Catiti-Catiti, na terra dos Brasis

Abstract

This work deals with the problem of the crisis of art in the contemporary world. We intend to produce a comprehensive panel starting with the first idea of a Brazilian conscience in art, as indicated in the title of this dissertation (that proceeds from Oswald de Andrade and the Manifesto Antropófago), and coming down to the present time, when we all watch the decline of the vanguards in the developed world. It is from the work of Maria Pedrosa, in "World, Man, Art in Crisis", "Address to the Tupiniquins or Nambas" or in "Variations Without Theme or Art of the Rearguard", that we take, besides the deep and clear analysis, the optimistic and generous proposition ascribing to the unfortunate people, the inhabitants of the thirs world, the task of taking up the leadership in the realm of artistic creation. As we also believe in this to point here to the artistsinventors as being the only ones capable for this job, as those who have to try for something new. Only they, with their views turned towards research, will be in a position to go ahead through the gaps already beginning to appear, since the time of Oswald de Andrade and later with the Brazilian constructive project. They would be the pioneers of this inventive attitude. It will befall others to follow along the same road. The first part of the work "The Crisis of Art" takes up in Chap. I the theme: "Modern and Post-Modern Art", and in Cahp. II: "Concrete and Neoconcrete Artists". The second part, "The New Idea", presents in Chap. I: "The Speech of the Dumb", in which we deal with the anonymous creations of the man in the street and the fact that Mario Pedrosa stresses as a common element in all these artists that they live in miserable conditions. In Chap. 2 "We, the Savages", we study the position of the inventor-artist, as one who has to take up the role of art producer in the new era that Mario Pedrosa foresees for the inhabitants of the third world. Only the inventors will be in a position to establish new forms of communication that will be able to replace the decadent vanguards, more and more useless and sophisticated, within the new emerging areas.