Academic literature on the topic 'Brazilian Art'

This study investigates the presence of ambivalence as a strategy of cultural politics from modern to contemporary art in Brazil. It focuses on the development of modern art leading to the work of Hélio Oiticica, whose approach to avant-garde practice in Brazil was concurrent with intense articulations between the forces of social change and re-evaluations of the legacy of Modernism. The thesis has a strong historiographical emphasis and is organised in three parts: Part one attempts to view the emergence of Modernism in Brazil beyond the prevailing interpretations that emphasise its inadequacy compared to canonical paradigms. Part two discusses the development of abstraction in Brazil, particularly that associated with the constructivist tradition and its relationship with the prevailing positivism of a nation that saw modernity as its inevitable destiny. Such a relationship, between art and ideology, implicitly questions the purported autonomous nature of modern art. Again, what emerged were definite regional distinctions, themselves based on seemingly universal theoretical propositions. The context of Hélio Oiticica's emergence as a constructivist-oriented artist is discussed in order to establish the theoretical foundation for his subsequent articulations between notions of avant-garde and Brazilian popular culture. Part three deals with Oiticica's theoretical and artistic proposals. It centres on the artist's transition from a position concerned primarily with the aesthetic questions of art, to one in which art became engaged on a social, ethical and ultimately political level. Oiticica's relationship with concurrent developments in theatre and later in music and cinema is given particular attention. The artist's questioning of the divides between such fields of specialisation, socio-cultural borders or categories of creative production is argued to have arisen out of Oiticica's lessons from Neoconcretism as well as his individual creative approach to relations of friendship. The latter integrated the wider concept of participation that eventually drove the work through the apparent equivocation between national culture and avant-garde practice. The study concludes with an analysis of the artist's posthumous dissemination and its relation with today's contemporary Brazilian art.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO<br>O propósito desta dissertação é refletir acerca das relações existentes entre literatura e cinema no que toca a representação do fenômeno da violência nas obras literárias e suas respectivas versões cinematográficas. Para isso foram utilizados três livros que apresentam a violência enfocada por diversos prismas. São eles: Estação Carandiru de Drauzio Varella, Cidade de Deus de Paulo Lins e O Invasor de Marçal Aquino. O exame feito por teóricos sobre a linha tênue que hoje divide ficção de realidade também foi abordado como um dos pontos de desenvolvimento da dissertação. O binômio violência/cultura que parece uma atual tendência na literatura contemporânea, ganhou espaço incisivo nesta análise.<br>The intention of this dissertation is to reflect concerning the existing relations between literature and movies in which it touches the representation of the phenomenon of the violence in the literary compositions and its respective cinematographic versions. For this, three books had been used that present the violence focused for diverse prisms. They are: Estação Carandiru by Drauzio Varella, Cidade de Deus by Paulo Lins and O Invasor by Marçal Aquino. The examination made by theoreticians on the tenuous line that today divides reality from fiction was also boarded as one of the points of the dissertation development. The binominal violence/culture that seems one current trend in contemporary literature, gained incisive space in this analysis.

