manifeste contra-sexuel (Paris: Balland, 2000). Preciado, Paul B. Pornotopia: An Essay on Playboy’s Architecture and Biopolitics. New York: Zone Books, 2014. Preciado, Paul B. “Terror anal: apuntes sobre los primeros días de la revolución sexual.” In Hocquenghem, Guy, El deseo homossexual: Con terror anal, translated by Geoffroy Huard de la Marre. Barcelona: Melusina, 2009. Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. Translated by Bruce Benderson. New York: Feminist Press at cuny, 2013. Princenthal, Nancy. Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art, and Sexual Violence in the 1970s. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2019. Quijano, Anibal, and Michael Ennis. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533 – 80. Racy, Sonia. “Quero um Porsche e uma Ferrari na garagem.” O Estado de São Paulo. April 26, 2010. https://cultura.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,quero-­um -­porsche-­e-­uma-­ferrari-­na-­garagem,542923. Rago, Margareth. Aventura de contar-­se, a: Feminismos, escrita de si e invenções da sub­ jetividade. Campinas, Brazil: Editora Unicamp, 2013. Raunig, Gerald, Gene Ray, and Ulf Wuggenig, eds. Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the “Creative Industries.” London: MayFlyBooks, 2011. Reinaldim, Ivair. “Em torno de uma ação de ‘A Moreninha’: Algumas questões acerca do debate crítico na década de 1980.” Arte and Ensaios: Revista do ppgav/eba/ufrj 25 (May 2013): 34 – 43. Reis, Daniel Aarão, Marcelo Ridenti, and Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta, eds. O golpe e a ditadura militar: Quarenta anos depois (1964 – 2004). São Paulo: edusc, 2004. Reyes, Ana Maria. 2019. “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985.” Review of Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985, by Cecilia Fajardo-­ Hill and Andrea Giunta, eds. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1, no. 2 (April): 1 – 3. Ribeiro, Leo Gibson. “Entrevista: Tarsila do Amaral.” Veja 181 (February 23, 1972): 3–6, in Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil, edited by Stephanie D’Alessandro and Luis Pérez-Oramas. Translated by Stephen Berg. Exhibition catalog. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2017. Ribeiro, Djamila. O que é lugar de fala. Belo Horizonte: Letramento, 2017. Richard, Nelly. Masculine/Feminine: Practices of Difference(s). Translated by Silvia R. Tandeciarz and Alice A. Nelson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Roffino, Sara. “Is Brazil’s Most Famous Art Movement Built on Racial Inequality? A New Generation Argues ‘Yes.’ ” Artnet News, March 13, 2018. https://news .artnet.com/art-­world/tarsila-­part-­ii-­1238654. Roffino, Sara. “Why MoMA’s Exhibition of Towering Brazilian Modernist Tarsila do Amaral Misses the Mark.” Artnet News, March 1, 2018. https://news.artnet. com/opinion/moma-­tarsila-­amaral-­review-­1234778.

232

Bibliography

Rolnik, Suely. “The Geopolitics of Pimping.” Translated by Brian Holmes. Transversal Texts 10 (2006): https://transversal.at/transversal/1106/rolnik/en. Rolnik, Suely. “The Spheres of Insurrection: Suggestions for Combating the Pimping of Life.” Translated by Vivian Mocellin. Journal #86—E-­Flux (November 2017). https://www.e-­flux.com/journal/86/163107/the-­spheres-­of -­insurrection-­suggestions-­for-­combating-­the-­pimping-­of-­life/. Originally published in Portuguese as Esferas da Insurreição: Notas para uma vida não cafe­ tinada (São Paulo: n-1 Edições, 2018). Ruiz, Alma, ed. Rosângela Rennó: Cicatriz. Exhibition catalog. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996. Santos, Rodrigo Severo dos. “A Branquitude de White Face and Blonde Hair.” Sankofa: Revista de história da África e de estudos da diáspora Africana Ano XIII, no. NoXXIII (April 2020): 141 – 58. Sarfaty, Gretta. Auto-­Photos, edited by Gretta Sarfaty and Fernanda Resstom. São Paulo: Central Galeria, 2021. Sarti, Cynthia Andersen. “O feminismo Brasileiro desde os anos 1970: Revisitando uma trajetória.” Revista estudos feministas 12, no. 2 (August 2004): 35 – 50. Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. “Nem preto nem branco, muito pelo contrário: Cor e raça na intimidade.” In História da vida privada no Brasil: Contrastes da intimidade contemporânea, edited by Lilia Moritz Schwarcz and Fernando A. Novais. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998. Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. Racismo no Brasil. São Paulo: Publifolha, 2001. Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. Sobre o autoritarismo Brasileiro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019. Schwarz, Roberto. Cultura e política, 1964 – 1969. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2001. Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Seaton, Elizabeth. “Profaned Bodies and Purloined Looks: The Prisoner’s Tattoo and the Researcher’s Gaze.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 11, no. 2 (July 1, 1987): 17 – 25. Shtromberg, Elena. Art Systems: Brazil and the 1970s. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Silva, Denise Ferreira da. “Facts of Blackness: Brazil Is Not Quite the United States . . . and Racial Politics in Brazil?” Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 4, no. 2 (1998): 201 – 34. Simioni, Ana Paula Cavalcanti. Mulheres modernistas: Estratégias de consagração na arte Brasileira. São Paulo: edusp, 2022. Simioni, Ana Paula Cavalcanti. Profissão artista: Pintoras e escultoras acadêmicas Brasileiras. São Paulo: edusp/fapesp, 2019. Simões, Mariana. “Brazil’s Polarizing New President, Jair Bolsonaro, in His Own Words.” New York Times, October 28, 2018. https://www.nytimes .com/2018/10/28/world/americas/brazil-­president-­jair-­bolsonaro-­quotes .html. Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg



Bibliography

233

Re-­Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Winnipeg, Canada: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011. Small, Irene V. “Plasticity and Reproduction: Tarsila do Amaral’s A Negra.” In Tarsila do Amaral: Cannibalizing Modernism, edited by Adriano Pedrosa and Fernando Oliva, 38 – 53. Exhibition catalog. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2019. Sneed, Gillian. “Sex, Satire, and Censorship: Lygia Pape’s Eat Me: Gluttony or Lust? (1975/1976).” Revista de história da arte, no.15, (2020): 64 – 85. Srinivasan, Amia. “The Sex Wars: Resolving Feminism’s Trans Conflict.” New Yorker, September 13, 2021. Soihet, Rachel. “Preconceitos nas charges de O Pasquim: Mulheres e a luta pelo controle do corpo.” ArtCultura 9, no. 14 (March 15, 2008): 39 – 53. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2004. Sousa, Roberta Menezes. “Casa-­Grande e Senzala e o patriarcado: Um diálogo crítico com a teoria feminista.” Emancipação 14, no. 1 (March 10, 2015): 61 – 72. Studart, Heloneida. Mulher, objeto de cama e mesa. Petropolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1975. Summerhayes, Catherine. “Who in Heaven?: Tracey Moffatt: Men in Wet-­Suits and the Female Gaze.” Journal of Narrative Theory 33, no. 1 (2003): 63 – 80. Sylvester, David. The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon. London: Thames & Hudson, 2016. Tatay, Helena, ed. Anna Maria Maiolino. Exhibition catalog. Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies/Koenig, 2011. Torres, Diana Junyent. Pornoterrorismo. Tafalla, Spain: Txalaparta, S.L., 2010. Torres, Diana Junyent. Coño potens: Manual sobre su poder, su prostata y sus fluidos. Navarra, Spain: Txalaparta, 2015. Trevisan, João Silvério. Devassos no paraíso. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2000. Trizoli, Talita. “Atravessamentos feministas: Um panorama de mulheres artistas no Brasil dos anos 60/70.” PhD diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2018. Trizoli, Talita. “ ‘Eat Me: A gula ou a luxúria’ de Lygia Pape: Produção e censura do desejo, feminismo e consumo.” In caia—Imagen/Deseo: Place, devoción y consumo en las artes: VII Congreso Internacional de Teoría E História De Las Artes, edited by Sandra Szir, Silvia Dolinko, and Mariana Marcheti, 111 – 22. XVI Jornada caia. Buenos Aires: caia-­conicet, 2015. Trizoli, Talita. “ ‘Tina América’—O feminino na produção conceitual de Regina Vater.” Fazendo gênero 9: Diásporas, diversidades, deslocamentos. Florianópolis, Brazil: ufsc, 2010. http://www.fg2010.wwc2017.eventos.dype.com.br /resources/anais/1277902850_ARQUIVO_TinaAMERICA-­fazendogenero9 -­2010B.pdf. Tvardovskas, Luana Saturnino. Dramatização dos corpos: arte contemporânea e crítica feminista no Brasil e na Argentina. São Paulo: Editora Intermeios, 2015. Vasilaki, Mimi. “Why Some Pornography May Be Art.” Philosophy and Literature 34, no. 1 (April 2010): 228 – 33. Veloso, Caetano. Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. Translated

234

Bibliography

by Isabel de Sena. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Originally published as Verdade Tropical (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997). Viola, Kamille. “Songs of the Slums: Meet the Feminist Icons of Brazilian Funk.” News Deeply—New Humanitarian, February 1, 2017. https://deeply.thenew humanitarian.org/womenandgirls/articles/2017/02/01/songs-­slums-­meet -­feminist-­icons-­brazilian-­funk. Williams, Linda. “A Provoking Agent: The Pornography and Performance Art of Annie Sprinkle.” Social Text 37 (Winter 1993): 117 – 33. Zegher, Catherine de, ed. Anna Maria Maiolino: Vida Afora / A Life Line. Exhibition catalog. New York: Drawing Center, 2002.



