International Interdisciplinary Journal of Visual Arts - Art&Sensorium
The International Interdisciplinary Journal of Visual Arts Art&Sensorium (eISSN- 2358-0437 - Qualis A3) is a Continuous Publication of the Universidade Estadual do Paraná (UNESPAR). Its aim is the publication of original academic articles and essays in Portuguese, Spanish or English language, on issues related to visual arts such as History and Theory of Art, Visual Poetics (processes of Creation) and interdisciplinary bridges with other areas of knowledge, keeping the focus on art. Authors from Brazil and abroad are welcome to participate. Book reviews in these same lines of research are also accepted.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
The Politics of Consciousness and Immersive Media: An Integrative Review
Awe-inspiring experiences and aesthetic rituals can induce profound epistemic transformations while also intersecting with structures of power. This review examines diverse case studies – from Amazonian shamanic rituals to ancient Egyptian temple arts, Surrealist dream experiments, transpersonal psychology, and science-fiction cyberculture – to understand how designed experiences of awe and immersion can transform or define knowledge and agency. Across these domains, we see a common thread: “politics of consciousness” – the way altered states and symbolic systems affect individual and collective worldviews – entwines with both spiritual mythos, realpolitik (the exercise of power), and sociotechnical imaginaries. We highlight examples of how sacred art-ritual ecologies and modern media techniques serve as architectures of transformation, allude to the distinctions of individual, community and corporate liminoid experiences, and then explore how technologically-mediated awe can both elevate and undermine human freedom. The goal is to elucidate how rituals of awe – including emerging immersive media – function as both tools of epistemic change and sites of political contestation over the human spirit.
Copyright (c) 2025 International Interdisciplinary Journal of Visual Arts - Art&Sensorium http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
A DECOLONIALIDADE NA AMAZÔNIA BRASILEIRA
This article analyzes the graphic narrative Ajuricaba, by Ademar Vieira and Jucylande Júnior, in dialogue with the autoethnography The Fall of Heaven by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert, in which it proposes a web of relationships that emphasizes the complexity and interdependence of the elements that dialogue in both works. Criticism of development and globalization, as well as the coloniality of power, are central themes that converge in the struggle that exists in Ajuricaba's graphic narrative. As such, Escobar (2005) and Quijano (2005) were used as theoretical contributions to this article.
Mystical experience and hallucination in the work of Joseph Beuys
This essay aims to present mystical and dissident aspects of the subjectivity of the artist Joseph Beuys, as well as the influence of these aspects on his work. Alongside the description of actions such as the Siberian Symphony and The Chief, the article will examine the relationship between Beuys's expressions and Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, Jakob Böhme's theology, and Emanuel Swedenborg's mystical experiences. Beuys's first actions emerged linked to the anti-art and counterculture demonstrations of the Fluxus group, but from the beginning, they were strongly different from these, both due to the artist's own conceptions of anti-art and counterculture, and due to his inspiration in key personal experiences and mystical theories. After describing Beuys's actions, the artist's relationship with the theory of the threefold division of the social organism and Steiner's collateral meditative exercises will be analyzed. Next, we observe the correspondence between Beuys' ecological thought and the concept of nature in German Romanticism and in Böhme's theology. A comparative analysis between the mystical experiences of Beuys and Swedenborg concludes this study. This will enable us to understand Beuys' confrontations with scientific rationalism and cultural materialism, as well as the possible psychoanalytic hypotheses of his mysticism. The image of the artist's personality, articulated with his mystical conceptions, his psychic hallucinations and his artistic expression, shows, in this case, a mode of relationship between dissident subjectivity and counterculture in the field of art history in the second half of the 20th century.
The main purpose of this work is to carry out an aesthetic analysis and philosophical description of the manifestations of light and darkness on the horizons of visionary art in line with the ideas of Aldous Huxley and Laurence Caruana. Based on iconographic studies of the works of Coppo di Marcovaldo, François le Barbier, Pieter Bruegel, Marcello Provenzale, Gustave Doré and Ada Mangilli, we intend not only to identify the representations of luminosity and obscurity, but also to demonstrate the correspondences between the latter and the images of life and death, hell and heaven, particularly in medieval and modern artistic creations. Thus, through an analytical-descriptive methodology that combines phenomenological experience, bibliographical research, hyperfocused reading, a hermeneutic approach, intercultural dialogues, critical thinking and creative writing on the selected themes, we aim to obtain, as a result of this enquiry, a deeper understanding of the union of polarities that is present in the timelessness of the creative process of visionary artists. In general terms, by interpreting the iconographies of illumination and darkening as representative of states of spirit, under the auspices of a philosophy of mind that recognises creative activity as a form of expanded cognition, where the real and the imaginary intertwine on the journey through multiple ontological spheres, we aim to explain how the antipodes of consciousness are integrated into the expressions of visionarism.
