Latin American artists in Paris: Julio Le Parc and Gontran Guanaes Netto

Abstract

The presented project aims to analyze the dialogue established between the artists Julio Le Parc (1928-) and Gontran G. Netto (1933-). It has as first target to highlight the genesis of the partnership (established between 1972 and 1985) and, secondly, to demonstrate how it represented an exercise of political functionalization of art as a complaint instrument (in European soil) of the oppressed peoples resistance, especially the Latin American. Finally, we will investigate what their works say about the cultural disputes experienced during the oligopolistic internationalization of art institutions, a process made possible by coups of state and state terrorism (persecution, torture and disappearances). Thus, the research will enable us by the analytic intersection from different sources the first reading of a historiographical debate that has occupied a prominent place in contemporary times, notably in France; namely, the debates surrounding the officialization of kinetic art, the engagement in critical figuration, the contemporary cosmopolitanism and the artistic nomadism. For a proper performance we will consult bibliographic sources (books, papers and academic thesis), material of disclosure and registration (catalogs, exhibition invitations and posters), periodicals (newspapers, magazines, newsletters and annals), unpublished material (manuscripts, typewritten and epistolary) and, of course, works of art. (AU)