Re: [-empyre-] Mario Pedrosa

["arteonline" <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br>]

Hi Saul,

Below Mario Pedrosa. I will find material about the other critics soon.

"Mario Pedrosa (1900-1981) was one of the most complete intellectuals of his
time. Art critic of national and international renown, as well as an
influential militant politician, and witness to and player in the major
cultural changes in Brazil from the late 1920s to the end of the 1970s.
Cataloguing and conserving the collection that he left (his personal files
and library) have helped to reconstitute his "intellectual universe" and
made access easier for whoever is interested in the history of ideas in
Brazil and a reflection on an erudite and original time of contemporary art.

Art and politics were the two great passions of Mario Pedrosa, who could be
said to consider utopia as a way of life - a typical characteristic of the
intelligentsia engagée of his time. Pedrosa was converted at an early age to
Marxism and also continued to dialogue with great Brazilian and European
artists and intellectuals. He considered politics and art as the two highest
forms of human expression. With a sharp critical spirit and universal
outlook, the privileged intelligence of Pedrosa first sought in Trotskyism,
which he helped found in Brazil, what he thought to be the antidote to
Stalinist counterfeit, while later was to review Marxism as a theory of
history. Yet he never lost his humanist ideals and conviction of the role of
art as a symbolic representation of the world and the vanquish of
alienation.

Pedrosa was leading art critic for the Correio da Manhã (1945-1951) and then
of the Jornal do Brasil (1957), then vice-president of the International
Association of Art Critics (1957-1970) and president of the Brazilian
Association of Art Critics, national section of the AICA (1962). He was
curator of the 2nd São Paulo Biennial; general secretary of the 4th São
Paulo Biennial; organized the International Art Critics Congress on Brasilia
and was director of the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art. Pedrosa worked with
top artists (namely Alexander Calder, Giorgio Morandi and P. Soulages),
helped create the Rio de Janeiro Art Museum and played a leading role in the
rise of the Concretist movement in Rio de Janeiro. As exile in Chile,
Pedrosa founded the Museum of Solidarity in Santiago, which today has a
collection of over 5,000 works of art, some by Calder, Miró, Soulages and
Picasso who donated them to the Museum thanks to Mario Pedrosa's personal
prestige in the international art world. He was also a member of the jury of
various art biennials around the world.

Mario Pedrosa's troubled political life involved a number of arrests in the
1920s and 1930s and forced him into three long exiles. The first, during the
New State, then later the military coup d'état in 1964 and lastly, after the
fall of Salvador Allende. Many of his papers and books were lost but the
still existing documentary collection and library left by him provide a
privileged view of his intellectual universe, political concerns and
reflection on contemporary art."
 (URL of the text above :
http://www2.petrobras.com.br/CulturaEsporte/ingles/cultura/ArtesVisuais/Mari
oPedrosa.htm)

Interesting to see: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10274

Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: "saul ostrow" <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Neoconcrete


> There was a that time a number of possible positions that a critic would
> take be they left, existential formal - populist, traditionalist,  etc.
> also did these critics look to Europe  or to the US -- and if they did
> neither what was their orientation --  I'm  trying to figure out what
> the critical discourse was  -- here in the north there is little
> available as to the nature of the critical debates that were taking
> place in the south in the 50s and 60s --
>
> arteonline wrote:
> >
> > Hi Saul,
> >
> > Thanks for your interest. I think that the most important critics and
> > theorists in Brazil
> > during the 50s and 60s were Mario Pedrosa,  Mario Schenberg, Ferreira
Gullar
> > and Frederico Moraes later 60s). Perhaps Jorge can remember other names.
> >
> > What do you mean with "how did they align themselves" ? I did not
understand
> > very well.
> >
> > Regina
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "saul ostrow" <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>
> > To: <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br>; <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 7:25 PM
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Neoconcrete
> >
> > >
> > > Regina -- I read with interest your text about the neoconcrete --
> > > Might I ask who where the most important critics and theorist in
Brazil
> > > during the 50s and 60s and how did they align themselves --
> > > Saul Ostrow
> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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