This article analyzes how the work of Joseph Beuys transforms contemporary art into a symbolic territory of dispute, activating gestures and materials that reframe space and reorganize the collective imaginary. The investigation departs from the central question: in what ways does his production reconfigure the artistic territory as a symbolic space of consecration and confrontation? To address this, the research adopts an interdisciplinary approach that articulates art, anthropology, and psychology, drawing on the ideas of Mircea Eliade, Carl Gustav Jung, and Clifford Geertz. It explores how Beuys’s concept of social sculpture functions as a founding and restructuring gesture, especially through the use of materials such as felt, fat, and honey, understood here as symbolic catalysts that activate archetypal experiences. The analyses suggest that these elements produce significant shifts in the cultural field, revealing the symbolic dimension of artistic creation as a means of reorganizing the sensible. Rather than simply representing the world, Beuys’s practice appears to establish zones of transformation, challenging the boundaries between myth, politics, and everyday life. By proposing an art that acts directly upon reality, his work points toward new forms of engagement with the collective and with the symbolic systems that shape us. In this sense, the study offers an interpretation that recognizes art as an active territory for cultural reinvention and symbolic reconfiguration.
A experience of dreaming in the Visual Arts
This study on visual poetics seeks to share dream experiences and their possibilities for experimentation in the field of Visual Arts, integrating both physiological and psychoanalytic concepts, as well as the creative process itself. From a personal and contemporary perspective, it aims to describe an experience with dreams through the creation of works of art, using different media, such as painting and virtual reality. It discusses how Visual Arts can help translate the dimensions of dreaming. Based on the research methodology in Visual Arts, the idea is to transport the spectator into the dream world, providing a certain transposition of an immersive dream experience to a poetics that makes use of immersive technologies. Thus, it seeks to highlight a more tangible view of dreams, as something that is part of lived reality, in another sphere of human experience. The concepts discussed dialogue with Michael Rush’s (2006) reflections on the impact of new technologies on contemporary art, while Oliver Grau (2007) brings the historical perspective of how artistic immersion, from panoramas to virtual reality, has involved the viewer in innovative ways. In turn, Georges Didi-Huberman (1998) questions how the gaze not only interprets the work, but is also challenged by it, highlighting the tensions between the complexity of dreams and the limitations of visual representation. In this context, I discuss how the language of virtual reality painting enters into dialogue with traditional painting, allowing the creation of hybrid works that touch on the subjectivity of dreaming and the dream “self”, while proposing new forms of interaction and participation of the audience with the experience of dreams. Using Sidarta Ribeiro as a reference, I direct the concepts discussed towards a more contemporary look at dreaming and its possibilities for experimentation with immersive technologies.
The Use of Altered States as a Strategy of Constraint in Artistic Production:
This article proposes a critical analysis of the deliberate use of altered states of consciousness as a strategy of constraint in artistic practice, aiming to foster access to intense and transformative aesthetic experiences associated with the concept of the sublime. Drawing on a theoretical review that reconsiders constraint not merely as a limiting factor but as a constitutive element of aesthetic experience, the investigation articulates a multidisciplinary approach involving philosophy of art, consciousness studies, and contemporary artistic practices. Four paradigmatic examples are discussed: the use of psychotropic substances, meditation, hypnosis, and an authorial process of pictorial experimentation centered on the intentional disruption of logic and instinctive response. It is argued that such constraints, by destabilizing the creative subject, function as catalytic devices for sublime experiences, re-signifying the role of art as a mediator of liminal states and expanded perception.
