The young painter Jorge Guinle thinks the exhibition Como vai você, Geração 80? [How Are You Doing, 80s Generation?] provides extensive insight into the overall, and not just artistic, mood of the 1980s when the event took place at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro, 1984). Although opinions may vary with regard to the possibility of judging a period based on paintings produced early in the respective artists’ careers, Guinle compares this situation to other moments in the history of art to justify the idea that this exhibition sought to detect the presence of new values. He also sees a connection between what these painters have produced and the slim legacy of earlier generations whose poetics tended toward art of a “playful” nature. In this sense, “ephemeral” art also embraces material, formal, and visual values that are definitely visible in paintings of the 1980s, and are unquestionably associated with the consumer society, whether in the materials used or in the subjects illustrated. Guinle notes similarities between “Geração 80” painting and Pop art, claiming that Brazilian artists are working on “an encoded, albeit highly personal, experimentalism.” He also mentions the influences of the Italian transavantgarde and North American bad painting.

The painter and art critic Jorge [Eduardo] Guinle Filho (1947–87) was one of the main members of the “Geração 80”—a generation of Brazilian artists whose core movement was “the return to painting,” inspired by both the Italian transavantgarde and German Neoexpressionism. He made a name for himself with his painting and his intellectual contribution as an art critic.

Guinle’s seminal article is essential reading for understanding the Brazilian approach to the “return to painting” movement that flourished—no doubt for commercial reasons—in the 1980s. The exhibition he discusses, Como vai você, Geração 80?, which was jointly curated by Marcus de Lontra Costa, Paulo Roberto Leal, and Sandra Mager, and took place at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro, 1984), brought together a total of 123 artists. In time, this exhibition came to be viewed as a landmark event for the Geração 80, providing a broad overview of what that late-blooming retour à l’ordre represented.

[As complementary reading on this subject, see the following articles in the ICAA digital archive: by Wilson Coutinho “Festa e democracia no Parque Lage” (doc. no. 1110956); by Frederico Morais “Gute Nacht Herr Baselitz, ou Hélio Oiticica, onde está você?” (doc. no. 1110957); by Roberto Pontual “Explode Geração!” (doc. no. 1110991); by Marcus de Lontra Costa “A festa acabou? A festa continua?” (doc. no. 1110934); by Milton Machado “Dance a noite inteira, mas dance direito” (doc. no. 1110945); and by Ricardo Basbaum “Pintura dos anos 80: algumas observações críticas” (doc. no. 1110972).

See also the following articles by Guinle: “O conceito de imagem na nova pintura do século XX” (doc. no. 1110968); “Expressionismo vs. Neo-expressionismo” (doc. no. 1110955); “A pintura contra a parede” (doc. no. 1110935); and “Papai era surfista profissional, mamãe fazia mapa astral legal: ‘Geração 80’ ou como matei uma aula de arte num shopping center” (doc. no. 1110971). See also his articles about other artists of his generation: “Leonilson: a implosão da imagem” (doc. no. 1110504) and “Victor Arruda: sem modos, ou quando o pior é melhor” (doc. no. 1110979)].