One of the factors that makes art so magical is its ability to reflect our current moment in history. This is true on a local and global scale and can be seen time and time again in art history. Brazil was one of the first countries in the world to launch into modernist art, hosting the first art Biennale outside of Venice in 1951. Beginning in 1922 with the famous “Semana de Arte,” which celebrated the 100-year independence from Portuguese colonialism, modern art flocked into Brasil. Now Brazil is going on 200 years of independence and looking back what came out of this period were some of the most talented modern artists of their generation, many of which were women.

The Concrete Art Movement was adopted in Brazil in the 1960s. Having already been previously implemented in other countries like Switzerland, it gained popularity in Brazil when the work of Max Bill was exhibited at the first São Paulo Biennale in 1951. The name came from the famous Dutch artist Theo Van Doesburg in 1930. The movement is characterized by a tendency towards using geometric lines and forms and bold solid colors. Artists like Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, Anna Maria Maiolino, and Mira Schendel were all involved in the movement and the establishment of Neo-Concretism. What was unique about these movements was that each artist came from different artistic backgrounds and implemented different styles, but all worked towards the goal of making people understand how art is experienced in space and time.

Brazil is a modern country with bustling urban centers such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro but also boasts one of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world. Brazil is home to the world-famous Amazon Rainforest which spans over 2,300,000 square miles. 2,500,000 square miles of land, much of which is part of the Amazon Rainforest, is inhabited by various native Indigenous tribes. These tribes have a long tradition of living off of the land and belief in the presence of spirits in all things (animism). These themes have been the subject of drawings made by Amazonian tribe members which feature geometric designs, anthropomorphic figures, mythological beings, zoomorphic figures, and landscapes. The Amazonian tribes often live in the deepest and most remote sections of the rainforest, utterly cut off from society. Due to this, we get to see art that remains uninfluenced by the traditional art historical canon, a rare phenomenon in our increasingly globalized and connected society.

What ties together Amazonian Art with the works of Concrete and Neo-Concrete artists is the colonial history of Brazil. Before Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese, Indigenous people thrived on the land. What is so special about Brazilian modern and contemporary artists, such as Elisa Martins da Silveira, is their ability to look back to indigenous culture while reimagining themes used by their European contemporaries such as Duchamp, Malevich, and Kandinsky. What comes forth is a blend of styles that makes Brazilian art so unique. For example, Lygia Clark looked to Indigenous art and created a series of weavings to raise awareness for the displacement of Indigenous peoples by the Brazilian government. Neo-Concrete art is political, but also self-referential using national colors and materials. What unites both genres is their ability to use surreal forms, bright colors, and geometric patterns to express themselves.


Amazonian Native Drawing
Many Indigenous peoples inhabit the natural wonder of the world, the Amazon Rainforest, which spans over 2,500,000 square miles of land. Originally numbering in 2-5 million, Indigenous people have been pushed out of their homes due to the destruction of the land. The Indigenous cultures of this region are extremely unique and have traditions inspired by beliefs rooted in nature also called animism. They believe in the presence of spirits in all beings. Indigenous drawings feature vibrant use of color and surreal forms. Their drawings also include geometric designs, anthropomorphic figures, mythical beings, zoomorphic figures, and landscapes. In fact, many famous modern artists have looked to Indigenous art such as that of the Amazonians to inspire their works in a phenomenon that has become known as “Primitivism.” Amazonian drawings are unique as they have an unblemished perspective on the world around them, uninfluenced by the traditional art historical canon.

Lygia Clark (1920-1988, Brazilian)
Lygia Clark was born in 1920 and was a Brazilian visual artist who was best known for her paintings and installations. She was formally trained in Rio de Janeiro and Paris from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. She was also a leading artist in the famous Neo-Concrete movement in Brazil. Her later works are famous for the themes of psychoanalytic therapy that she tied into them. Her main goal with her art was to make people understand how a work of art is experienced in space and time. She said, “I always thought it was fabulous to have given something of my art for someone to express themselves.” Clark's works are exhibited in various prominent global institutions such as MoMA, the Tate Modern, and the Hammer Museum.