Todos buscam vivenciar uma Vida mais amorosa e verdadeira, como se fosse algo que, por meio da poesia, nos permitisse abrir as portas de um templo sagrado, em que uma celebração mística está prestes a começar. Pode ser que se trate de um mistério a ser vivenciado, a unio mystica ou a iluminação por meio de “vivências, escutas e encontros poéticos”. Pode uma obra poética alternativa instigar a busca da iluminação? Trazer elementos que ajudem a lançar um outro olhar para a Vida? As desafiantes reflexões analítico poético-filosófico nos levam a sugerir que podemos vivenciar uma Vida mais amorosa e verdadeira. A arte poética alternativa pode nos ajudar a adentrar às portas de um templo sagrado, em que uma celebração mística poética pode acontecer e que, sem perceber, podemos vivenciar o mistério da união mística poética por meio da escuta, do encontro e das vivências que podem nos encantar e nos ajudar a nos encontrar com Deus.
This article presents part of a theoretical and practical investigation into the oracular in artistic processes, carried out since 2016. The research is driven by the following questions: what are oracles? What are the possible connections between oracles and visual arts? What are the relationships between oracles and cartography? How to invent oracles? The article provides a very brief mythological and historical contextualization, provocations, hypotheses, and discusses the intertwining between my oracular and artistic practices through Corporacular work. Talking about oracles is assuming belief systems and ways of reading worlds, visible and invisible, in different cultures, over time. Traditionally they involve randomization systems, rituals, elaboration of questions, operations with signs, and creation of narratives that seek to contemplate the questions, uncertainties, pains and anxieties of those who consult them. In common sense, the word oracle means the prediction, the person who makes the prediction, the ritual or place where it is carried out, however it is important to emphasize that the focus of the research is not the oracle as a prediction of the future, but rather as a system of language and methodology that allows approaches to the arts. This study proposes oracular as a verb, therefore as an action and state of the body. When analyzing the possibilities of the oracular verb, others are found such as investigating, traveling, imagining, mapping and fictionalizing. Corporacular is also proposed as a verb in a rite in which Tarot cards, objects brought by the participating person and their body are read and written as an oracle. Corporacular is a verb, name of the rite, cartographic process, invented methodology and machinery activated by the participation of the other. It is an aesthetic experience that involves reading, writing, narration, and the production of thoughts about poetic health. Keywords: Art and narrative; Invented methodology; Oracle.
DEL INCONSCIENTE PSICOANALÍTICO AL INCONSCIENTE PSICODÉLICO
This article proposes a comparative investigation of the unconscious as a central and notoriously enigmatic concept in the psychoanalytic tradition, linking it to emerging conceptions arising from contemporary research on non-ordinary states of consciousness. Based on the theoretical formulations of Sigmund Freud, the work explores the constitution of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis, highlighting its contrast with approaches to the so-called psychedelic unconscious, as evidenced by experiences induced by psychedelic substances. Our theoretical task is not to privilege one theory over the other, but to reread these two perspectives, seeking not only to highlight their divergences and conceptual tensions, but also to reflect on the limits and possibilities of conceptual elucidation of the field of the unconscious.
UNVEILING THE ONEIRIC AND ITS FOUNDATIONS
This proposal undertakes the challenging task of understanding the manifestation of the oneiric in art. It is based on the hypothesis that the oneiric is structured through the articulation of three fundamental layers: the real (linked to verisimilitude), the uncanny (associated with strangeness), and the marvelous (characterized by a rupture with empirical logic). The study draws on the theoretical contributions of Freud, Jung, Deleuze, Lahire, Todorov, and other authors to reflect on how studies of the unconscious are intertwined with its oneiric manifestation in art. The article also analyzes the film MEN (2022), directed by Alex Garland, through the concept of the oneiric as an aesthetic and narrative category in cinema. Through the journey of the protagonist Harper, it demonstrates how the film mobilizes these elements to construct a symbolic narrative about grief, trauma, and patriarchal oppression. The analysis suggests that the oneiric is not limited to a stylistic device, but constitutes a regime of signification that enables the re-signification of experience and a symbolic critique of social structures.
Neste estudo, inserido no âmbito da nossa pesquisa de doutorado, buscamos respostas para um fenômeno surgido durante nossa prática artística. Ao explorarmos os sonhos noturnos como temática para a criação pictórica em aquarela, notamos que algumas obras, após finalizadas, ressurgem em nossos sonhos. Desse modo, retomam o seu lugar em nosso inconsciente na medida em que se tornam temas de novos sonhos, os quais por sua vez são tomados como referências para outras pinturas, gerando assim aquilo que, por ser de caráter potencialmente cíclico e de prolongamento indefinido, chamamos de reverberações oníricas. É sobre tais relações dialéticas entre sonho e produção artística que aqui nos debruçamos com o intuito de uma maior compreensão a seu respeito.