Bibliography

235

This page intentionally left blank

Index Italicized page numbers refer to illustrations. Abaporu (The man who eats; Tarsila), 19, 20 abortion, 13, 29, 31, 138, 174 – 75, 178 – 79. See also reproductive rights Abramovic, Marina, 73 aesthetics of care, 188 aesthetics of shock, 188 Afro-­Brazilians. See race and racism ai-­5 (Ato Institucional #5; Institutional Act #5), 28, 46, 199n44 Alegria de viver, alegria de criar (Joy of living, joy of creating; mam-­Rio; 1978), 48 – 49 Alemani, Cecilia, 190 alienation, 48, 147, 153, 159, 170 Almeida, Paulo Mendes de, 197n22 Alvarez, Sonia E., 10, 29 Amaral, Aracy, 10, 16, 23 – 24, 26 Amaral, Suzana, 15 Amaral, Tarsila do, 16 – 17, 193n2 Amaral, Tarsila do, exhibitions and works by: Abaporu (The man who eats), 19, 20;

A Lua (The Moon), 197n12; A Negra (The Black Woman), 17, 18; Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil (Museum of Modern Art, 2017), 17, 197n12 Americano (American; Reale), 143, 144 Amerindians, 200n65, 212n15. See also Indigenous people Anastacia (enslaved woman), 129, 131, 210n46. See also slavery Andrade, Oswald de, 19, 46 – 47, 69 Andrade, Sonia, 12, 15, 28, 78 – 82, 89, 189 – 90, 205n28 Andrade, Sonia, works by: A morte do horror (Horror’s death), 78 – 80, 79, 205n27; Silêncio (Silence), 78, 79; Untitled (Fio [Wire]), 78, 80; Untitled (TV), 78 – 82, 81 Anitta (Larissa de Macedo Machado), 172, 215n57 Anjos, Moacir dos, 13, 196n23 anna (Maiolino), 72 – 73, 73 anos de chumbo (leaden years, 1968 – 75), 9 anthropocentrism, 192

anthropology, 39, 41 antropofagia (cultural cannibalism), 19, 46 – 47, 53, 67 – 71, 204n12, 204n16 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 11, 168 Aos poucos (Little by little; Maiolino), 64, 65 Arnaud, Raquel, 196n1, 207n3 Arquivo Universal, O (The Universal Archive; Rennó), 123 – 28, 124, 209n29 Arroz e Feijão (Rice and Beans; Maiolino), 203n1 Arruda, Victor, 207n3 Art-­Attack, 101, 104 Arte Povera movement, 111 Artforum (New York), 31 artivists, 9, 150 Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (Abramovic), 73 Ascenção social (Social ascent; Valente), 181 – 82, 182 “aslsp (As Slow as Possible)” (Cage), 207n4 authoritarianism: after military regimes, 122, 136, 146; artistic resistance during military regimes, 12, 28 – 29, 39, 60 – 61, 78, 83 – 88, 107, 187; roots of, 27 – 29 Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9.6.1972 (Self-­portrait. Structure. Report. 9.6.1972; Burga), 83 – 85, 84 Aventura de contar-­se: Feminismos, escrita de si e invenções da subjetividade, A (The adventure of self-­telling: Feminisms, self-­ writing, and inventions of subjectivity; Rago), 195n16 Azulay, Jom Tob, 205n28 Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic slobber; Clark), 69 – 71, 70, 204n16 Bacon, Francis, 58 – 60, 203n5 Badiou, Alain, 108, 159 – 60 bailes funk (funk dance parties), 170, 172, 214n52 Bandeira bafo i (Lustosa), 216n78 Bangu (Rio de Janeiro), 1, 172 Barbosa, Ana Mae, 10, 23 Bardi, Pietro Bo, 207n3 Baril, Fernando, 194n9 Barrão, Jorge, 208n10 Barreto, Luís Carlos, 47

238

Index

Barrio, Artur, 52 Barros, Roberta, 10, 24 Barthes, Roland, 57 Basbaum, Ricardo, 108, 208n10 Bastidores (Embroidery hoops; Paulino), 128 – 31, 130, 210n40 Bataille, Georges, 114, 141 Beatriz, Lucia, 208n10 beauty, 55, 57, 73, 75, 78, 88, 180 – 82 Beauvoir, Simone de, 129, 199n48, 216n78 Beckett, Samuel, 58, 67, 100 Belém (Brazil), 136 – 37 Benglis, Lynda, 31 Benites, Sandra, 190, 212n12 Bentes, Ivana, 182 Benveniste, Émile, 100 – 101 Bessa, José Ribamar, 212n12 Bessa, Sérgio, 114 bestiality and zoophilia, 6, 33 bête, La (The beast; Schwartz), 6, 8 Beyoncé (Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-­Carter), 163 “ ‘ bicho da seda’ na produçao de massa, O” (The ‘silkworm’ in mass production; Pedrosa), 201n85 Bichos (Critters; Clark), 6, 156 bin Laden, Osama, 94 biological determinism, 12, 82 – 90, 125 – 26 biosecurity, 192 Bischoff-­Culm, Ernst, 16 Bittencourt, Paulo, 207n3 Bixinha circular (Circular little faggot; Parayzo), 157 Bixinhas (Little faggots; Parayzo), 156 – 57 Black Lives Matter movement, 5, 143, 211n70 Blacks. See race and racism Black Virgin, 41, 121 – 22 blasphemy, 6, 120 – 22 Blood Work Diary (Schneemann), 176 Bloody Day (Monge), 178 Boff, Leonardo, 29 – 30 Boghici, Jean, 207n3 Bolsonaro, Jair, 8, 159 Bonito Oliva, Achille, 111 – 12, 208nn8 – 9 Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Anzaldúa), 168

Bordo, Susan, 11, 34 – 35 Born to Be (Cypriano), 184 – 85 boyd, danah, 174 branqueamento (whitening), 132 – 33, 135. See also race and racism Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena (Native Brazil, alien Brazil; Geiger), 41 – 45, 46 – 47 Brater, Enoch, 100 Braz, Augusto, 152 Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles (Calirman), 9 Breitman, Rubem, 207n3 Breton, André, 19, 100 – 101 Brown, Wendy, 31 Bryan-­Wilson, Julia, 129 Buarque, Chico, 39 bugres (buggers), 49 – 50 Burga, Teresa, 83 – 85 Burke, Tarana, 196n22 Businco, Paolo, 207n3 Bustamante, Maris, 117 Butler, Judith, 10, 30 – 31, 73, 150 – 51, 184, 189, 214n41 Cabañas, Kaira M., 201n84 Cabaret de la Fulminante, El (The Cabaret of the Fulminant; Granados), 167 Cadernos de artistas (Artists’ notebooks; Geiger), 44 – 45 Cage, John, 109 – 10 Calder, Alexander, 19 Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Federici), 178 – 80 Caliente-­Caliente (Hot-­Hot; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; 1982), 117 Campos, Augusto de, 93 – 95, 207n4 Campos, Haroldo de, 93 – 94 cancel culture, 44, 184, 189, 191, 216n79. See also censorship Canibalismo (Cannibalism; Clark), 204n16 cannibalism, 46 – 47, 204n16. See also antropofagia (cultural cannibalism) Cantando na Chuva (Singing in the Rain; Reale), 141 – 42, 142 capitalism, 4, 27, 48 – 49, 167



