In this text, Ana Letícia Fialho analyzes the place of Brazilian art on the international art scene starting in the nineties. She argues that the “politically correct” discourse adopted by curators and other players on the international art scene has led to the disappearance of the limits between center and periphery that once gave shape to the axiological organization of international art. This change has facilitated the valorization of art from noncentral countries on the part of the most prestigious hegemonic institutions. Fialho claims that various events involving Brazilian art have not contributed much to the “democratization” of the world art scene or to the global dissemination of Brazilian culture. What this new valorization does illustrate is the perverse effect of a globalization that serves only to further the prestige and economic power of a few select institutions and individuals, relegating Brazilian culture to the reproduction of clichés and stereotypes.

This critical analysis is based on four exhibitions of Brazilian art held outside Brazil:

Brazil Body and Soul (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) and Hélio Oiticica Quasi-Cinemas (New Museum), both in New York; Un art populaire (Fondation Cartier) and Tunga/Mira Schendel (Galerie National du Jeu de Paume), both in Paris. Art historian Ana Letícia Fialho discusses how the international art circuit has approached Brazilian art, arguing that in a simplistic search for “novelty,” these exhibitions in the United States and France have ignored essential issues. Unfortunately, their approach only serves to feed the art market and to further the (vague) concerns of “the politically correct.” The phenomenon she describes entails two distinct processes; the first is the construction of a discourse of assimilation and homogenization in which the particularities of the artistic production of a region are rendered invisible for the sake of a timeless and universalizing reading of art; and the second is a process that revolves around the notion of difference [La différence]. 

Originally written in French, this paper was presented at the Primeiro Encontro de Cultura no Brasil organized by the Brazilian Embassy in France in February 2004. Later, in 2006, the text was the basis for Ana Letícia Fialho’s doctoral thesis in the Sciences de l’Art et du Language at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. The title of the final version of the work was “L’insertion international de l’art contemporain brésilien. Une analyse de la présence et de la visibilité de l'art brésilien dans les institutions et dans le marché.”

Fialho’s current research continues to provide a sociological perspective on how contemporary Brazilian art has been received internationally, focusing specifically on its presence and visibility at international institutions and in the art market during the last three decades.

[For an earlier discussion of art and globalization in relation to an exhibition with colonialist connotations, see ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 1111329)].