The experience with ayahuasca and non-ordinary states of consciousness involves symbolic visions, access to the unconscious, and an altered perception of reality. Its metaphysical nature challenges conventional categories of language and representation, often being described as ineffable. Although art, in any context, possesses a degree of ineffability, visionary art that seeks to express these experiences faces even greater challenges, as it attempts to translate dynamic and subjective content that escapes traditional symbolic structures. Participants in ayahuasca rituals report visions of sacred geometries, cosmic unity, unconditional love, and encounters with divine entities or shadow aspects of the psyche. None of these perceptions can be faithfully represented due to cognitive, conceptual, and technical limitations. Renowned artists such as Pablo Amaringo and Alex Grey have attempted to capture the pictorial aspects of these experiences, developing a visual language that dialogues with the mysteries of the unconscious and the divine. The psychiatrist Nise da Silveira, in parallel, demonstrated how art can serve as a therapeutic tool for accessing deep contents of the psyche, something that resonates with Jungian thought and the work of researchers like Stanislav Grof and Terence McKenna. The relationship between visionary art, the unconscious, and counterculture suggests that these representations function as bridges between human subjectivity and expanded states of consciousness. Emerging technologies, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, are explored as possible means to deepen the understanding of these experiences and make them more accessible to the general public, though they also face limitations in capturing their complexity and splendor. Despite the continuous efforts of major contemporary artists and scientists, the ayahuasca experience continues to challenge the limits of language and human cognition, consolidating itself as an Amerindian ancestral biotechnology of great medical, spiritual, aesthetic, and philosophical relevance.
This article is an account of the doctoral research I defended in 2018. In it, I seek to understand the relationship between comic books and Visionary Art. In Brazil, although little known, there are internationally renowned comic book authors who are clearly visionaries, such as Sergio Macedo and Alain Voss. The research analyzed works by Moebius, Jim Woodring, Rick Veitch, Sergio Macedo, and Xalberto, in addition to my own production prior to the research. As a reference, I used mainly bibliographies related to creative processes, anthropology (shamanism), and psychology (ENOC) to demarcate the theoretical terrain covered. The research was carried out in the line of research of Visual Poetics and Creative Processes, thus, it also extends to artistic practice, that is, making comics. I collaboratively created stories that fall within the scope of Visionary Art, using the ritualistic Ayahuasca tea, lucid dreams and the technique called Holotropic Breathwork as ENOC induction methods. The methodological approach was art-based research combined with autoethnography. As a poetic result, 16 comic strips were developed. The creative processes of each of them were discussed in the thesis, seeking to draw parallels between what was seen, felt and portrayed, with the cognitive processes and psychological states typical of ENOC. As a result, I understand that Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness, especially those highlighted for this research, do not promote increased creativity in the creative individual. However, they assist and influence the artists' themes, which can sometimes be confused with increased creativity. It can be better understood as a choice to 'pursue a specific theme'. In the article presented here, after the final considerations, an unpublished version of a visionary story was added, resulting from the research. The motivation for including the story is to provide a visual example of the type of work discussed in the thesis and article.
crysTao_timE_worKs: Clinical Psychedelia and Cinematic Imagery in Deleuze
Historically marginalized by medicine and psychology, non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) have been revalued in the so-called "psychedelic renaissance," which regards them as legitimate modes of experience and sense-making. In this context, psychedelic imagery is understood as a sensitive event, a singular expression of a transforming subjectivity, which calls for open forms of listening and expression. The concept of time crystal, associated with the idea of an ontology of vibration, proposes a reality that is not static but rhythmic and processual, in which being manifests as flow and oscillation. Just as time crystals challenge Newtonian stability, psychedelics break the rigidity of brain connectivity, opening space for reconfigurations of the self and temporal experience. Cinema, in turn, emerges as a privileged technology for exploring the relationship between movement and time. The cinematic image — particularly Deleuze's crystal-image — does not represent reality, but instead sets it vibrating within its temporal multiplicity. There is, therefore, a convergence between cinema and psychedelia: both operate as time machines, disrupting ordinary perception and exposing the subject to an intensive and deterritorializing experience. In this way, the psychedelic image presents itself as an ontological expression of difference, inviting a philosophical listening attuned to its transmutative power. This article proposes an interdisciplinary reflection on the dimensions of mental imagery in clinical psychedelia, drawing together neuroscience, contemporary philosophy, and cinema.
