IN THE FIRST DECADES OF THE 20TH CENTURY, the town of Crato, in the Cariri region [in the south of the state of Ceará, Northeast of Brazil], was a center radiating culture for the modernization of the entire region, with its imposing architecture, leafy squares and the iconic Crato Market, which brought together singers, […]

MAGICAL REALISM Photography continuously evolves in the face of changing historical, technological, social and cultural contexts. Thus, the highly specialized photographer of the mid 19th century, an alchemist who carried with them a chest with lenses and laboratory equipment, has given way to anyone who carries the latest iPhone in their pocket. Radical changes in […]

Discomfort and subversion Laughter is a way of placing or displacing abjection.Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1984) As we turn the pages of this book, we discover images that are familiar, at least to the Western viewer. These photographs, which once populated family albums, depict those who share our intimate space: […]

Beloved, Toni Morrison’s novel published in 1987, soon became a landmark in the literary representation of the subjective experience of black men and women during and after the period of slavery in the United States. In contrast to the fascination and terror that animate the plot of Sethe, an enslaved fugitive trying to free her […]

Vera Chaves Barcellos is a crucial figure in Brazilian contemporary art, with a long journey of experimentation and exploration of the limits of the photographic language and reproducible image. One of the most paradigmatic works of her career is the series Epidermic Scapes, developed between 1977 and 1982 – a period in which the artist […]

It was now, in this last carnival, the first of the Carnivals in which she said she had truly abandoned herself to the revelry, that an exceptional moment – to say the least – happened. It is not for me to tell here all the details – besides, I don’t have them – but what […]

“My mission is to exorcize history,” said Ayrson Heráclito, in a lecture given in 2016. Since the 1980s, Heráclito, an artist, professor and curator from Bahia, has been clarifying the misconceptions of the Eurocentric historical narrative and its biased and racist perspective. His interest in the Yoruba culture and its origins in Nigeria, as well […]

The 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup against President Salvador Allende’s elected government is an opportune time to refl ect on the dissident work of Chilean artists – there weren’t many of them. Among these, the work of Lotty Rosenfeld stands out, both individually and through CADA (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte [Art Actions […]

I am the meeting of two worlds: an ancestral world versus a “civilized” world. An encounter that clearly promotes a confrontation and ends buried by that civilization’s machines, where humans and machines merge into one body only. Where the eyes are machines of desire. We only desire what we see. We see the world from […]

He is nobody´s, but therefore he is not a street dog either. Perhaps, more precisely, he’s a neighborhood dog, from that neighborhood, any neighborhood, which is what makes him unique, as well: if we’re to recognize him, we’ll need a few more very particular and precise details. And, even unitentionally, he can do it, like […]