This text discusses the mythical concerns pursued by artist Anna Barros and foresees her later interest in light and technology. Anna Barros’s exhibition Fogo-facto, whose title is a variation on the Portuguese term for ignis fatuus, was held in 1990 in the galleries of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP).
Anna Barros is not only an artist, but also a university professor with a post-doctoral degree from the Comunicação e Semiótica Department of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). Her studies revolve around perception artists in California whose works interrogate the subjectivity of human vision and its effect on artistic practice. Light has been a constant concern of her work, as well as a source of inspiration. Indeed, since 1990 light has been the material used in her installations and works of computerized animation.
Agnaldo Farias is a freelance curator and a professor at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (FAU-USP). His first works of art criticism were published in the eighties, and since then, he has become a crucial figure in that field. In the nineties, he was the curator of MAM-Rio; he was the curator of the Brazilian representation at the XXV São Paulo Biennial, and later, he was the general curator of the exhibition Bienal 50 anos held in 2001. His books include The Piano Factory (on the work of painter Daniel Senise), Arte Brasileira Hoje (2002), and the monograph entitled Amelia Toledo: as naturezas do artifício (2004). He has organized outstanding exhibitions of the work of Nelson Leirner, a member of the Grupo Rex.