Between Lines and Rituals: The Charm of Repetition in the Art of People with Autism
This article presents an interdisciplinary analysis that explores the artistic production of people with autism, the phenomenon of altered states of consciousness, and the parallels with ritual practices of ancient tribal “magicians.” Engaging in dialogue with the arts, psychology, and psychotherapy, we propose a reflection on the repetition of simple forms and the automatisms present in the artworks of autistic individuals, highlighting the importance of art education as a tool for expression and inclusion. Based on a bibliographic review and case study data, we investigate how such manifestations may simultaneously represent emotional self-regulation strategies and the evocation of ritualistic and ancestral dimensions of symbolism. Keywords: Autism; Altered States of Consciousness; Art Education; Automatism
The Pope and the Devil in the Land of the Sun
This study analyzes the controversy surrounding the artistic mural in the external area of the School of Communication at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), which depicts a papal figure in contact with a demonic figure, sparking debates about freedom of artistic expression and religious intolerance. The research aims to understand the tensions surrounding the case, using a qualitative methodology based on documentary analysis of news reports and public demonstrations. Based on theories of contesting public art (Canclini, 2005) and aesthetics of imminence (Canclini, 2012), the investigation highlights how artistic interventions in public spaces can function as catalysts for debates about secularization, religious tolerance, and the limits of artistic provocation, contributing to the understanding of the processes of negotiation of values ​​in plural societies.
This article examines the use of textile elements in the artwork of the artist Claudia Lara, understanding them as poetic devices that engage questions of belonging, memory, and identity, with particular emphasis on the ancestry of Black women. By incorporating fabrics and threads into her poetics, the artist re-signifies materials historically confined to the domestic sphere and associated with the women in her Family – women skilled in needlework yet denied access to formal education. Through the use of these elements in her artistic practice, Lara seeks to reinscribe these women within the expanded experience of art, proposing new gender and racial relations through family photographs and memories. Considering her poetic trajectory, this article draws on race and gender studies and, based on historical documents and interviews, analyzes the place of textile art within the field of contemporary art, problematizing its historical devaluation – intimately linked to the naturalization of ideas of the “feminine”.
THE ETERNAL RETURN AS AN AFFIRMATION OF LIFE IN MASAHISA FUKASE'S PHOTOGRAPHY
This article examines the work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase (1934–2012) in relation to Friedrich Nietzsche’s concepts of Eternal Recurrence and Amor Fati. We explore how his photographic practice can be understood as an aesthetic response to the tragic nature of existence. Focusing on the series Kazoku (Family), in which the photographer returns to his family’s old studio to document the transformations wrought by time. We analyze the obsessive repetition of photographic gestures that attempt to arrest the transient while simultaneously exposing its impossibility. Fukase’s photography is interpreted not as an overcoming of pain, but as an act of life-affirmation. Ultimately, we argue that his insistence on photographing until physical collapse—culminating in his final blurred and ghostly images—constitutes a tragic pathos: the acceptance of the ephemeral as the only possible eternity. Keywords: Masahisa Fukase; Friedrich Nietzsche; Japanese photography; Eternal Return. Amor Fati.
This article discusses two woodcuts by artist Geraldo Trindade Leal (1927-2013) that depict rural scenes from his childhood and homeland, with great simplicity through his scratched lines with wood carvings, in figures of the Gaucho Pampas, horses, sheep, and cowboys in an expressionist configuration. In other words, his figures generated a series of woodcuts in the 1960s that clearly demonstrate the importance given to the work of the Gaucho cowboy. His woodcuts are mirrors of the reality of the Gaucho Pampas and its people.
Girl with a pearl earring or trans-gressing the art of gender
In this text, we analyze the various meanings that the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer has taken on throughout history, based on different works and artistic genres from the 17th century to the present day. By engaging in interdisciplinary categories and authorships, we propose a discussion that takes into account the effects of the evidentiary paradigm and the regimes of visibility that operate in the representations of gender in the aforementioned work. With this, we propose other perspectives on Girl with a Pearl Earring, from the perspectives of trans arts, but also the possibilities of racializing the debate.
