iPaulina

Oswald de Andrade was key in reinforcing this message. He published the Cannibal Manifesto (Manifesto Antropófago) in 1928, six years after Modern Art Week took place. In it, he discussed the paradoxical task that the event had given Brazilian artists: to create a Brazilian culture of Modernist art, when Modernism was a European concept. His answer was “absorption of the sacred enemy. To transform him into a totem.” (Absorção do inimigo sacro. Para transformá-lo em totem.) In saying this, Oswald de Andrade meant that to achieve their aim, Brazilians would have to avoid the mere reproduction of European art, and instead take in the ideas which were already there but develop them and turn them into something original and new.

Over the next hundred years, Brazilian modern art flourished, with many artists emerging and contributing to the growing movement. Right now, however, it is suffering from what one museum director describes as a ‘cultural asphyxia’ coming from Jair Bosonaro’s government. His administration has cut a tax break previously available for private art sponsorship, and public funding has been removed from venues that require proof of vaccination for people to enter. Now, the current generation of artists will have to find a respond to this challenge. They can only hope that they will be as successful as their forerunners, who formed a movement still alive and strong a century after its foundation.

Emilia, LV