In this text, Sérgio Romagnolo expresses the need for a “unique vision” in order to understand Brazilian art. He believes that Brazilian artists should not be seen from a European perspective and maintains that it is still possible to develop an independent posture. A strain of hybridism is evident in Brazilian art, specifically in relation to the lack of definition of works and the contradictory phases of artists’ trajectories. Those characteristics, in Romagnolo’s view, bring free creation and rejection of externally imposed dogmas. Romagnolo exemplifies this hybridism with works by the following artists: Ana Tavares, whose art entails the tension between the rational and the psychological; Leda Catunda, whose version of pattern painting vacillates between the bucolic and the everyday; Mônica Nador, who commits the heresy of combining adornments with monochromatic painting; and the craftsmanship of industry that Romagnolo himself puts into practice. In Romagnolo’s opinion, those works pursue “the unprecedented,” freedom, and verticality; they could never be called emphatic or categorical, or be seen as upholding “absolute truth.” Instead, they engage in constant self-criticism, questioning everything, and forming part of the Brazilian hybrid tradition. Romagnolo believes that embracing hybridism and the hybrid vision is essential to forging cultural awareness among Brazilian artists.

Artists Sérgio Romagnolo, Leda Catunda, and Ana Tavares—along with Ciro Cozzolino and Sérgio Niculitcheff—participated in the exhibition Pintura como Meio,held at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP) in 1983. According to Aracy Amaral, the show represented the first indication of a “return to painting” in Brazil in keeping with international tendencies like the transavantgarde in Italy and Neoexpressionism in the United States. Regardless of those commonalities, the group is eclectic because it was formed by artists, such as Nelson Leirner and Regina Silveira, both professors at the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP) in São Paulo. The exhibition, Arte Híbrida, held in 1989,brought together the same artistic trio, but this time with Monica Nador as well, an artist who also considered “the hybrid”—something impure or in a state of mutation—a feature that runs through Brazilian art.

On the Brazilian art market in the eighties, see Jorge Guinle Filho, “Papai era surfista profissional, mamãe fazia mapa astral legal: ‘Geração 80’ ou como matei uma aula de arte num shopping center” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1110971); Frederico Morais, “Gute Nacht Herr Baselitz ou Helio Oiticica onde está você?” (doc. no. 1110957); and Roberto Pontual, Explode Geração (doc. no. 1110991) (Rio de Janeiro: Avenir, 1984).