Anna Maria Maiolino (b. 1942, Brazilian)
Anna Maria Maiolino was a Brazilian contemporary artist born in Italy in 1942. She attended the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes where she studied woodcut and painting. There she met other artists and contemporaries such as Antonio Dias and Rubens Gerchman. Maiolino was involved in major art movements such as Neo-Concretism, New Figuration, and the New Brazilian Objectivity Movement. Anna Maria’s works are important to the period that she lived in as they were political comments on the military regime that existed in Brazil at the time. Her works are charged with resistance against the political state and the ever-growing urban inequality in Brazil at the time. In 1968 Maiolino moved to New York where she decided to focus on the movements on Minimalism and Conceptualism. In 1971 she was granted a scholarship to attend Pratt University. Her works can be found in collections all over the world, including at MoMA here in New York City.

Elisa Martins da Silveira (1912-2001, Brazilian)
Elisa Martins da Silveira was born in 1912 in Brazil. She was a figurative painter that was a part of the “Primitive” or “Naïve” school. These schools used folkloric imagery and bright colors to portray scenes in daily life. Martins was also a part of the Grupo Frente (1952-64), which was an artists group led by Ivan Serpa. Each artist involved in this group brought their own artistic styles to the mix but followed and admired geometric abstraction which was in vogue at the time. Martins has her works in many collections, most notably the Rio Art Museum, and was represented in the II São Paulo Biennale.

Lygia Pape (1927-2004, Brazilian)
Lygia Pape was born in 1927 in Brazil. She was a visual artist, sculptor, engraver, and filmmaker. She is most known for being a key member of the Concrete Movement in Brazil and later a co-founder of the Neo-Concrete movement in the 50s and 60s. She was also an important figure in the expansion of contemporary art in Brazil. There, she brought geometric art to the forefront and explored political themes within her works. A key theme in Pape’s work was sensory experience, and the artist wanted to demonstrate that through her distinct power of expression. One of the ways she did this was by creating immersive installations including making the famous geometric forms of New-Concrete art come to life through constructing lexicons out of gold and silver thread in exhibition rooms. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Hammer Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mira Schendel (1919-1988, Brazilian)
Mira Schendel was a Brazilian artist born in Zurich in 1919. She is known for her works made on rice paper which number in the thousands, but she was also a poet, sculptor, and painter. She went to the University Sacra Cuore in Milan where she studied philosophy but also took art classes. Schendel was a Jewish woman and hence had to flee from Italy when the fascist regime came about. She emigrated to Brazil in 1949 with her husband where she became a prolific modernist painter and sculptor. Her works feature a mix of calligraphy, encrypted languages, letters, and phrases. Schendel also made sculptures out of rice paper that she manipulated with string, resulting in strange shapes and forms. Schendel was constantly evolving her work and techniques in life and didn’t really have ties to one movement in particular. One of the largest themes in her works is the tension between gentleness and force. Her works have been exhibited at MoMA and the Tate Modern.

Otavio Schipper (b. 1979, Brazilian)
Otavio Schipper, born in 1979, is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. He holds a degree in Physics from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and has received the KLAS Award from the Max Planck Society in 2017 and the 2015 Fellowship from the Akademie der Künste Berlin. From the wunderkammer of Otavio Schipper, the artist presents ready-made objects such as antique telegraph machines, tuning forks, eyeglasses, elevator cabins, and electric poles. His timeless objects shown in a decontextualized manner connect past physical worlds with our present mental landscapes. The realms of imagination become present in installations that deal with the perception of time and the cultural memory of objects, leading to the questioning of boundaries between fiction and reality. Schipper's works have been exhibited at Galleri Specta, Die Raum, the Max Planck Institute, and Kunstmuseum Thun to name a few.

Alfredo Volpi (1869-1988, Brazilian)
Alfredo Volpi was a Brazilian visual artist born in Lucca, Italy in 1896. He was one of the most important artists in the Grupo Santa Helena, which was formed in the 1930s. Volpi was a self-taught painter and produced his first paintings at the young age of 12. He was known for his use of geometric abstract forms and tempera. Volpi’s use of the tempera technique alludes to his knowledge of Italian Renaissance painters having grown up in Italy. His first solo show was held in 1944 in São Paulo. Volpi became famous for small flag paintings, called “bandeirinhas,” which originated in Brazilian folklore. The artist also participated in São Paulo Art Biennale winning the Grand Prix for Brazilian painting.