This article investigates the pedagogical potential of the series Sex Education in raising teachers' awareness of gender and sexuality issues in school environments, with an emphasis on addressing violence experienced by LGBTQIAPN+ students. The research, conducted with Art teachers from the Regional Education Center of Guarapuava (PR), employed focus groups to explore teachers' perceptions of media representations and their relation to educational practices. Grounded in cultural pedagogies, the analysis of the discussions highlighted both cultural and institutional resistances as well as the transformative potential of audiovisual narratives in teacher training. The findings reveal that the series fosters critical reflections and contributes to the development of more inclusive pedagogical practices, although its use requires preparation and institutional support.
SCENES OF BEAUTY AS UTOPIAN PORTALS TO RE-THINK EDUCATION THROUGH RENAISSANCE ART
Este artigo propõe uma reflexão poética-crítica-analítica a partir de um estudo sobre a arte renascentista e suas implicações na educação contemporânea, levando em consideração os ideais estéticos e pedagógicos, averiguando em que medida os ideais renascentistas-humanistas dos séculos XIV, XV e XVI motivam e inspiram práticas pedagógicas mais estéticas, sensíveis e emancipadoras no cotidiano escolar. Pautados na metodologia qualitativa, de base hermenêutica e narrativa, fundamentados pelas leituras filosóficas, sensibilizados por grandes pensadores como, Nicolau Sevcenko, Giorgio Agamben, entre outros, propõe-se uma análise das obras de Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Giotto di Bondone e Rafael Sanzio, ícones do ideal do Homo universalis, com o objetivo de investigar de que modo a escola do século XXI pode ressignificar o projeto formativo renascentista, articulando dimensões técnicas, criativas e humanistas. Conclui-se que a forte influência da arte renascentista reverbera na história da cultura, recupera os ecos do Renascimento sinalizando princípios para uma pedagogia da sensibilidade, da presença e da esperança.
MEMÓRIAS DA COZINHA: UMA VANITAS DE PAULO GAIAD
This article discusses a painting from the series entitled Memórias da cozinha (Kitchen memories), created in 2007 by the artist Paulo Gaiad from Santa Catarina, whose symbolism and visual aspect, we argue, bring it closer to the still life genre, especially the subgenre known as Vanitas. Partly compelled by the pluralistic and appropriative context of contemporary painting, in this work the artist remobilizes and updates the genre, which is taken as a stuff alongside other painting materials. To this end, he adopts resources such as collage and photography, achieving a result that simultaneously preserves and tests the tradition of the genre. To discuss these issues, we seek to investigate the artist's operating modes, analyzing the work and comparing it with other examples of the genre, taken from the history of art.
Woodcut illustration: in the Cariri and Fortaleza regions
Woodcut illustration: in the Cariri and Fortaleza regions We studied the aesthetic and technical aspects of woodcut illustration productions in commercial advertisements in the Cariri and Fortaleza regions between 1900 and 1990. The basis of this research, with regard to engraving, is in line with Gilmar de Carvalho and Sebastião de Paula. Martine Joly analyzed the images. The main question of this work was: is it possible that the production of woodcut illustrations in the Cariri region of Ceará and in Fortaleza could have the same or similar aesthetic and technical quality as the artistic aspect? In general, we sought to investigate the characteristics of some woodcut productions aimed at illustration in the service of commercial advertisements in the Cariri and Fortaleza regions. Specifically, we studied the technical aspects of the production of woodcut illustrations in the Cariri and Fortaleza regions; and we analyzed comparatively whether the woodcut illustrations have the same or similar technical quality in the aesthetic aspects of composition, engraving and printing. This is a research on art with a qualitative approach, initiated from a bibliographic survey in different sources: a) academic: monograph, thesis; b) books; c) semi-structured interviews with artists and art teachers from Crato, Juazeiro do Norte and Fortaleza and concluded with the analysis of two commercial illustration woodcut images. In the final considerations, we found that illustration prints present good technical quality, are well suited to the themes used as promotional material; in the technical and aesthetic aspects they are not inferior to the prints considered art, thus they are not a lesser expression. Keywords: engraving; illustration woodcut; illustration.