Capítulo I (Chapter I; Maiolino), 66 Carandiru prison complex, 123, 209n27 care of the self, 181, 187 – 88 Carneiro, Sueli, 10, 132, 181, 189 Carne na tábua (Meat on a platter; Geiger), 39, 40 cartography. See geography and cartography Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves; Freyre), 6 Castro, Amilcar de, 25, 201n84 Castro, Eduardo Viveiros de, 212n15 Catholic Church: and Black and Indigenous people, 49, 210n46; and censorship, 120, 122, 189; and morality, 29 – 30, 35, 53, 89, 114, 189; strength of, 114, 194n7 Catiti-­Catiti (Pape), 46 “Catiti-­Catiti, na terra dos Brasis” (Catiti-­ Catiti, in the land of the Brasis; Pape), 49 – 50 Cavalcanti, Flávio, 199n56 Cellofane Motel Suite (Márcia X), 108 – 9 cell phone, 160, 164 Cena de interior II (Interior scene II; Varejão), 6, 7 censorship: artist resistance to, 4, 8, 148, 174, 189; cancel culture, 153, 184, 189, 191, 216n79; and conservative cultural war, 6 – 8, 120 – 22, 189; of Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria? (Pape), 14, 53 – 55, 189; military regime and, 28, 31, 39, 60 – 61; pornography, 14, 54, 165, 189, 195n12; Tropical Spring (2013) and, 6 Cesar, Marisa Flórido, 78 Charcot, Jean-­Martin, 163 – 64 Chaynas, Los, 41 Chiarelli, Tadeu, 16 Chicago, Judy, 175 – 76, 215n65 children, 6, 31, 45, 112 – 14, 142 – 43, 164, 194n9, 195n12. See also reproductive labor Cicatriz (Scars; Rennó), 123 – 28, 125, 209n29 Cidade de Deus (Meireles), 215n53 Cidade de Deus (Rio de Janeiro), 215n53 Cixous, Hélène, 93 Clark, Kenneth, 180 Clark, Lygia, 3, 50 – 51, 69 – 71, 193n2, 201n84, 202n87, 204n16

Index

239

Clark, Lygia, works by: Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic slobber), 69 – 71, 70, 204n16; Bichos (Critters), 6, 156; Canibalismo (Cannibalism), 204n16; “Da Supressão do objeto (Anotações),” 204n19; “The Gesture of Communication” (Centre Saint Charles, Sorbonne), 69; proposição (proposition), 69 – 71; Rede de elástico (Elastic net), 204n16; Relaxação (Relaxation), 204n16 class: in Brazil, 128 – 35, 182; Brazilian women artists and, 2 – 3, 19, 26 – 27, 37 – 38, 150, 173 – 74, 191; and reproductive rights, 178 – 79; resistance to social inequality, 4, 12, 150, 167, 205n40 Cláudia (São Paulo), 57 close-­ups, 52, 61 – 64, 75 – 90, 101, 107, 172, 215n62 Cocchiarale, Fernando, 114, 204n28 Coelho, Lyzandro, 149, 212n4. See also Parayzo, Lyz Cohn, Thomas, 207n3 Collor de Melo, Fernando, 123 coloniality: decoloniality and decolonial studies, 11, 167 – 68; and racism, 27, 132; resistance to, 4, 6, 10 – 11, 43 – 50, 188 – 89 Comissão Nacional da Verdade (National Truth Commission), 208n6 communists, 11, 22, 28, 30 – 31, 122, 195n12, 197n20 Como Vai Você Geração 80? (How Are You, 80s Generation?; Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, Rio de Janeiro; 1984), 109, 207n2 Concrete Art movement, 51, 94 Concrete poetry movement, 93 – 95, 206n46, 207n4 Conditioning, First Action of Self-­Portrait(s) (Pane), 204n19 Conduru, Roberto, 54 – 55 Congressional Investigative Committee (Federal Senate), 195n12 conscientization, 30 constructivism, 22 consumerism: art market, 23, 109, 122, 138, 190, 207n3; critique of, 14, 25, 49 – 50, 53;

240

Index

and race and class, 46, 153, 160, 203n1; and women, 56 – 57, 180 – 81 Contraditório (Anjos), 196n23 Contribuição da mulher às artes plásticas no país (The Contribution of Women to Visual Arts in the Country; mam-­sp; 1961), 22 – 23 Corinth, Lovis, 16 corpo é a obra, O (The body is the work; Manuel), 33, 36 corruption, 5, 12, 122 – 23, 193n6 Countersexual Manifesto (Preciado), 117 Coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard, Un (A throw of the dice will never abolish chance; Mallarmé), 206n46 Coutinho, Eduardo, 173 Crianças viadas (Gay children; Leite), 194n9 criminal justice system: Berna Reale and, 137, 140; drug gangs, 12, 122, 215n53, 217n7; and favelas, 122, 170; hereditary theories of criminality, 82 – 83, 124 – 26, 205n34; and homosexuality, 98 – 99, 217n6; prisons, 12, 123 – 28, 138, 144, 209n27, 209n29 critical consciousness, 30 critical pedagogy, 30 critical race theory, 132 critical theory, 82, 136, 162 Cruzando Jesus Cristo com Deusa Shiva (Crossing Jesus Christ with the Goddess Shiva; Baril), 194n9 Cucchi, Enzo, 208n9 cultural appropriation, 43 – 45 Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera, 11 Cut Piece (Ono), 139 – 40 “Cyborg Manifesto, A” (Haraway), 213n27 Cypriano, Tania, 184 – 85 Dada artists, 61 “Da Supressão do objeto (Anotações)” (Clark), 204n19 de Barros, Electra D., 206n46 de Barros, Geraldo, 94, 206n47 de Barros, Lenora, 12, 90 – 107, 189 – 90 de Barros, Lenora, works by: Hífen (Hyphen), 104 – 6, 106; No país da língua grande, dai carne a quem quer carne (In the country of the big tongue, give meat to those

who want meat), 206n48; Poema (Poem), 90 – 93, 92; Procura-­se linguagem (Wanted language), 105; Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself ), 94 – 107, 96, 102 – 4; Retalhação (Retaliation), 104 – 6, 105 – 6; “Umas” (Jornal da Tarde), 206n50 decoloniality and decolonial studies, 11, 167 – 68. See also coloniality Decree 1.077 (Decreto Leila Diniz), 31 Delamônica, Roberto, 25 de Laurentis, Teresa, 214n41 Deleuze, Gilles, 60, 76, 93, 203n5 De: Para: (From: To:; Maiolino), 72 – 75, 74 Departamento de Operações de Informações – Centro de Operações de Defesa Interna (Department of Information Operations – Center for Internal Defense Operations/Doi-­Codi), 51 De-­Ré, Simone, 213n21 Desenhando com Terços (Drawing with Rosaries; Márcia X), 119 – 20, 120 – 21 Dias, Antonio, 202n87 Didi-­Huberman, Georges, 164 Diego, Estrella de, 45 Diegues, Cacá, 109 dildo, 31, 112 – 17. See also phallus Diniz, Clarissa, 212n12 Diniz, Leila, 31, 32, 199n56 Diretas Já (Elections Now demonstrations; 1984), 212n5 Discipline and Punish (Foucault), 126, 144 – 46 “Discurso aos tupiniquins ou nambás” (Speech to the Tupininquin or Nambá Peoples; Pedrosa), 47 – 48, 201n80 Dja Guata Porã: Rio de Janeiro Indígena (Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro; 2017 – 18), 212n12 Doane, Mary Ann, 75 Doctors, Márcio, 208n10, 208n12 Dramatizaçao dos corpos: Arte contemporânea e crítica feminista no Brasil e na Argentina (Body dramatizations: Contemporary art and feminist critique in Brazil and Argentina; Tvardovskas), 195n16 drug gangs, 12, 122, 215n53, 217n7. See also criminal justice system



Duchamp, Alexina (Teeny), 197n19 Duchamp, Marcel, 19, 95 – 98 Durant, Sam, 146 Dussel, Enrique, 11, 167 Dworkin, Andrea, 165 Eat Me (film; Pape), 14, 15, 52 – 53, 58, 196n1 Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria? (Eat me: Gluttony or lust?; Pape), 14, 53 – 56, 202n92 eav (Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage), 148, 207n2 eav ave yz (Parayzo), 212n10 Eco, Umberto, 57 educational system, 181 – 82 Éléments de sémiologie (Barthes), 57 Elogio ao toque: ou como falar de arte feminista à brasileira (Eulogy to touch: Or how to talk about feminist art in Brazilian; Barros), 10 Elwes, Catherine, 176 embroidery, 129 empowering exhibitionism, 185 Encruzilhada (Crossroads; eav; 2015), 148 – 49 Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movement in Transition Politics (Alvarez), 10 En nombre del padre (In the father’s name; Márcia X), 115 environment, 167, 192 Envolvimentos (Involvements; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; 2017), 25 Envolvimentos (Involvements; Pimentel), 24, 24 – 25 Enwezor, Okwui, 129 É o que sobra (It is what is left over; Maiolino), 60 – 61, 60 – 61, 78 Erótica (Erotic; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro; 2006), 120 erotic art, 33, 112 – 20, 165. See also pornography esprit du temps: Essai sur la culture de masse, L’ (Morin), 57 Estado escatológico (Scatological state; Maiolino), 203n1 Étant donnés: 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The waterfall, 2. The illuminating gas; Duchamp), 19, 197n19