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) is considered to be the father of the Brazilian art song. With a total of seventy songs, Nepomuceno revolutionized and established a new path to the Brazilian art song. His songs were innovative because they: (1) incorporated folk elements in his songs, (2) introduced Portuguese as a language acceptable in bel canto style and (3) established Brazilian songs in the tradition of the European vanguard. His approach influenced several composers including his young student Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), one of the most significant Latin American composers. The purpose of this research is to inform singers and teachers about one of Brazil's most significant art song composers, and to provide the necessary tools--Brazilian Portuguese diction guide, IPA and poem translations of the selected songs--for effective and accurate performances and interpretations.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO<br>COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR<br>PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO<br>Esse trabalho pretende primeiramente esclarecer o que é a Toy Art, esse novo suporte expressivo de mercado que parte de designers e ilustradores e que contém em si elementos da arte urbana, a street art, como o grafite e o Hip Hop. Contém também elementos de confrontação de uma juventude ativa contra mitos e dogmas cristalizados por gerações anteriores. Um novo suporte que traz à tona uma narrativa da cidade, da rua, com sua violência e humores ácidos, que propõe uma estreita relação entre a arte e a cultura pop em seu argumento de caráter lúdico e bem-humorado e simultaneamente subversivo e violento. O Mundo desses brinquedos, inicialmente produzidos no Japão e na China, surge como um mundo de plástico e vinil em meados dos anos 1990, e outros materiais vão sendo incorporados no decorrer da expansão mundial de sua produção e consumo. Personagens da política, ou ícones da sociedade e acontecimentos atuais são alguns dos principais alvos das narrativas desses objetos. Seus temas comumente pretendem a problematização de mitos e de heróis . Lida ainda, com a frágil linha divisória que existe entre infância e vida adulta. Ao se estudar o universo do Toy Art, ou Designer Toy, o colecionismo, o consumismo e a pós modernidade serão investigados, assim como características particulares de tribos urbanas. O que é Toy Art? Como essa plataforma artística e mercadológica se desenvolveu desde seu aparecimento? Que fronteiras delimitam seu território nas artes e no design? Como se configurou sua história? E como a Toy Art atua e se desenvolve no Brasil?<br>This work is intended to clarify what is Toy Art. A new expressive and market support that comes from designers and illustrators minds, that contains elements of urban art, street art, graffiti and Hip Hop culture in itself. It also contains confrontational elements of an active youth against myths and dogmas crystallized by previous generations. A new medium that brings up the urban city into its narrative, the street with its violence and acid moods, which suggests a close relationship between art and pop culture in its humorous narrative, that is at the same time subversive and violent. The world of these toys, originally produced in Japan and China, appears as a vinyl and a plastic world in the mid-1990s, and other materials have been incorporated during the worldwide expansion of its production and consumption. Political characters, pop icons and day by day events are some of the main targets of these object s narratives. Its subjects often seek the overthrow of myths and heroes, and yet, it deals with the fragile dividing line between childhood and adulthood. While studying the universe of Toy Art or Designer Toy, collecting, consumerism and post-modernism will be investigated, as well as particular characteristics of urban tribes. What is Toy Art? How this artistic and marketing platform developed since their appearance? What borders delimit its territory in the arts and design? How to set up its story? And how Toy Art operates and develops in Brazil?

The articulation of Portuguese nasalized vowels poses some articulatory problems accompanied by negative acoustic effects for the performance of Brazilian art songs. The main objective was to find strategies that permit the singer to conciliate an idiomatic pronunciation of these vowels with a well-balanced resonance, a desirable quality in classical singing. In order to devise these strategies, the author examined sources dealing with nasalized vowels from varied perspectives: acoustic properties of vowel nasalization, phonetic and phonological aspects ofBrazilian Portuguese (BP), historical views on nasality in singing, and recent vocal pedagogy research. In addition to the overall loss of sonority, the main effect of nasalization is felt mainly in the first formant (F1) region of oral vowels, due to the introduction of nasal formants and antiformants, and to shifts in the tongue posture. Several sources report the existence of a nasality contour in BP, by which a nasalized vowel starts with an oral phase and transitions gradually to a nasal phase. The author concludes that the basic approach to sing nasalized vowels in BP is (1) to find the tongue posture corresponding to the oral vowel congener (the “core vowel”), and (2) to adjust the nasality contour in such a way that the oral portion remains prominent in order to keep the resonance balance consistent during the emission of the vowel. Once the core vowel is determined, standard vowel modification choices can be made according to voice type and the musical context in which the vowel is being sung. Some challenging excerpts from Brazilian art songs are examined, with suggestions for the application of the discussed strategies.

Bodily Force and Rhetorical Function in the Afro-Brazilian Art Form of Capoeira examines how practitioners of capoeira, a dance-like martial art developed by African slaves in Brazil during the slave trade, enact forms of contestation, resistance, and accommodation through their performances, as well as how the practice of capoeira results in productions and interruptions of social and cultural hierarchies. Building upon historical research, interviews, and participant observations at a local capoeira site, I argue that the movements, gestures, and facial expressions that drive communicative performances between two or more practitioners elucidate intersections between rhetoric, performance, and the body. More specifically, I demonstrate that the capoeira body operates as a physical force that serves a variety of rhetorical functions, including intervening in social structures of dominance, performing identities, recording histories, establishing relational politics, and inviting self and communal transformation. Interrogating the art form's colonial past, I suggest that capoeira has the potential to teach anti-oppression practices and to serve as a locus of coalition building across multiple lines of difference.