Third Text is currently organizing a special issue entitled Brazilian Art?. By posing itself as a question, this issue departs from the assumption that Brazilian art has been most often practiced and thought as a radical experience of displacement. Although the search for coherent identity may have often motivated Brazilian and immigrant practitioners alike (at least from the viewpoint of some interpreters), historical hindsight shows that the more suggestive episodes in this relatively recent history are shot through with the very impossibility of settling this question. Several manoeuvres – especially in avant-gardist circles – have also been staked on the outright denial of essentialist identities, or even of there being any possible Brazilian identity to be assumed at all. More recently, the problem of the late reception of Brazilian art (coupled with its growing market value) and the impact of this phenomenon on the Brazilian context has added further complexity to the issue. Is the timing of this reception conveniently dictated by historical/curatorial trends in need of legitimization? Or can this integration be a two-way street, one that forces the reconsideration of canonical narratives?
Authors are invited to submit articles that focus on specific case studies that somehow touch on the broader concerns, dialogues, discussions and aesthetic and/or political positions entailed in the convoluted history of the notion of Brazilian art. Examples of topics that can be explored include, but are not limited to, the relationship between art and other areas of practice (photography, literature, design, music, architecture etc); topics that call into question the limits usually ascribed to ‘modernism’; issues of international reception, especially when it involves the circulation of artists or artworks, and the way they relate to the Brazilian artistic and critical scene; the impact of views that were brought to Brazil by immigrants and/or foreign visitors; curatorial articulations of Brazilian art; the discrepant circulation of Brazilian art in different milieus (curatorial, art historical etc); the role of institutions (art-oriented or not) vis-ŕ-vis artistic practice; reception of international art in Brazil, especially when it provides alternative readings and when it can be productively articulated in relation to the work of local artists and critics. Authors are also reminded, when suggesting illustrations for their articles, that one of the aims of this special issue is to provide an international audience with a vivid visual documentation of the topics under discussion.
Articles can be submitted in English or Portuguese and should not exceed the length of 5,000 words. Submissions should be sent by December 20th 2010 to the email address thirdtext@btconnect.com (please do specify in the email that this is a submission for the special issue on Brazilian art). General instructions for authors and a style guide can be found in the address http://www.thirdtext.com/authors-guidelines/
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