Land of the Future
Great Country, Brazil. Fifth largest in the world, covering an area of over eight and a half million square kilometres (half of the entire South American territory) with a population of over 195 million, nearly a third of the Latin American total. A nation rich in natural and human resources: a melting pot of races and cultures where Portuguese descendants
live alongside the numerous Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, African and Indigenous communities.
New World (2014) by Nelson S. D. Muniz
Brazil is also great in the way it has captured our imaginations, thanks to the popular culture it has exported to every corner of the world, from the Samba Carnival to the soap opera. And thanks also to an equally strong high culture, ranging from the verses of the poet Vinícius de Moraes (Ah, girl from Ipanema ...) to the futuristic insights of the architect Oscar Niemeyer, the creator of Brasilia, the only modernist to have been granted the opportunity to build a capital city. This is a legendary world composed of musicians and singers, artists and architects, poets and writers, soccer players and street people.
South American Indian Brazilian Village (2014)
by Jade Marangolo
A universe that brings together the futuristic skyscrapers of the seafronts and the fabulous beaches of Copacabana,
the goals of Pelé, the photographs of Sebastião Salgado and the voice of Caetano Veloso. And which reaches the present day with an ambition that can often be found shoulder to shoulder with contradiction.
Monica Gonzalez - “Water nests” from the Acuífero Guarani fòsil series (2016)
by Monica Gonzalez
Following a decade of growth that re-launched the country – making it the first Latin American economy – the push for reform has faded a little, allowing the discomfort to surface of those, in particular the middle class, who bore the cost of lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty.
Ready for War (2015)
by Tito Ferrara
Nevertheless, Brazil is, once again, the ‘land of the future’, as the title of the book by Stefan Zweig proclaimed. Back in 1941, the Austrian had already defined the country as a world in which one has the perception of living forever in the future, contrasting it with a Europe of violence and without hope.
Visions from the Garden (2015) by Maria Amelia Braga Ferlin
Today, the future of Brazil is the hope of a renewed social revolution, less tied to consumerism. Closer, especially among young people, to the values of knowledge, culture and participation. A revolution that aims to overcome the country’s contradictions with the die-hard vitality of the Brazilian people. Utopia, perhaps, but one that in the aesthetics of the city of Brasilia, created from nothing, finds an example of how nature and reality can be transformed into ideas for the future.
Dhasanech (2014)
by Thiago de Souza Oliveira Consp
Contemporary art is doing its part, with artists of international success, with numerous galleries, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with three international biennials of contemporary art: in São Paulo – established in 1951 and second in longevity only to that of Venice – Porto Alegre (the Mercosul Biennial) and Curitiba.
Untitled (2015)
by Totonho
There are also two thriving contemporary art fairs, in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and an exhibition specializing in photography, once again in São Paolo, PhotoImage Brasil. Completing the scheme, the country can count on excellent museums, schools and centres of contemporary art, in particular in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte, and on a rapid increase in the number of art collectors.
Untitled (2014)
by Zilando Freitas
Influential Brazilian gallery owners highlight how interest in art grew as the sophistication of society and the economy increased. The culture of collecting gradually became institutionalized, with private institutions and museums competing for the best artwork.
Anima (2015)
by Karina Ribeiro de Andrade
Le crochet et la clé (2015)
by Antonio Rocco
In the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (a little over an hour’s drive from Belo Horizonte), for example, the mining magnate Bernardo Paz has created Inhotim, the largest outdoor contemporary art museum in Latin America: a vast park with palm trees, toucans and hummingbirds, dotted with hundreds of artworks and contemporary and visionary installations. A paradise where nature and art interact and merge.
Alone (2014)
by Marcela Rangel
Brazil, the great nation, absorbs and continuously forges cultures, and this capacity for accumulation, integration and transformation clearly emerges in the more than 200 works in the Imago Mundi Collection. The 10 x 12 cm format synthesizes and intensifies the capacity for empathy and expression of contemporary Brazilian artists.
I (2015)
by Dorien Barretto
Traces of the Forest in Rubber Paths (2014)
by Fernanda Sarmento
The multitudinous life of Brazil is clearly portrayed: the artists highlight colours and, at times, the absence
of colour; geometric shapes of inflexible regularity and the curved and sinuously feminine lines that so fascinated the architect Niemeyer (“I am not attracted by the rigidity of the right angle and the straight line, but by the sensuality of the curve,” he said).
Cosmos (2015) by Carlos Augusto de Oliveira
As highlighted by the curator of the collection Andrea de Carvalho: “Current Brazilian contemporary art is the coexistence of trends: from the classic painting, the use of techno- world system, to a rationally abstract art, minimal, to painting full of tropical patterns. Brazil has captured the attention on an international scale, also enlightening its own culture.” In the works of the Brazilian artists we encounter seduction, exuberance, redemption, vision. An energy and a flowering of expression that seem to me to hail, above all, from mother earth and the observation of life. And which yield – to the earth and to life – new meanings.
Luciano Benetton
Softening (2015)
by Marcelo Guarnieri
