‘Here everything appears to be still in construction and is already a ruin’: rethinking ‘brasilidade’ in the work of Cerith Wyn Evans and Laercio Redondo
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines how the artists Cerith Wyn Evans (b.1958) and Laercio Redondo (b.1967) explore the myth of brasilidade (Brazilianness) as a doorway to critique the fiction of the ‘unfinished’ project of modernity in Brazil. Focusing on Evans’s firework sculpture Aqui tudo parece que é ainda construção e já é ruína, a partir de ‘Fora da Ordem’ de Caetano Veloso (Here everything seems to be under construction and left in ruins, from ‘Fora da Ordem’ by Caetano Veloso; 2004) and three installations by Redondo: Paisagem impressa (Printed landscape; 2013), Venda–jogo da memória falha (Sale–faulty memory game; 2013) and Lembrança de Brasília (Memory from Brasília; 2012), the present author argues that these works address the way in which the myth of Brazil as the country of the future – intrinsically modern, lusciously tropical, racially democratic and economically and culturally rising – is a poignant contemporary theme, as it has long been a symbol of utopianism, resisting deconstruction even in the tumultuous first decades of the twenty-first century.
Source: Burlington Contemporary Journal
Language: English
Topic: Art, Politics, and Modernism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4404876419