Index

241

Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (Badiou), 159 – 60 Et verbum (And the word; Obá), 194n9 eugenics, 4, 82 Eurocentrism, 112, 167 Evangelical Christians, 5, 30 – 31, 194n7, 194n11 Evocative Recollections (Sarfaty), 32 – 33, 35, 200n58 Exercício experimental da liberdade, O (The experimental exercise of freedom), 201n85 exhibitionism, 173, 185 Ex-­Miss Febem, 173 – 75, 188, 215n62 exoticization, 17 – 19, 45 – 51, 112, 159 – 60 Experiências n 10: Uterutopias (Experiences #10: Uterutopias; Valente), 184 “Experimentar o experimental” (Oiticica), 201n83 Explosāo feminista: Arte, cultura, política e universidade (Feminist explosion: Art, culture, politics, and the University; Hollanda), 195n16 Export, Valie, 31 – 32, 140 extermination commandos, 12, 138. See also violence extractivism, 11, 167 – 68, 189. See also modernity Fabião, Eleonora, 69 – 70 Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory; Márcia X), 112 – 17, 113, 115 – 16 Facebook, 212n4. See also social media face iconography, 94 – 107 facial-­recognition software, 94 Fajardo-­Hill, Cecilia, 9 Faleiros, Fabiana, 12 – 13, 162 – 72, 185 – 86, 189 – 90, 214n50 Faleiros, Fabiana, works by: Lady Incentivo logo, 171; Mastur/bar (Mastur/bate), 162 – 65, 213n22; “Mulher também tem cu” (Woman also has an ass), 170; Novas formas de amar e de gravar cd (New forms of loving and recording cd), 214n50 Fato indumento (Indument-­fact; Parayzo), 152, 152

242

Index

favela funk, 170, 214n51 favelas: culture in, 51 – 52, 153, 170, 172, 214nn51 – 52; and violence and criminalization, 1, 37, 122, 170, 214n52, 215n53, 217n7 Fawcet, Fausto, 173 febem (Fundaçao Estadual do Bem-­Estar do Menor; State Foundation for the Well-­Being of Minors), 173 Federici, Silvia, 10, 178 – 80, 189 Fédida, Pierre, 204n16 Felinto, Renata, 12, 133 – 35, 146 – 47, 188 femicide, 138, 142, 217n6 Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 199n47 feminine writing, 93 femininity, 55 – 56, 89 – 90, 174, 184, 188 feminism: early rejection of term, 3, 11, 15, 23, 28 – 30, 57, 89 – 90, 190; embrace of, 9, 13, 161 – 62, 172; and funkeiras, 172; ideas of, 10 – 11, 195nn15 – 16; postfeminism, 213n20; queer feminism, 190; radical feminism, 165, 171, 183 – 84, 190; second wave (1960s and 1970s), 89, 184, 199n47; terf (trans-­exclusionary radical feminists), 183 – 84 Feminismo y arte Latinoamericano: Historias de artistas que emanciparam el cuerpo (Latin American feminism and art: Histories of artists who emancipated the body; Giunta), 195n15 Fernandes, Millôr, 30 Fidélis, Gaudêncio, 194n9 Floyd, George, 211n70 Foster, Hal, 173 Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction; Maiolino), 60 – 61, 60 – 64, 65, 68, 71, 71 – 75, 74, 203n7 Foucault, Michel, 3 – 4, 82, 85, 126, 144 – 46, 163, 187 – 88 4'33" (Cage), 109 Fox-­Genovese, Elizabeth, 213n20 Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Deleuze), 203n5 Franco, Marielle, 191 Frei Betto (Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo), 30 Freire, Paulo, 30 Freitas, Iole de, 15

Freitas, Ivan de, 25 Freud, Sigmund, 103 Freyre, Gilberto, 6, 27, 132 Friedan, Betty, 30, 199n47 “From One Identity to an Other” (Kristeva), 205n41 Fronteiriços (Borderlines; Geiger), 45, 50 funkeiras (women funk singers), 170 – 72 Fuses (Schneemann), 33, 34 Gabeira, Fernando, 33, 35, 37, 200n60 Galeria Arte Global (São Paulo), 14, 196n1 Garça Lopes Rodriguez, Maria da, 89 Geiger, Anna Bella, 3, 38 – 50, 78, 82, 89, 189 – 90, 205n28 Geiger, Anna Bella, works by: Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena (Native Brazil, alien Brazil), 41 – 45, 46 – 47; Cadernos de artistas (Artists’ notebooks), 44 – 45; Carne na tábua (Meat on a platter), 39, 40; Fronteiriços (Borderlines), 45, 50; História do Brasil: Little Boys and Girls (Brazilian history: Little boys and girls), 44 – 45, 48 – 49; Mapas elementares 1 (Elementary maps 1), 39, 42 – 43; Mapas elementares 3 (Elementary maps 3), 41, 44; Orbis descriptio no. 13 (Orbis description no. 13), 50; Passagens I (Passages I), 42; Passagens I and Passagens II (Passages I and II), 39 Geledés Instituto da Mulher Negra (Geledés Institute of Black Women; São Paulo), 210n50 gender and gender roles: and decoloniality, 167; and discrimination, 3, 10 – 12, 14 – 16, 25 – 26, 57, 150, 205n40, 217n6; gender identity, 93, 183 – 85, 195n19, 216n78, 216n80; and language, 205n41; social construction of, 189; X used in names, 117 Genitalpanik (Genital panic; Export), 31 – 32 geography and cartography, 11, 24, 39, 41, 45, 67, 168 Geração 80 (80s Generation), 109, 111 – 12, 207n2 Gerchman, Rubens, 25, 64, 202n87 gestalt principles, 57 gesture, 10 – 11, 30, 54, 73, 163



“Gesture of Communication, The” (Centre Saint Charles, Sorbonne; Clark), 69 Gil, Gilberto, 46 Gill, Rosalind, 55 Ginástica da pele (Skin gymnastics; Reale), 143 – 46, 145, 211n71 “Girl from Ipanema, The” (Jobim and Moraes), 34 Giunta, Andrea, 9, 195n15 globalization, 122, 196n23 Glu Glu Glu (Maiolino), 58, 59 Glusberg, George, 33 Gomes Vieira, Aleta, 172. See also Valente, Aleta Gonzalez, Lélia, 135 Granados, Nadia, 167 Greer, Germaine, 184 Grupo Frente, 198n30 Grupo Ruptura, 94, 198n30 Guattari, Félix, 93, 195n17 Gullar, Ferreira, 50 – 51 Halperin, David, 214n41 Hamburger, Alex, 108 – 11, 110 Hamilton, Richard, 25 hand, 163 – 64, 175 Haraway, Donna, 164 health and hygiene, 4 – 5, 29, 78 – 82, 88, 143, 148, 150, 180 – 81 Herkenhoff, Paulo, 3, 9 – 10, 17, 26, 205n28, 206n48 Hífen (Hyphen; de Barros), 104 – 6, 106 Hill, Patricia Collins, 11 História do Brasil: Little boys and girls (Brazilian history: Little boys and girls; Geiger), 44 – 45, 48 – 49 Histórias Afro-­Atlânticas (Afro-­Atlantic histories; Instituto Tomie Ohtake and Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo; 2018), 190 Histórias da sexualidade (Histories of sexuality; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; 2018), 190 Histórias das mulheres, histórias feministas (Women’s histories, feminist histories; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; 2019), 190 Höch, Hannah, 61

Index

243

Hollanda, Heloísa Buarque de, 10, 195n16 Hollanda, Luiz Buarque de, 207n3 Holy Virgin Mary, The (Offili), 121 – 22 Homeless or Hipster (Valente), 182 – 84, 183 homosexuality, 6, 8, 31, 98 – 99, 122, 150 – 51, 190 – 91, 214n41, 217n6 hooks, bell, 11 Hudinilson Jr. (Hudinilson Urbano Júnior), 35 human trafficking, 45, 142 hygiene. See health and hygiene Identidade é ficção (Identity is fiction; Rosa), 159 – 62, 160 – 62 identity politics, 4, 10, 23, 26, 30, 122, 132 – 35 “I Feel Love” (Summer), 164 – 65 I Macambiada Volante (Márcia X and Hamburger), 111 In (Parente), 205n40 Indigenous people: attacks on, 8, 159, 191; and colonial era, 49 – 50, 167; emergence of Indigenous artists, 123, 190; representations of, 19, 43 – 49, 146, 156 – 60, 188, 200n71, 201n80; rituals and mythology, 19, 176, 215n67 information theory, 57 In-­Out (Antropofagia) (In-­Out [anthro­ pophagy]; Maiolino), 67 – 69, 68, 204n12 Instagram, 173 – 75, 215nn61 – 62. See also social media Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics/ibge), 132 Interior Scroll (Schneemann), 32 International Women’s Year (1975), 29, 52, 205n41 internet, 2, 5, 122, 159, 174, 176, 185 intersectionality, 9, 13, 161, 171, 213n20 Intra Venus (Wilke), 216n82 Invenções da mulher moderna: Para além de Anita e Tarsila (Modern Women and their inventions: Beyond Anita and Tarsila; Instituto Tomie Ohtake; 2017), 9, 190 Ipanema Beach, 34 – 35 “It’s a Small World (After All)” (Sherman and Sherman), 117

