On the basis of the link between the global and the local, this text addresses the curatorial-artistic proposal laid out by Moacir dos Anjos (b. 1963) in “Vinte notas sobre identidade cultural no nordeste no Brasil” [Twenty Notes on Cultural Identity in Northeastern Brazil] presented at the Encontro Artelatina held in Rio de Janeiro in November 2000, and later published in the book of essays based on that event (Heloísa Hollanda and Beatriz Resende, orgs., Artelatina: cultura, globalização e identidades cosmopolitas (Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano, 2000)).
An economist by training, Moacir dos Anjos, who was born in Pernambuco, has written extensively on Brazilian art. While his concentration is on northeastern Brazil, his work places emphasis on the vast diversity of the artistic production of a country that is quite large, although tends to concentrate on art from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Starting in 1989, Moacir dos Anjos was a researcher at the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco. From 2001 to 2006, he was the director of the Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães (MAMAM) in Recife and a member of the curatorial team that established the Programa Itaú Cultural Artes Visuais (2001–3), with the support of a major Brazilian bank. In 2007, he served as the cocurator of the Bienal do Mercosul and the curator of the Panorama das Artes Visuais organized by the Museu de Arte Moderna of São Paulo. Owing to an international fellowship, he was a visiting fellow at the University of the Arts London Research Centre for Transnational Art in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, he and Agnaldo Farias were the two chief curators of the Twenty-Ninth São Paulo Biennial. From these important and very public positions in the Brazilian and international art scenes, he has contributed to the efficacious and far-reaching communication of art from the region where the cultural roots of Brazil lie. The works he has selected as a curator have also circulated widely on the cultural scene in his home state of Pernambuco.