Contemporary trends and their mediations

Abstract

In 1998, the research Contemporary Trends was systematized with Fapesp's support; resulting, in 2000, at the publishing of the book Novíssima Arte Brasileira – A trend guide. In fact, this work began early in 1993 when, returning after being eight years in the United States, I joined as a professor at MAC USP (Contemporary Art Museum of the University of São Paulo). Since the beginning my research with the institution was focused on the search of a comprehension of the production of brazilian contemporary artists who were emerging in the 1990's. In a more systematic way, already under the project Contemporary Trends, in 1996, the project kept up for four years with the production of seventy artists and, from theirs production courses, tried to draft the major subjects or themes hinged in their works of art. Contemporary Trends and its Mediations pursues to update, to deepen and to systematize the result of this previous research, organizing the actual production of the artists listed in the previous project who leaned upon the visual arts panorama since the end of the initial research. By accompanying the course of the artists that took part in the book Novíssima Arte Brasileira, were selected names that stood out for having consistence and permanence inside the brazilian art way. The work of these artists will be organized inside a thematic reading and presented in movement, in relational ways, inside an interdisciplinary perspective, historical and poetic, on DVDs containing images of those artists' art works, interviews and testimonies, recorded at their studios, testifying their creation and realization processes; images that build a historic and esthetic perspective, creating relations between these artists' works and others, presenting a panorama of brazilian contemporary art and international; excerpts of theorist texts about the respective theme broached; and, finally, other ways of creation that expand the theme trough poems, films passages, dances, musical compositions.