Mari Rodríguez Binnie offers a groundbreaking exploration of the alternative art scene in Brazil’s largest metropolis during one of that country’s most politically turbulent periods in modern times. The book is a highly anticipated addition to the growing literature on Latin American art during the Cold War, and it makes a significant contribution by focusing on the young radical artists who defied traditional artistic boundaries and used new technologies to create a critical dialogue with Brazil’s military regime.
The book excels in at least three key areas. First, it presents a thorough examination of the artwork created by young radical artists living in São Paulo during the so-called leaden years of Brazil’s military dictatorship. Rejecting traditional practices of painting and sculpture, these artists turned to mass media technologies, such as photocopying, offset lithography, mail art, heliographic painting, and even stamps. The inclusion of artists such as Julio Plaza, Regina Silveira, Mario Ishikawa, León Ferari, Mario Ramiro, Gabriel Borba, and Carmela Gross, among others, gives readers insight into how these artists pushed boundaries not just aesthetically but politically as well. Binnie’s interpretation of Artur Matuck’s “poetics of redaction,” which satirized the military government’s propensity to hide and conceal, as well as Hudinilson Jr.’s erotic photocopies, which taunted the regime’s reactionary stance toward homosexuality, are especially sharp.
Second, Binnie offers an in-depth analysis of the political and cultural context in which these artists worked during the early 1970s and mid-1980s. She shines a light on the alternative artistic circles that emerged outside of São Paulo’s mainstream art and educational institutions. By focusing on pivotal figures such as Walter Zanini at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP); the philosopher Vilém Flusser at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP); Décio Pignatari at the Departamento de Informação e Documentação Artísticas (IDART); and ASTER, a little-known artists-run school, Binnie reveals the complex network of support these artists garnered in an environment that was often hostile to their work. Binnie also traces the growing tension between the renowned São Paulo Biennial and the city’s neo-avant-garde artists, who found the Biennial increasingly linked to the military regime’s censorship and propaganda efforts. Yet, as the book shows, these artists never entirely disavowed the Biennial and continued to see it as an important venue, despite its exclusion of their works.
Third, the book examines why this vibrant art scene that emerged from the belly of one of Latin America’s longest-running military dictatorships has remained marginal in the narratives of Brazilian art. The factors that contributed to this historical silencing are varied and complex. According to Binnie, they include curators, critics, art galleries, and cultural organizations that did not see much artistic value in the works created by these young radical artists; a deliberate elusiveness among the artists themselves, who often worked in a clandestine or anti-institutional manner; budgetary constraints; the ambiguity surrounding whether their work could be classified as “art” or “documents”; and, of course, state-sponsored repression and censorship. The latter, it should be noted, was somewhat rare despite being a constant threat.
Perhaps Binnie’s greatest accomplishment is her ability to unify these disparate radical artists under the concept of a “neo-avant-garde.” While these artists did not identify as part of a singular movement, their shared commitment to experimentalism, public engagement, and a critical stance toward the military dictatorship allows Binnie to propose a framework that highlights the broader cultural significance of their work. This group of artists, while diverse in style and approach, nevertheless engaged in a collective effort to challenge the ideological constraints of their time, and their use of mass print media technologies offered an accessible means of creating participatory and collaborative art.
One aspect of the book that deserves further consideration is Binnie’s use of the term “marginal” to describe these artists and the institutions that championed them. While the term aptly conveys the artists’ outsider status and the relative autonomy of some of São Paulo’s art institutions at the time, it also carries socio-political, economic, racial, spatial, and cultural connotations that may not fully apply to all of them. For example, the support these artists received from institutions such as IDART—which was created by the military regime in 1975 to document São Paulo’s cultural landscape—complicates the notion of their marginality. IDART’s efforts to preserve and catalog their works, despite the government’s otherwise repressive stance, speaks to the often tense and contradictory relationship between the artists and the state apparatus. This minor critique, however, does not detract from the strength of Binnie’s arguments or research.
In conclusion, The São Paulo Neo-Avant-Garde is a meticulous and thought-provoking work that sheds light on an under-explored aspect of Latin American art during the Cold War. Its exploration of the intersection between radical art, political resistance, and mass media technologies is especially timely in today’s context of technological upheaval and rising political conservatism in Brazil and beyond.
