In 1930, Getúlio Vargas took over the government of the country in the so-called “Lieutenant’s Revolution.” In an effort to concentrate his national power he appointed administrators in each of the Brazilian states. Two years later there was mounting discontent in the state of São Paulo, with demands for a new constitution and presidential elections. This “Revolução Constitucionalista” [Constitutional Revolution] (1932) included university students, storekeepers, and liberal professionals that gradually tilted the country toward civil war. SPAM was founded shortly after the political unrest prompted by military and civilian uprisings. It was actually moving in a direction parallel to contemporary events—albeit at a cultural level— by being organized as a collective movement designed to create a social network to promote exhibitions and carnival dances, as well as to get involvement with certain kinds of workshops. The historiography of Brazilian art identifies SPAM as an early incarnation of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, particularly in terms of its activities in local art circles.
The SPAM 1ª Exposição de Arte Moderna was held at the Palacete Campinas, in the city of São Paulo, and was unquestionably the most ambitious exhibition of modern art that had ever been organized up to that point in time. It included a hundred works by foreign artists such as: André Lhote, Constantin Brancusi, Giorgio de Chirico, Le Corbusier, Robert Delaunay, John Graz, Vittorio Gobbis, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, and Pablo Picasso. Brazilian exhibitors included Anita Malfatti, Victor Brecheret, Antonio Gomide, Lasar Segall, Tarsila do Amaral, the modernist architect Gregori Warchavchik, and Wasth Rodrigues.
In the introductory essay to the catalogue, the poet and art critic Mário de Andrade (1893–1945) noted the absence of any “social art” among the work of the eclectic group. In his essay, he defines art as a philosophical, sentimental, and technical form of expression between the artist, the work of art, and the viewer. In his opinion, a “prime work” would achieve a harmonious balance of those three elements.
