Description

Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil brings together the work of ten artists who reflect upon the long-standing histories of oppressive power structures in the territory now known as Brazil. Blurring the line between art and activism and spanning installation, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, and video, these artists contribute to local and global conversations about the state of democracy, racial injustice, and the violence inflicted by the nation-state. This first English-language, book-length study of contemporary Brazilian art in relationship to activism assembles artist-authored texts, interviews, essays, and a conceptual mapping of Brazilian history to illuminate the function of art as a platform for critical engagement with the historical, political, and cultural configurations of a particular place. By refusing to remain neutral, these artists create spaces of vibrant and vital community and self-construction to explore how healing and justice may be possible, especially in the Black, LGBTQIA+, and Indigenous communities to which many of them belong.

About the Author

Maria Emilia Fernandez is the assistant curator at the Visual Arts Center at UT Austin. She earned her MA in art history at UT Austin and is an alumna of the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS).

Adele Nelson is an associate professor and associate director of the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) in the Department of Art and Art History at UT Austin. She is the author of Forming Abstraction: Art and Institutions in Postwar Brazil and Jac Leirner in Conversation.

MacKenzie Stevens is the director and curator of the Visual Arts Center at UT Austin. She has organized solo exhibitions with Carmen Argote, Nikita Gale, Juan Pablo González, Madeline Hollander, Lisa Lapinski, Kate Newby, Michael Queenland, Luiz Roque, and Kenneth Tam, among others, and is the editor of Miss Swiss, the first monograph focusing on the work of Lisa Lapinski.