ARTE ANGOLANA CONTEMPORÂNEA, ENTRE O LOCAL E O GLOBAL
O texto que aqui apresento é fruto de pesquisa desenvolvida como parte de minha tese de doutoramento, intitulada Escarificações: espaço-corpo-memória na literatura e nas artes visuais angolanas (2001-2020) (Rodrigues, 2022). Partindo de um mapeamento realizado no ano de 2019, em Luanda, capital de Angola – o que incluiu caminhadas pelas ruas da capital do país e arredores, visitas a espaços culturais, vivências comunitárias, conversas e entrevistas com escritores, artistas, curadores, pesquisadores, professores, ativistas, etc. –, teço algumas reflexões sobre avanços e desafios que se colocam à cultura, à arte angolana contemporânea e aos seus atores e agentes, tanto no cenário local (pós-independente, pós-guerra civil e pós-socialista), quanto no contexto global. Destacando eventos fulcrais, como a criação da Fundação Sindika Dokolo e a realização da Trienal de Luanda, na primeira década do século XXI, os quais foram responsáveis por introduzir o país no contexto internacional das artes (dentro e fora do continente africano), apresento dilemas e ações culturais protagonizadas por artistas e outros agentes da sociedade civil inseridos numa capital marcada por séculos de colonialismo português, por cicatrizes da Guerra Fria em solo nacional e pelo sistema-mundo uno e desigual (Wallerstein, 2005), inclusive no campo da cultura.
NOTES ON REDUCTION: CONTRIBUTIONS TO A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF CONTEMPORARY ART
This article discusses the idea of ​​reduction as a notional issue in the historiography of contemporary art. Given the pressing debate about models of time and their regimes in the history of art, this research seeks to identify theoretical and methodological expedients traversed by artistic practices from the second half of the 20th century that imply the notion of reduction. To this end, we propose here a temporal framework that starts with Marcel Duchamp in the 1940s, passing through the texts of Clement Greenberg in the 1950s and Barbara Rose in the 1960s, until we arrive at the regime of temporality inferred from Storia dell’Arte Contemporanea, written by Renato de Fusco in 1983. These writings allow us to reflect on the line of reduction transversally to a critique of models of temporality present in the process of historicization of contemporary art, raising fundamental questions for the understanding of conceptualist tendencies and objectuality since the second half of the 20th century.
FALSIFICAÇÃO E AUTENTICIDADE A PARTIR DAS RELÍQUIAS MEDIEVAIS
This paper analyzes the historical and conceptual origins of the notion of authenticity in Western art, relating it to the medieval cult of sacred relics. It demonstrates that the valorization of originality and authorship, and, consequently, the disapproval of forgeries, is a cultural construct. Through notable examples, it highlights the transposition of religious logic into the artistic field, in which the secular sacralization of the artist and the artwork reveals the transfer of authentication mechanisms to the art system.
This article investigates the work of German artist Sibylle Ruppert, highlighting it as a manifestation of the grotesque that defies and transcends traditional artistic classifications through the obscene, violence, and the absurd. Drawing a distinction from H. R. Giger's biomechanics, this study proposes that the grotesque in Sibylle Ruppert's work is not limited to the fusion of the organic and the mechanical, but rather operates as a process of destabilization aligned with Georges Bataille's heterology. The analysis articulates the grotesque with the concepts of the informe (formless) and heterology, aiming to demonstrate how the artist dissolves bodily boundaries to expose an obscene and irreducible materiality, approached here as "excess flesh" (carne-em-excesso). Through an analysis of her drawings, especially the series for the Marquis de Sade and Lautréamont, and by comparing them with the logic of Hans Bellmer's “anagrammatic body”, the article examines how Sibylle Ruppert uses fragmentation, montage, and metamorphosis to create a universe where no synthesis is possible. It concludes that the German artist's work mobilizes the grotesque not merely as a formal excess, but as a heterological operation that stages the collapse of form and reason, transforming the dreamlike fantasy associated with the grotesque into a nightmarish vertigo, where the only constant is the irresolvable tension between opposing forces.