244

Index

Jardim, Reynaldo, 201n84 Jeffreys, Sheila, 184 Jobim, Antonio Carlos, 34 Jogo de Cena (Stage Play; Coutinho), 173 Jóias bélicas (Warfare jewelry; Parayzo), 155 – 56 Journées interdisciplinaires sur l’art corporel et performances (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 1979), 33 Joyce, James, 93, 109 Jurunas (Belém, Brazil), 140 Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (Hamilton), 25 Kac, Eduardo, 35 – 36, 38 Kafka, Franz, 75 Kaminhas Sutrinhas (Little Kama Sutras; Márcia X), 117 – 19, 118 – 19 “Kátia Flávia, Godiva do Irajá” (Fawcet), 173 Kaur, Rupi, 174, 215n61 Kilomba, Grada, 11, 129, 189 Klabin, Paulo, 207n3 Koskela, Hille, 173, 175, 185, 215n59 Krauss, Rosalind, 141 Krenak, Ailton, 158 – 59 Kristeva, Julia, 93, 206n43 kuir sudaca movement, 168 – 69 Lacan, Jacques, 103, 114 Lady Incentivo (Lady Incentive), 169 – 70, 214n50 Lady Incentivo logo (Faleiros), 171 language: Anna Bella Geiger and, 39; Anna Maria Maiolino and, 67 – 69; and challenge to power, 4, 9 – 10, 90, 93, 168 – 69; and gender identity, 195n19, 206n43; Indigenous, 19, 46, 156; Lenora de Barros and, 12, 90, 93 – 94, 100 – 101, 206n47; Lygia Pape and, 56 – 57; tattoos as, 126; tongue, 12, 60, 206n48 “Laugh of the Medusa” (Cixous), 93 Lava Jato operation, 193n6. See also corruption Lavigne, Paula, 194 – 95n11 Léger, Fernand, 17

Leirner, Sheila, 23 Leite, Bia, 194n9 Leite, Vânia Dantas, 203n9 Lemos, Márcia, 208n10 Leonilson, José, 207n2 Lepecki, André, 71 “Let’s Talk about Abortion” billboard (Valente), 178 Levy-­Deinhard, Hanna, 39 lgbtqi+ communities, 8, 150 – 51, 191, 217n6. See also homosexuality Lhote, André, 17 liberation theology, 29 – 30. See also Catholic Church Limite Zero (Zero Limit; Reale), 138 – 39 língua, 12, 60 Língua Vertebral (Vertebral tongue; de Barros), 94, 95, 206n48 linguistics, 12, 38, 56 – 57, 90, 94, 206n47. See also language lipstick, 52 – 53, 67, 85, 90, 152 Lispector, Clarice, 1 Lobato, Monteiro, 16 – 17 Lombroso, Cesare, 82, 125 – 26, 205n34 Lontra, Marcus, 207n2 Lopes, Fabiana, 129 Lopez, Madô, 213n21 Lorde, Audre, 11 Lovely Babies (Márcia X), 118 – 19 Lua, A (The Moon; Amaral), 197n12 Lugones, María, 11, 167 Lula (Luís Inácio Lula da Silva), 5 Lundberg, Bill, 205n41 Lustosa, Tertuliana, 184, 216n78 “Lygia Pape: a gula e a luxúria” (Lygia Pape: Gluttony and Lust, Calirman), 9 Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms (Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2017), 190 “Lygia Pape and Anna Maria Maiolino: ‘Epidermic’ and Visceral Works” (Calirman), 9 Machado, Ivens, 205n28 Machado, Lia Zanotta, 199n42 Machado, Lourival Gomes, 22 Machado, Milton, 112



machismo, 11, 30, 114, 167, 191 Maciel, Katia, 82 Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone), 1 Madonna figure, 180 Maeger, Sandra, 207n2 Maiolino, Anna Maria, 3, 12, 25 – 26, 58 – 75, 89, 189 – 90 Maiolino, Anna Maria, exhibitions and works by: anna, 72 – 73, 73; Anna Maria Maiolino (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; 2017), 190; Aos poucos (Little by little), 64, 65; Arroz e Feijão (Rice and Beans), 203n1; Capítulo I (Chapter I), 66; É o que sobra (It is what is left over), 60 – 61, 60 – 61, 78; Estado escatológico (Scatological state), 203n1; Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction), 60 – 61, 60 – 64, 65, 68, 71, 71 – 75, 74, 203n7; Glu Glu Glu, 58, 59; In-­ Out (antropofagia) (In-­Out [anthropophagy]), 67 – 69, 68, 204n12; Mapas mentais (Mental maps), 66, 66 – 67; Monumento à fome (Monument to hunger), 203n1; Por um fio (By a thread), 71, 71 – 75; X, 203n9; X, II, 203n7; Y, 61 – 64, 63 Malasartes (Rio de Janeiro), 202n92 Malfatti, Anita, 16 – 17, 193n2 Mallarmé, Stéphane, 206n46 mam-­Rio (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro), 14, 49 Manicure política (Political manicure; Parayzo), 151, 151 “Manifesto Antropófago” (Cannibalist Manifesto; Andrade), 19, 46, 69 “Manifesto de arte pornô” (Porn art manifesto; Kac and Trindade), 35 “Manifesto Neoconcreto” (Gullar), 50 – 51, 201n84 Manifiesto contrasexual (Countersexual manifesto; Preciado), 165, 208n18 Manobras radicais: Artistas Brasileiras, 1886 – 2005 (Radical maneuvers: Brazilian artists, 1886 – 2005; Herkenhoff and Hollanda), 10 Manuel, Antonio, 33, 200n76 Mapas elementares 1 (Elementary maps 1; Geiger), 39, 42 – 43

Index

245

Mapas elementares 3 (Elementary maps 3; Geiger), 41, 44 Mapas mentais (Mental maps; Maiolino), 66, 66 – 67 Marcha da família com Deus pela liberdade (Family march with God for liberty), 29 Marcha das Vadias (March of the Vagrants), 161 – 62, 213n21 Márcia X, 12, 33, 108 – 21, 146 – 47, 189 – 90 Márcia X, works by: Cellofane Motel Suite, 108 – 9; Desenhando com Terços (Drawing with Rosaries), 119 – 20, 120 – 21; En nombre del padre (In the father’s name), 115; Fábrica fallus (Phallus factory), 112 – 17, 113, 115 – 16; I Macambiada Volante, 111; Kaminhas Sutrinhas (Little Kama Sutras), 117 – 19, 118 – 19; Lovely Babies, 118 – 19; Sem título (Untitled), 113, 116; Tricyc(l)age: Música para 2 velocípedes e pianos (Tricyc[l]age: Music for two tricycles and pianos), 109 – 10, 110 Margolles, Teresa, 140 – 41 Margulies, Ivone, 69 Marmolejo, Maria Evelia, 176 – 77, 215n67 Martins, Carlos, 22 Martins, Maria, 19, 197nn18 – 19 mask, 64, 117, 129, 141, 159 – 60 Masters and the Slaves, The (Freyre), 27, 132 Mastur/bar (Mastur/bate; Faleiros), 162 – 65, 213n22 masturbation, 162 – 66 Material Girl (Valente), 1 – 2, 2 Mattoso, Glauco, 35 Maurício, Jayme, 22 Mbembe, Achille, 136 mbl (Movimento Brasil Livre; Free Brazil Movement), 5 – 6, 194n11 Medidas (Measurements; Parente), 82 – 83, 83, 205n31 Melendi, Maria Angélica, 10 memory, 103, 128, 142 Mendieta, Ana, 182 menstruation, 174 – 79, 185, 189, 215n67 Menstruation Bathroom (Chicago), 176 Menstruation I (Elwes), 176 Menstruation II (Elwes), 176

