Mário Schenberg believes that the exhibition Propostas 65 marks a high point in the debate about Brazilian art and reflects the shift (in taste) from Abstraction to Realism, and thus emphasizes the impact of advertising images which, in his opinion, are comparable to those that have no commercial value. According to him, contemporary Realism is a dialectical synthesis of the major movements and trends of the twentieth century that represents a new humanism. Schenberg understands that Abstraction (in its concrete incarnation above all) performed an important function by purging Brazilian art of anachronistic forms of Naturalism and Realism. It was, however, unable to contribute to the creation of a national style, a task that appears to be reserved for the new forms of Realism. According to the author, this involves an understanding of the challenges that Brazil is facing; the need to create something capable of contributing to a new worldwide civilization. In other words, “the other” that would be spawned by the crisis of the old structures and the inability to sort them out via the experience of the developed nations. Shenberg is convinced that Realist art, combined with various aspects of national life, could play an important role in raising awareness of the problems that concern the country at a cultural level.      

This is an article by the top physics theoretician in Brazil, the politician and art critic Mário Schenberg (1914–90), who usually published scientific articles on thermodynamics, quantum and statistical physics, astrophysics, and mathematics. He was president of the Brazilian Physics Society (1979–81) and Director of the Physics Department at USP (1953–61). He served two terms as a congressman for the state of São Paulo. His association with the PCB (Brazilian Communist Party) had a devastating effect on his life after the military coup in 1964, when he was stripped of all his political, academic, and personal rights.

Schenberg wrote about Waldemar Cordeiro—[see doc. no. 1087320]—who had also grasped the concept of a “proposal” that was introduced in Propostas 65 [doc. no. 1090623], a radical idea involving a group rather than an individual expression, and one that takes place under particular circumstances and includes an interactive dialogue. This was the first year after the military takeover (which would last for 21 years) and the “collective” concept of the event, which both Schenberg and Cordeiro, as leftists, supported was a necessary rather than a timely stimulus.   

Propostas 65—the exhibition that shed light on one of the characteristics of the Brazilian avant-garde during that important decade—took place in December 1965 at the FAAP (Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado) in São Paulo, and included the works of 48 artists. As in the case of the exhibition Opinião 65, it was one of the first group presentations of the “new Figuration” in Brazil. At both of these events, “Realism” and “awareness of national reality” began to emerge as the subjects of an ongoing discussion, and there was a proliferation of debates among artists and critics.