The author of this article, Rodrigo Naves, explains that Ronaldo Brito’s essay presents an overview of a movement that was representative of contemporary Brazilian art. Naves also suggests that Brito’s critique attempts to understand works that always sought to be more than a mere assimilation of European and North American movements. Naves believes that the artists that attract Brito’s attention explore their own questions in their own very unique ways; that is, their works are wary of contemporary dead ends and open to an eclectic range of expression. The sculptor Sérgio Camargo is one of the first artists that Brito discusses, based on his claim that Neo-concretism led him to question “the form” that modernism proposes. Camargo’s work underscored the tense, conflicting connection between “modern” life and its paradoxes. Naves’ review points to the defining reorientation in Brito’s critical arc that looked at artists from earlier generations and created a discourse that sought new paradigms for Brazilian art while acknowledging the precarious and backward nature of the country’s art milieu. Brito examines Camargo’s work with a view to analyzing its poetics and its alternative approach to current rhetoric about the link between art and life. The autonomy of contemporary art is in the balance.     

This is the introduction to the essay by Ronaldo Brito that was republished in Camargo (São Paulo: Edições Akagawa, 1990) [see ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 1111307)], the book about the Brazilian sculptor Sérgio Camargo (1930–90) who trained as an artist among the Constructive art and arte-invención groups in Buenos Aires in the late 1940s.  

The critic Rodrigo Naves (b. 1955) organized the Espaços da Arte Brasileira collection devoted to the publication of critical essays about Brazilian art. In this article Naves reviews the parameters of Brito’s art criticism. It should be noted here that Brito (who was from Ceará but lived in Rio de Janeiro) was a powerful influence on Naves during his training. The two men shared an interest in art that clearly captured the experience of their times, helping to understand it and thus change it.   

The art critic Ronaldo [Correia de] Brito (b. 1951) is one of the most important and influential in Brazil. His essays have been published in books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues. He also writes for the newspaper Opinião and was one of the founders of the magazines Malasartes and Gávea, revista de histo´ria da arte e arquitetura (1984). In the 1970s he was one of the main instigators of the initiative to re-examine the neo-concrete art movement and its legacy to contemporary Brazilian art.

[See the following essays by Ronaldo Brito in the ICAA digital archive: “Leitura crítica do real” (doc. no. 1110555); “Análise do circuito” (doc. no. 1111095); “O boom, o pós-boom e o dis-boom” (doc. no. 1110451); “Cildo Meireles” (doc. no. 1111069); “O desequilibrista” (doc. no. 1110616); “Eduardo Sued: uma obra para a inteligência do olhar” (doc. no. 1111077); “Em forma de mundo” (doc. no. 1111278); “Freqüência imodulada” (doc. no. 1110687); “Malasartes, um depoimento pessoal” (doc. no. 1111305); “Mamãe Belas-Artes” (doc. no. 1110449); “Neoconcretism” (doc. no. 1091308); “Order and the madness of order” (doc. no. 1110496); “Possibilidades de pintura: dois exemplos” (doc. no. 1110973); (untitled) [O trabalho de Amilcar de Castro reúne...] (doc. no. 1111306); “Trágico moderno” (doc. no. 1110423); “Transparência do Desejo” (doc. no. 1110561); and “Voltas de pintura” (doc. no. 1110980)].