Modern Where? Modern When? The Modern Art Week of 1922 as Motivation

photography

38 × 58 cm
Sonia and Cadu Balady Collection
Photo: Sonia Balady

The issue of national identity, a trendy subject throughout the 19th century, enters the 20th century and becomes explicit in the regionalism of Almeida Júnior; metonymically, it passes by the still lives of tropical fruit by Estevão Silva and the folk festivals, (...)

(...) represented by Rodolfo Chambelland in an ebullient Carnival scene. Attractive subjects for a painter of modern life—such as work and leisure—stand side by side with subjects characteristic of the artistic universe: models, studios, and self-portraits. 

Apocalyptic, critic, or humorous, the imagination makes itself present in the painting by the Manaus-born artist Manoel Santiago, in the illustrations by Alvim Corrêa, and in the photo collages by Valério Vieira.

These works by Goeldi at the exhibition Modern Where? Moderno When? are part of the collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011. Photo: Karina Bacci

woodcut on paper

17 × 15 cm
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011.

woodcut on paper

23.1 × 21.7 cm
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011.

woodcut on paper

37.8 × 30 cm
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011.

woodcut on paper

11.6 × 12.4 cm
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011.

woodcut on paper

25.5 × 29.5 cm
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Purchase by the Government of the State of São Paulo, 2011.

If this list of artists amounts to a concise sampling of the modern trends that came before the Modern Art Week, other figures emerge after the event and are equally meaningful to the diversification and the ripening of modern art in Brazil. The attempt to translate the (...)

(...) in the landscapes of Tarsila do Amaral’s “Pau-Brasil” phase, in the popular char- acters captured by Di Cavalcanti (post- Week) and Lasar Segall. In contrast to the solar paintings by the largest part of these artists, the images engraved by Oswald Goeldi refer to a nocturnal Brazil, haunted by bleakness and death. 

As the 1930s advances, the Brazilian types start to mirror especially in the farm and blue-collar workers. Art takes on an engaged tone in the paintings by Candido Portinari and by Raimundo Cela, as well as in Lívio Abramo’s engravings. On the other hand, (...)

(...) the surrealistic winds left marks in the anthropophagic painting of Tarsila do Amaral, in the essentialism of Ismael Nery, in the Chagallian figurative painting of Cícero Dias, and even in theological questionings of Flavio de Carvalho  (both in painting and theater).

It is worth highlighting that the artists present in this exhibition (participating or not in the Modern Art Week of 1922) were either immigrants who settled in Brazil or were born in Brazilian cities from differ- ent parts of the country.  

It is a fact that many have settled at least part of the time in Rio de Janeiro, whether intending to attend the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes [National School of Fine Arts] or to be closer to the artist and intellectual circles that longed for renewal, or even using the capital of the country as a steppingstone for Europe 

Rio de Janeiro was without a doubt a city that wanted to become modern and that brought together a large part of the artistic and intellectual elite. How- ever, in 1922, Rio de Janeiro prioritized the celebrations of the Brazilian Independence—in great fanfare, one might add—a fact which had occurred a hundred years before.  

Meanwhile, wealthy São Paulo (that is, the São Paulo elite connected to the coffee culture) strived to erect the image of a city focused on the future, in tune with the most recent European trends.

In this sense, the Modern Art Week of 1922 can be interpreted as part of a Paulista political project, whose discourse went in the opposite direction of the discourse engendered by the people in Rio de Janeiro at that precise moment.

Still, we must repeat that the Modern Art Week does not come out as an isolated fact—and that São Paulo was not the only city in the country with modern aspirations. 

The difficulties and injunctions that sprang from the Covid-19 pandemic have required a drastic adjustment of the preliminary project to the new reality. We have kept the premises mentioned above, but the number of artists and artworks has suffered a sharp reduction, to allow for a safe and ventilated circulation. 

We chose to present a set of iconic—as much as possible, considering the countless refusals— and representative pieces from each artist’s production, with no intention of exhausting the possibilities.

A selection of book and magazine covers, cartoons, popular and classical music was densified in a unique projection and is part of a chronology with images of the main political, social, and cultural events that took place between 1900 and 1937.