Oswald de Andrade was invited by the American Contemporary Arts to give this lecture in São Paulo in 1944, in which he discusses the two characters he created for a series of novels (that was never completed) entitled Marco Zero. He used these characters to represent the rampant ideological polarization in Brazil in the mid-1930s that pitted the “aestheticists” against those who believed that art should have a social function. Marco Zero II: Chão [Marco cero II: Tierra], the book De Andrade published two years later, in 1946, was set in the city of São Paulo and closely followed the decline of the coffee plantation economy (that affected his own family), which in turn led to the urban and industrial development in São Paulo. The two main characters of the book are the architect Jack de São Cristóvão, a fan of the modernist movement, and the painter Carlos de Jaert, who thinks “contemporary art should have some social or political meaning.” Ensconced in a room at the estate of a count, these two men talk about art and its motives and objectives. Their conversation ranges from Hegel’s idea of aesthetics to the Brazilian concept of cultural anthropophagy, with one of them arguing in favor of the “modernist adventure” and the other speaking out in favor of painting with a social message. According to the author and lecturer, the antagonism he portrayed in his book represented the “first serious questioning to disrupt the unity of the modernist offensive,” which began in February 1922 at the Semana de Arte Moderna.  

In his lecture, which was organized by the American Contemporary Arts in São Paulo in 1944, the Brazilian poet and intellectual Oswald de Andrade (1890–1954) explains that the two main characters Jack de São Cristóvão and Carlos de Jaert?were based on the debates that took place in São Paulo a decade earlier, beginning in 1933. Other contributing factors were the founding of two organizations, the CAM (Clube dos Artistas Modernos) and the SPAM (Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna), also in São Paulo. The author mentions the controversy that erupted following the lecture given by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros at the CAM in 1934. According to Andrade, there was radical disagreement among Brazilian modernists regarding the purpose and goal of art, whether works were of the “aestheticist” persuasion (aligned with abstraction and Surrealism) or with a social or political message.      

Oswald de Andrade saw this rupture as “an aesthetic revolution that preceded the social revolution,” which, in the context of the Second World War, signified a Soviet victory over the Nazi war machine. This therefore, in one fell swoop, made bedfellows of the French avant-garde, Mexican muralists, and painters in the USSR, encouraged by “the fundamentals of future constructive art.” In de Andrade’s opinion, Brazil’s contributions to that phenomenon (which he called “a new Renaissance”) are visible in Tarsila do Amaral’s works from her Pau-Brasil period and, from the other perspective, in “the majestic nature of the fresco concept conveyed in Lasar Segall’s paintings.” Making an impassioned plea for continent-wide integration (delivered against the backdrop of the American Contemporary Arts, the host institution), Oswald calls on Latin American writers and artists to stand together in the fight for freedom as true representatives of democracy in the battle against fascism.   

[Regarding the CAM, see the article by Flávio Carvalho in the ICAA digital archive: “Recordação do Clube dos Artistas Modernos” (doc. no. 781340).

With regard to the project promoted by the Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna de São Paulo (SPAM, 1934), see the articles of incorporation written by Mário de Andrade (doc. no 783393); the articles by Lasar Segall, “O que é a SPAM, que se inaugurou quinta-feira à noite” (doc. no. 783486), and “SPAM (Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna)—Manifesto” (doc. no. 783455); and by Paulo Mendes “Rapida noticia sobre a SPAM” (doc. no. 781313).

On the subject of the Pau-Brasil movement, see the following article by Tarsila do Amaral: “Pintura Pau-Brasil e antropofagia” (doc. no. 784978)].