246

Index

Merleau-­Ponty, Maurice, 57 Mesquita, André, 122 mestiçagem (racial miscegenation), 132, 210n49. See also race and racism Metallized Knots (Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; 1974), 31 Metamorphosis, The (Kafka), 75 #MeToo movement, 13, 142, 196n22 Meu caro amigo (My dear friend; Buarque), 39 #meuprimeiroassédio (my first sexual harassment), 161 Míccolis, Leila, 35 micropolitical insurrection, 10, 188 Mignolo, Walter D., 11, 167 Milhazes, Beatriz, 193n2, 207n2 military regimes (1964 – 85): and Indigenous people, 43, 45; repression under, 28 – 29, 46, 78, 139, 199n56, 202n87; rise and fall of, 11 – 12, 27 – 28, 110, 122 militias, 12, 122 – 23, 191, 217n7 Milk of Dreams, The (Venice Biennale; 2022), 190 Millan, André, 207n3 minority becoming, 93 misoginia está vazando, A (Misogyny is leaking; Valente), 174, 175, 184 Moça nao sou obrigada a ser feminista (Girl, I am not obliged to be feminist Facebook group), 174 Modern Art Week (Semana de Arte Moderna; São Paulo; 1922), 19 modernism, 3, 16 – 17, 19, 69, 193n2 modernity, 11, 43, 112, 167 – 68, 189 modernization, 4, 22, 27, 43, 159 Mombaça, Jota, 148 Mondrian, Piet, 197n18 Monge, Priscilla, 178 – 79 Monumento à fome (Monument to hunger; Maiolino), 203n1 Moraes, Vinicius de, 34 Moreira, Roger, 194n9 Moreninha, A (The Little Brunette), 111, 208n10, 208n12 Morgan, Robin, 165, 184 Morin, Edgar, 57

morte do horror, A (Horror’s death; Andrade), 78 – 80, 79, 205n27 Mosquera, Bernardo, 149 Most Wanted (Warhol), 98, 98 – 99 motherhood, 13, 56, 119, 174 – 75, 178 – 80. See also reproductive labor mouth, 12, 58 – 78, 100, 129 – 31, 136 – 37 Movimento de Arte Pornô (Porn Art Movement), 35, 151, 165 – 67, 200n63. See also pornography Mulheres artistas: as pioneiras 1880 – 1930 (Women artists: The pioneers 1880 – 1930; Simioni), 10 mulher na construção do mundo futuro, A (Muraro), 199n48 “mulher na iconografia de massa, A” (The woman in mass iconography; Pape), 56 – 57 Mulher: objeto de cama e mesa (Woman: bed and table object; Studart), 55, 199n48 “Mulher também tem cu” (Woman also has an ass; Faleiros), 170 multiculturalism, 122, 212n15 multinaturalism, 212n15 Muraro, Rose Marie, 199n48 Museo di Antropologia Criminale Cesare Lombroso (Museum of Criminal Anthropology Cesare Lombroso; Torino, Italy), 124 – 25 Museu das Origens (Museum of Origins), 201n80 Museum of Modern Art (New York), 122 Mussi, Ana Vitória, 205n28 “Muyoce” (Cage), 109 “My pussy é o poder” (My pussy is the power; Valesca Popozuda), 171 Nadja (Breton), 100 – 101 nail protectors, 156 Name, Daniela, 6 não-­roupas (nonclothes), 108 National Endowment for the Arts, 121 Nauenberg, Max, 203n7 necropolitics, 136 Negra, A (The Black Woman; Tarsila), 17, 18 Nelson, Maggie, 188, 191 Neo-­Concrete movement, 50 – 51, 156, 201n84



neoliberalism, 5, 170 “New Machines, New Bodies, New Communities: Political Dilemmas of a Cyborg Feminist” (Haraway), 213n27 Neymar (Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior), 132 – 33, 181 Niemeyer, Anna Maria, 207n3 Ni Una Menos (Nem Uma a Menos; Not One Less), 161 – 62 Nochlin, Linda, 3 No-­Grupo, 117 Noigrandes poets, 93 – 94 No país da língua grande, dai carne a quem quer carne (In the country of the big tongue, give meat to those who want meat; de Barros), 206n48 Not I (Beckett), 67, 100 Not-­Pregnant (Valente), 173 – 74 Nova Figuração (Neofiguration) movement, 112 Nova objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian objectivity; mam-­Rio, 1967), 26 Novas formas de amar e de gravar cd (New forms of loving and recording cd; Faleiros), 214n50 nudity: in art, 6, 17, 19, 35 – 37, 138 – 40, 180 – 81, 200n58; prohibitions regarding, 34 – 36, 138, 180 – 81, 215n62 Obá, Antonio, 194n9 objectification of women: forms of, 14, 55, 70, 88 – 90, 165, 185; opposition to, 4, 11, 14, 23, 33, 57, 72 – 75, 89 – 90 Objetos de sedução (Objects of seduction; Pape), 53 – 56, 54, 73 Oca do futuro (Hut of the future; Rosa), 158, 158 Occupy Wall Street (2011), 5 Offili, Chris, 121 – 22 oitavo véu, O (The eighth veil, Martins), 21 Oiticica, Hélio, 25 – 26, 50 – 51, 66, 201nn83 – 84, 202n87 Oiticica, Hélio, works by: “Experimentar o experimental,” 201n83; Tropicália, Penetráveis pn2, pn3 (Tropicália Penetrables pn2, pn3), 26, 47, 198n33

Index

247

Oliveira, Jocy de, 207nn4 – 5 Olympics (Rio de Janeiro; 2014), 143, 214n52 On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (Nelson), 188 Ono, Yoko, 139 – 40 11 de Marzo, 1982 — ritual a la menstruación, digno de toda mujer como antecedente del origen de la vida (March 11, 1982 — ritual in honor of menstruation, worthy of every woman as a precursor to the origin of life; Marmolejo), 176, 177 Opera Aperta (Eco), 57 Opus Dei, 120. See also Catholic Church O que é lugar de fala (What is the place of speech?; Ribeiro), 11 Orbis descriptio no. 13 (Orbis description no. 13; Geiger), 50 Ordinário (Ordinary; Reale), 140, 141 “Ornament and Crime” (Loos), 209n34 Osório, Luiz Camillo, 195n12 Ostrovsky, Vivian, 200n70 Ostrower, Fayga, 38, 200n76 Our Parents “Fossilis” (Pape), 45 Overol (Overalls; Monge), 178, 179 Paglia, Camille, 213n20 Paladino, Mimmo, 208n9 Palomo (Reale), 136, 136 Pane, Gina, 204n19 Pape, Lygia, 3, 14 – 15, 26, 45 – 58, 89, 189 – 90, 193n2, 200n76, 201nn84 – 85 Pape, Lygia, exhibitions and works by: Catiti-­ Catiti, 46; “Catiti-­Catiti, na terra dos Brasis” (Catiti-­Catiti, in the land of the Brasis), 49 – 50; Eat Me (film), 14, 15, 52 – 53, 58, 196n1; Eat me: a gula ou a luxúria? (Eat me: Gluttony or lust?; mam-­Rio; 1976), 14, 53 – 56, 189, 202n92; Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms (Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2017), 190; “A mulher na iconografia de massa” (The woman in mass iconography), 56 – 57; Objetos de sedução (Objects of seduction), 53 – 56, 54, 73; Poemas visuais (Visual poems), 206n53; Wanted, 206n53 paramilitary groups, 122 – 23, 191, 214n52, 217n7. See also militias

248

Index

Parayzo, Lyz, 148 – 57, 185 – 86, 189 – 90, 212n4, 212n10 Parayzo, Lyz, works by: Bixinha circular (Circular little faggot), 157; Bixinhas (Little faggots), 156 – 57; eav ave yz, 212n10; Fato indumento (Indument-­fact), 152, 152; Manicure política (Political manicure), 151, 151; Parayzo carioca panfleto (Carioca paradise pamphlet), 153, 154; Secagem rápida (Quick drying), 148 – 50, 149; UnhaNavalha #1 (RazorNail #1), 155, 155 – 56 Parayzo carioca panfleto (Carioca paradise pamphlet; Parayzo), 153, 154 Parente, André, 82 Parente, Letícia, 3, 12, 82 – 90, 189, 205n28 Parente, Letícia, works by: Medidas (Measurements), 82 – 83, 83, 205n31; Preparação I (Preparation I), 85 – 88, 88; Preparação II (Preparation II), 205n40; Projeto 158 – 1 (Project 158 – 1), 85, 86; Sem título (Untitled), 87; Tarefa I (Task I), 205n40 Pasquim, O (Rio de Janeiro), 30 – 31 Passagens I (Passages I; Geiger), 42 Passagens I and Passagens II (Passages I and II; Geiger), 39 patriarchy, 4, 10 – 12, 27, 89, 138, 187, 189, 199n42 pau-­de-­arara (parrot’s perch), 139 Paulino, Rosana, 12, 128 – 35, 146 – 47, 189 – 90, 210n40 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire), 30 pedophilia, 6, 114, 142. See also children Pedrosa, Mário, 22, 39, 47 – 49, 197n20, 201n80, 201n85 Pelúcio, Larissa, 169 pene como instrumento de trabajo, El (The penis as a work instrument; Bustamante), 117 penis, 113 – 19. See also phallus Péret, Benjamin, 19 Pérez-­Oramas, Luis, 137 Performance arte foderna (Foderna Art Performance; Ipanema Beach; 1981), 35 Performance interversão (Interversion performance; Ipanema Beach; 1982), 35 performativity, 10, 173 – 74, 182 – 84 Period (Kaur), 174

