The book Arte contemporânea brasileira: texturas, dicções, ficções, estratégias, edited by Ricardo Basbaum in 2001, republishes some texts that had a significant impact on the thinking about contemporary art in Brazil. The participating art critics included Basbaum himself, Guy Brett, Ronaldo Brito, Tadeu Chiarelli, Fernando Cocchiarale, Martin Grossmann, Frederico Morais, Rodrigo Naves, Sonia Salzstein, Alberto Tassinari, and Paulo Venâncio Filho. They address various issues that have arisen in the Postmodern period: the circulation of Brazilian artists internationally and in the mainstream, the national art scene and the links between modern and contemporary art. These critics also tackle various issues that arise in art today, such as image, body, new media, dissemination, acceptance, and market.
Ricardo Basbaum (b. 1961) is an artist working in Rio de Janeiro, a professor at the Instituto de Artes de la Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a critic, and a curator. In the next decade—the 1990s—he was a member of the group Visorama, and also editor of the journal Ítem. He was responsible for coordination of AGORA, as well as later on, the Espaço Agora-Capacete. In addition, he was one of the curators for the exhibition Panorama de Arte Brasileira (2001), and some years later, his art would be included in the 2007 documenta, in Kassel.
There are two texts that supplement this document. In the first, Basbaum wrote an overview of the work he himself created in “(?)? Pergunta dentro de pergunta” [doc. no. 1110995]; and the second, written with Eduardo Coimbra, entitled “Tornando visível a arte contemporânea” [doc. no. 1110976].