The present article aims at analyzing political and social actions taken in pandemic times as well as drawing a parallel between AIDS and the new coronavirus, COVID - 19. Our comparison provides a significant view into human and cultural relations, government bodies’ policies and actions implemented when facing chaos and social fears. The present article identifies society and public policy frequent patterns that allow us to understand the way we deal with urgent situations besides showing the measures taken in each context frequently increased by prejudices which bring destructive and useless actions. Within such scenario photography role is to reveal other meanings seeing that art, in a way, has recorded and reflected each era reality, as through a XVI century painting or through a XX century photography. Then we propose that the fear of being contaminated, social isolation, ill people and family member loneliness, as well as reflections on political and structural aspects happening during pandemics in different epochs are not identical even so they have converging points.
one Memory, images, left-wing melancholy and utopia in the film Terra em transe
: This article aims to analyze the notion of image, memory, left-wing melancholy and utopia, refigured in the Cinema Novo Brazilian movement and also inserted in the Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano current of the 1960s. These cinematographic groups had a political bias, interested in debating social reality in cinema and in the transformation of capitalist society. For this investigation we chose the film Terra em transe (1967) by Glauber Rocha, one of the most representative of the two movements, because the social, political and economic issues of Latin America are addressed broadly and touching on common points of the countries of the continent, such as the fact of being former colonies of Iberian countries, considered underdeveloped and finally the implementation of military dictatorships in the 1960s and 1970s, with the support of the United States. It connects film analysis with the theoretical framework of concepts such as memory and images in Maurice Halbwachs and Henri Bergson, and of utopia in the works of Ernest Bloch, Walter Benjamin, and Enzo Traverso. In the latter two, we also include the notion of left-wing melancholia. This theoretical and empirical framework encompasses the understanding of film not only as a means of disseminating ideas and political debates, but also as a repository of defeats, memories, and hopes that can mobilize expectations for change in the present and future. Key words: Sociology of Art; Memory; Utopia; Left-wing Melancholy; Cinema nono.
This work expands the literary genre of zuihitsu, presenting the body as both the support and language of a transitional form of writing. The corpographic experimentation was recorded by the artist-researcher Cassia Hosni, beginning the investigative process for the creation of the dissertation-work “Corpographies: Incursion into skin image writing thought”, which explored and problematized the body of thought within the scope of Visual Poetics.
O CORPO, SUAS REPRESENTAÇÕES NAS ARTES VISUAIS E OS DIREITOS HUMANOS
The present article aims to contribute to the reflection on gender violence in art through the lens of human rights. The study begins with the vandalism that took place in the lithography studio of the Museu da Gravura de Curitiba, consisting of the attack on the lithographic slab of the artist Maria Cunha, that contained the image of a male nude model’s kneeled torso, constituted in eroticism. The problem of investigation consists of the analysis of the work as a possible critique to patriarchy and the objectification of the female body. To think of the attempt at destruction of the artist’s work involves, necessarily, the deepening in the theoretical and practical contributions of feminist movements. The article conducted a literary review and analysis of the vandalised work as the method to reach its specific intended goals. From the research done, it was possible to conclude that adopting the feminist or artivist identity, as the pioneers of those movements did, is essential in the present setting, in which women are made invisible, silenced, and murdered. By intersectioning art and human rights, answers that enable poetic freedom are produced, making possible to the artist that had its work vandalised to replicate the violence it suffered.
Dissident Images: Reflections in the context of the 35th Bienal de São Paulo
This essay is organised into the sections “Introduction”, “Methodological Procedures”, “Argument”, and “Final Considerations”. In the Introduction, we present the theoretical framework that underpins the proposed reflections and interpretations, drawing on the theory of the Imaginary as developed by Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) and Gilbert Durand (1921–2012). Complementarily, we incorporate a contribution from philosophy through the work of Vilém Flusser (1920–1991). We then describe the methodological procedures employed in the development of the essay, which comprise a theoretical–conceptual approach followed by an analytical, comparative, and interpretative procedure. Throughout the Argument section, we begin with a contextualisation of the Bienal de São Paulo, discuss issues surrounding the term hegemony, and proceed to interpretations of three works presented at the 35th Bienal de São Paulo, held in 2023. At last, in the Final Considerations, we employ the theory of the Imaginary to identify, based on the three interpreted artworks, the potential of the exhibition’s space of the Bienal and of the artistic field to activate the imagination and promote the diversification of the Imaginary. We seek to understand how the production of dissident images in these three works contributes to a reaction to the tendency toward the production and circulation of hegemonic and homogeneous images. Drawing on hermeneutic tools derived from the theory of the Imaginary, we also discuss the significance of this reaction for fostering new possible Imaginaries. The principal contribution of the essay lies in the mobilisation of the theory of the Imaginary as an interpretative resource for artistic production oriented towards digital images, opening pathways for a deeper engagement with the issues addressed herein.