Perra, Hija de, 168 personal as political, 8, 11, 13, 28 – 30, 72, 82, 126, 142, 188 Petrobrás, 5, 193 – 94n6 phallus: in art, 31, 52, 91, 112 – 20; in Indigenous legend, 215n67; phallocentrism, 31, 114 – 17, 167, 171; phalloplasty, 185 Phénoménologie de la perception (Merleau-­ Ponty), 57 phenomenology, 51, 57 physiognomy, 85 Pignatari, Décio, 93 – 94 Pimentel, Wanda, 3, 24 – 25, 89, 189 – 90 Pinheiro, Márcia (stylist), 108 Pinheiro de Oliveira, Márcia (Márcia X), 108. See also Márcia X Piss Christ (Serrano’s), 121 Piza, Edith, 135 Pizarro, Luiz, 207n2 Poema (Poem; de Barros), 90 – 93, 92 Poemas visuais (Visual poems; Pape), 206n53 Poemazóide (Spermpoem; Kac), 38 police brutality, 4, 12, 146, 188 – 89, 191, 214n52, 217n7. See also violence pop art, 25 pornography: and art, 33, 35 – 36, 108, 114, 122, 151, 165 – 67, 180; and censorship, 14, 54, 165, 189, 195n12 Por um fio (By a thread; Maiolino), 71, 71 – 75 postfeminism, 213n20. See also feminism “Post Porn Modernist Show” (Sprinkle), 166 postporn movement, 151, 165 – 67. See also pornography Preciado, Paul B., 117, 164 – 65, 184, 208n18, 214n41 Prêmio Pipa (Pipa Prize), 181 Preparação I (Preparation I; Parente), 85 – 88, 88 Preparação II (Preparation II; Parente), 205n40 primitivism, 17 Princenthal, Nancy, 211n65 Prince Valiant (Foster), 173 prisons, 12, 123 – 28, 138, 144, 209n27, 209n29. See also criminal justice system Procura-­se linguagem (Wanted language; de Barros), 105



Procuro-­me (Wanted by myself; de Barros), 94 – 107, 96, 102 – 4 Projeto 158 – 1 (Project 158 – 1; Parente), 85, 86 proposição (proposition; Clark), 69 – 71 prostitution, 45, 138, 142, 166, 178, 194n9 psychoanalysis, 10, 85, 94, 103, 114, 117, 119, 204n16 Public Cervix Announcement (Sprinkle), 166, 166 Quando todos calam (When everyone is silent; Reale), 137 – 38, 138 Quebra Barraco, Tati (Shack-­Cracker Tati), 171 – 72 queer feminism, 190. See also feminism; homosexuality Queermuseu: Cartografias da diferença na arte Brasileira (Queermuseum: Cartographies of difference in Brazilian art; Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre; 2017), 6 queer theory and studies, 168 – 69, 214n41 Quijano, Anibal, 11, 167 race and racism: branqueamento (whitening), 132 – 33, 135; Brazilian artists and, 4, 17, 19, 26 – 27, 37, 123, 128 – 35; and decoloniality, 167; and formation of Brazilian society, 132 – 35; government and, 8, 122, 144, 146; mestiçagem (racial miscegenation), 132, 210n49; opposition to, 4, 10, 12, 37, 188 – 89, 191, 205n40; Tropical Spring (2013) and, 150 radical feminism, 165, 171, 184 – 85, 190. See also feminism Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960 – 1985 exhibition (2017 – 18), 9 – 10, 195n15 Rago, Margareth, 10, 195n16 rape, 6, 132, 138, 142, 162, 165. See also violence Reale, Berna, 12, 136 – 47, 189, 211n71 Reale, Berna, works by: Americano (American), 143, 144; Cantando na Chuva (Singing in the Rain), 141 – 42, 142; Ginástica da pele (Skin gymnastics), 143 – 46, 145, 211n71; Limite Zero (Zero Limit), 138 – 39; Palomo, 136, 136; Quando todos calam (When everyone is silent), 137 – 38, 138; Rosa Púrpura (Purple Rose), 142, 142

Index

249

Rede de elástico (Elastic net; Clark), 204n16 Red Flag (Chicago), 175 – 76 Relaxação (Relaxation; Clark), 204n16 Rennó, Rosângela, 12, 123 – 28, 146 – 47, 189, 209n29 Rennó, Rosângela, works by: O Arquivo Universal (The Universal Archive), 123 – 28, 124, 209n29; Cicatriz (Scars), 123 – 28, 125, 209n29; Sem titulo (mãos com estrelas) [Untitled (hands with stars)], 125; Sem título (Wetbag) [Untitled (Wetbag)], 124; Três buracos (Three holes), 127; Vulgo (Alias), 124, 126 – 28, 127 reproductive labor, 10, 13, 56, 119, 164 – 65, 174 – 75, 178 – 80 reproductive rights, 13, 23, 29, 31, 138, 172, 174 – 75, 178 – 79 Retalhação (Retaliation; Centro Universitário Maria Antonia-­c euma, São Paulo; 2007), 104 – 6 Retalhação (Retaliation; de Barros), 105 – 6 Retire aqui o seu diploma de artista (Pick up here your artist’s diploma; Valente), 181 return to painting, 111 Revolution in Poetic Language (Kristeva), 206n43 Ribeiro, Djamila, 11, 133, 189 Richard, Nelly, 11, 23, 93, 189 Richardson, Terry, 215n57 right-­wing groups, 5 – 6, 11, 30 – 31, 120 – 22 Rimbaud, Arthur, 100 Roberto Marinho Foundation, 196n1 Rockefeller, Nelson, 99 Rodovia Transamazônica (Trans-­Amazonian Federal Highway), 43 rolezinhos (little strolls), 153 Rolnik, Suely, 10, 153 – 55, 160, 187 – 89, 195n17 Room (Monge), 178 Rosa, Sallisa, 13, 156 – 62, 185 – 86, 188 Rosa, Sallisa, works by: Identidade é ficção (Identity is fiction), 159 – 62, 160 – 62; Oca do futuro (Hut of the future), 158, 158 Rosana Paulino: A Costura da Memória (Rosana Paulino: The Sewing of Memory; Pinacoteca, São Paulo; 2018), 210n40 Rosa Púrpura (Purple Rose; Reale), 142, 142

250

Index

Rousseff, Dilma, 5 Ruiz, Alma, 209n29 Saffioti, Heleieth, 27 Saldanha, Claudia, 117 Salomão, Waly, 109 Salpêtrière psychiatric hospital (Paris), 163 – 64 Sampaio, Claudio, 52 San Martín, Felipe Rivas, 168 – 69 São Paulo Biennial, 3, 197n18 São Paulo State Penitentiary, 123 – 28, 209n27, 209n29 Sarfaty, Gretta, 3, 12, 32 – 33, 75 – 78, 89, 189, 200n58 Sarfaty, Gretta, works by: Evocative Recollections, 32 – 33, 35, 200n58; Transformações I (Transformations I), 75 – 78, 76 – 77 Sarti, Cynthia, 10 Scaffold (Durant), 146 scars and tattoos, 32, 123 – 28, 209n34 Schapiro, Miriam, 175 – 76, 215n65 Schendel, Mira, 193n2 Schneemann, Carolee, 32 – 33, 176 Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands (Cut with the kitchen knife Dada through the last Weimar beer-­belly cultural epoch in Germany; Höch), 61, 62 Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz, 10, 17, 43 Schwartz, Wagner, 6 Scream, The (Munch), 58 Searle, John, 72 Seaton, Elizabeth, 126 Secagem rápida (Quick drying; Parayzo), 148 – 50, 149 Second Sex, The (Beauvoir), 199n48 século das mulheres-­algumas artistas, O (The century of women-­some artists; Casa de Petrópolis-­Instituto de Cultura, Rio de Janeiro; 2000), 120 Sedgwick, Eve K., 214n41 Sélavy, Rrose, 98 self-­censorship, 60 – 61. See also censorship Selflove (Valente), 180, 180

Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week; 1922), 197n11 Semefo art collective (Mexico), 140 semiology, 12, 41, 57, 126, 137, 163 Sem título (Untitled; Márcia X), 113, 116 Sem título (Untitled; Parente), 87 Sem titulo (mãos com estrelas) [Untitled (hands with stars)] (Rennó), 125 Sem título (Wetbag) [Untitled (Wetbag)] (Rennó), 124 Senise, Daniel, 207n2 sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection (1997 – 2000), 121 – 22, 209n24 Serpa, Ivan, 198n30 Serrano, Andres, 121 Sexualidade da mulher Brasileira: Corpo e classe social no Brasil (Muraro), 199n48 sexuality: children and, 31, 112 – 14, 164, 195n12; discussion of, 36, 122, 150, 161 – 62; homosexuality, 6, 8, 31, 98 – 99, 122, 150 – 51, 190 – 91, 214n41, 217n6; masturbation, 164 – 65; reproduction and, 164 – 65; state control and social restriction of, 15, 31 – 32, 35 – 36, 82, 85; women’s agency and emancipation, 22 – 23, 29 – 31, 53 – 56, 114, 165, 170 – 71, 213n20; zoophilia and bestiality, 6, 33 Sherman, Cindy, 89 Shtromberg, Elena, 41 shunga, 194n9 Silêncio (Silence; Andrade), 78, 79 “ ‘silkworm’ in mass production, The” (Pedrosa), 201n85 Silva, Carmen da, 202n99 Silva, Denise Ferreira da, 132 Silveira, Nise da, 201n84 Simioni, Ana Paula Cavalcanti, 10, 16 – 17 Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake (Mississauga Nishnaabeg), 11, 167, 189 Singin’ in the Rain (1952), 141 “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (Beyoncé), 163 slavery, 6, 17, 27, 128 – 35, 210n46 SlutWalk movement, 161, 213n21. See also violence



social media: as art platform, 1 – 2, 13, 153, 173 – 75, 181, 190 – 91, 212n4, 215nn61 – 62; and social destabilization, 5, 153, 174, 184; and social protest, 111, 184, 189 Sommers, Christina Hoff, 213n20 Sontag, Susan, 147 S. O. S. Starication Object Series (Wilke), 32 Spanudis, Theon, 201n84 Sprinkle, Annie, 165 – 66 Strina, Luisa, 207n3 Studart, Heloneida, 55, 199n48 Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (Bacon), 58 – 60 subjectification: cyborg subjectivity, 164; dissident subjectivities, 9, 156; and inclusion, 43 – 44; and language, 4, 90 – 94; and Neo-­Concrete movement, 51, 156; and women, 12, 55, 85, 99, 188 Summer, Donna, 164 – 65 Super 8 film, 61 – 69 Superexposiçāo (A Gentil Carioca gallery, Rio de Janeiro; 2019), 181 surrealism, 19 – 22, 100 – 101 sutures, 128 – 29 Szwarcwald, Fábio, 194n11 taboos, 114, 138, 162, 180 – 81, 185 – 86 Tanguy, Yves, 19 tapp und tastkino (touch and tap cinema; Export), 140 Tarefa I (Task I; Parente), 205n40 Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil (Museum of Modern Art, 2017), 17, 197n12 Tate Modern (London), 122 tattoos and scars, 32, 123 – 28, 209n34 Tavares, Bráulio, 35 television, 78 – 82 Temple of the Sacred Prostitute, The (Sprinkle), 166 Tenney, Jim, 33, 34 terf (trans-­exclusionary radical feminists), 183 – 85. See also gender and gender roles Terranova, Franco, 196n1, 207n3 Terra-­Reale, Paula, 201n80 terrorism, 94

Index

251

Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era and Pornotopia: An Essay on Playboy’s Architecture and Biopolitics (Preciado), 208n18 Think Olga ngo, 196n22 342Artes group, 194n11 Tigrona, Deize (Tigress Deize), 171 – 72, 215n53 Tina America (Vater), 88 – 90, 90 – 91, 99 “ ‘Tina América’“ (Trizoli), 205n41 Ting, Jess, 216n80 tongue, 12, 60 – 61, 90 – 95, 206n48 Torcida (Santiago, Chile), 168 – 69 Torres, Diana Junyent, 151 Torres, Fernanda, 173 Torres-­Garcia, Joaquin, 48 Transformações I (Transformations I; Sarfaty), 75 – 78, 76 – 77 transgender people, 122, 183 – 85, 216n78. See also gender and gender roles transvanguardia (beyond the avant-­garde), 111 – 12, 208n9 travestis (transvestites), 153, 156, 216n78 Três buracos (Three holes; Rennó), 127 três raças tristes, 46 Trevisan, Ricardo, 207n3 Tricyc(l)age: Música para 2 velocípedes e pianos (Tricyc[l]age: Music for two tricycles and pianos; Márcia X and Hamburger), 109 – 10, 110 Trindade, Cairo, 36 Trizoli, Talita, 10, 89, 205n41 Tropicália, Penetráveis pn2, pn3 (Tropicália Penetrables pn2, pn3; Oiticica), 26, 47, 198n33 “Tropicália” (Veloso), 47 Tropicália movement (1967 – 68), 46 – 47 Tropical Spring (2013), 5, 150, 212n5 Tupinambá people, 46. See also Indigenous people Tvardovskas, Luana Saturnino, 10, 195n16 Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil. Exhibition catalog (Amaral and Herkenhoff ), 10, 24 “Umas” (Jornal da Tarde; de Barros), 206n50

252

Index

UnhaNavalha #1 (RazorNail #1; Parayzo), 155, 155 – 56 Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (Pacifying Police Units), 214n52 United States, 11, 28 – 29, 132, 169, 211n71 Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants) (Men­dieta), 182 Untitled (Fio [Wire]; Andrade), 78, 80 Untitled (tv) (Andrade), 78 – 82, 81 Untitled Film Stills (Sherman), 89 uomo delinquente, L’ (The criminal man; Lombroso), 205n34 “Vai Malandra” (Go Badass Girl; Anitta), 172 Valente, Aleta, 1 – 2, 12 – 13, 172 – 86, 188 – 90 Valente, Aleta, exhibitions and works by: Ascenção social (Social ascent), 181 – 82, 182; Experiências n 10: Uterutopias (Experiences #10: Uterutopias), 184; Homeless or Hipster, 182 – 84, 183; “Let’s Talk about Abortion” billboard, 178; Material Girl, 1 – 2, 2; A misoginia está vazando, (Misogyny is leaking), 174, 175, 184; Not-­Pregnant, 173 – 74; Retire aqui o seu diploma de artista (Pick up here your artist’s diploma), 181; Superexposiçāo (A Gentil Carioca gallery, Rio de Janeiro; 2019), 181 Valesca Popozuda (Valesca Reis Santos), 171 – 72 Valle, Enéas, 112 Varejão, Adriana, 6 – 7, 193n2, 207n2 Vargas, Getúlio, 22 Vater, Regina, 3, 12, 88 – 90, 99, 189 Veja (São Paulo), 205n41 Velasco Alvarado, Juan, 83 Veloso, Caetano, 46 – 47, 109 Venus figure, 163, 180, 216n82 Venus of Urbino (Titian), 163 verbivocovisual construction, 93 Ver o Peso public market (Belém), 138 Vilaça, Marcantonio, 207n3 violence: artistic representation of, 12, 39 – 41, 64, 78, 107, 123, 129, 136 – 47, 167, 173, 189, 211n65; domestic violence, 29, 138, 210n40; and pornography, 165; and race, 27, 45, 170, 172, 196n22, 211n70; rape, 6,

132, 138, 142, 162, 165; resistance to, 161 – 62, 167, 196n22; state organized, 4, 12, 138, 146, 188 – 89, 191, 214n52, 217n7 “Virgen negra” (Black Virgin), 41 voguing, 163, 213n23 voyeurism, 70, 126, 140 Vulgo (Alias; Rennó), 124, 126 – 28, 127 Wanted (Pape), 206n53 Wanted: $2,000 Reward (Duchamp), 95 – 98, 97 Warhol, Andy, 98 – 99 Weimar Republic (1918 – 33), 61 Weinstein, Harvey, 196n22 Weissmann, Franz, 201n84 Wetu, Shambuyi, 133 – 34, 135 White Face and Blonde Hair (Felinto), 133 – 35, 134 – 35 “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (Nochlin), 3 Wilke, Hannah, 32, 185, 216n82



Winehouse, Amy, 164 Winter Music (Cage), 109 Womanhouse (Chicago and Schapiro), 175 – 76, 215n65 wombs, 164 women’s movement, 10 – 11, 15, 28 – 30. See also feminism Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, pt), 5, 197n20 World Cup (Rio de Janeiro; 2014), 143, 214n52 X (Maiolino), 203n9 X, II (Maiolino), 203n7 Y (Maiolino), 61 – 64, 63 “You Know I’m No Good” (Winehouse), 164 Zehr, Sigmund, 204n12 zoophilia and bestiality, 6, 33

Index

253

This page intentionally left blank