Text from a document written after a meeting at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, in which it was agreed to boycott the 10th São Paulo Biennial. The document points out that after May 1968 the artists took a position regarding the repression, persecutions, and censorship endured by the Brazilian population. When all of the artists initially selected for and invited to the biennial resigned, another commissary was named in order to make a new selection. The assembled artists decided all together to ask for his resignation and agreed not to participate.

Since its inception in 1951, the São Paulo Biennial has been the centralizing focus for the circulation and recognition of Latin American art. Due to the dictatorship affecting Brazil after the coup of 1964, several groups of artists decided to boycott the 10th São Paulo Biennial that was being planned for September 1969. In France, the leader of the boycott was Pierre Restany (1930–2003), a French critic and supporter of the New Realism, who collaborated in the journal Domus, published in Milan, and presided over the Palais de Tokyo (Paris). Restany was always interested in contemporary art and in achieving a closer rapport with Latin American Art.

This document bears no signatures, although on the back it shows the place meant for them, with a title that clarifies the fact that the artists of the so-called “School of Paris,” and intellectuals of all nationalities, affirm their solidarity with their Brazilian comrades and proclaim their rejection to the São Paulo Biennial.

This source was selected because it bears witness to the artists’ reaction to a regime of censorship, repression, and torture, imposed by the dictatorial policies in Latin America, particularly in connection with the meeting held with the purpose of accomplishing the boycott initiative.