This is a critical review of the work of the Brazilian artist Marcello Nitsche (b. 1942), Alegres Saudações, exhibited in 1981 at the Galeria de Arte São Paulo. The review was originally published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
In the late 1960s, Nitsche (a painter, sculptor and draftsman) executed paintings and objects based on comic strip images, creating work that was very close to Pop art. He rendered experimental works such as Bolha [The Bubble]—conceived as an inflatable structure—, films and environmental actions. Starting in the 1980s, he worked with three-dimensional brushstrokes and scribbling made with clippings and objects. Today, Nitsche is a distinguished art professor and educator.
As a journalist and art critic, the French Brazilian Sheila Leirner (b. 1948) was a member of the Conselho de Arte e Cultura da Bienal in 1982−83, and came to be the chief curator of two biennials in that period: the 18th (1985) and the 19th (1987). After studying the sociology of art in France, Leirner became an art critic for the daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo in 1975. She published a collection of her essays under the title Arte e seu tempo (São Paulo: Editôra Perspectiva, 1991), a book in which she began to set a priority on what she called “new art.” That was also the year Leirner returned to Paris, where she worked and specialized as an arts administrator. She represented the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Latin America (1993−99), and became a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) (French division). Leirner has contributed to countless journals and supplements in both countries, including Beaux-Arts Magazine, Europe Magazine Littéraire, Revista da USP, and Cadernos de Literatura Brasileira. She was also on the scholarship committee for UNESCO-Aschberg.
There is a text in which Leirner analyzes the artwork produced in the 1970s and 1980s in Brazil, in the midst of pluralism in international art, entitled “Brasil: uma nova arte” [1110940].
