No curso da pintura: a produção de identidades de artista

Abstract

This work focuses a situation in which people learn painting, in an institution for the teaching and production of contemporary art. Contemporary painting is seen here as a social practice, placed by the social actors as continuous or as incompatible with other social practices. The acquisition of the dispositions which permit, or don’t permit, the practice of contemporary painting is also investigated. This means studying the formation of the identity of the artist, which is shown to be a diversified and circumstantial process. The social relationships established by the actors in this situation are approached, as well as the various meanings which they attach to their practice. The formation of the artist’s identity is analyzed as a set of processes both of suppression and attribution of the ability of producing meanings through paintings or about painting. These products are directed to a public seen as differentiated regarding the ability to recognize the artistic value of the student’s pictorial production. This dissertation begins by approaching methodological questions regarding the subject of study – art – and the research strategy – participant observation. An analysis follows about the bodily dispositions in the practice of painting, focusing specially the way the students place themselves and occupy the space during the painting lessons. The hierarchization among the students and between them and the teacher are presented and related to other meaningful social pratices, the time invested in painting and the experience of having done (or not) painting exercises during the course. These relations are shown through the description of the painting procedures. This permits reconsidering certain decoupages, such as the separation between technical aspects/meanings, symbolic production/symbolic consumption, body/culture, social action/artistic production, art/social life. It also permits reconsidering certain emphases common in the studies about art as a social phenomena – specially in the anthropology of art – such as the focus on the artistic object.