Action / Participation

Abstract

Since the 1960s, Brazilian art is characterized by a significant presence of practices which try to establish a singularizing aesthetic relationship with the public. From Neoconcretism until today, “participation” has become a genre that has not lost its mythical motivating force. The participative artistic action continues to be thought of as a tactics of renovation of the sensitive experience. Some founding texts of the 1960s, in particular those of Hélio Oiticica, define its content. They arouse even today powerful echo. But the boundary between the original strength and the wear is tenuous. A movie as the one that Lucy Walker dedicated 2010 to the work of Vik Muniz, Waste Land, demonstrates how it is possible to use of the patent of participation, led on an unprecedented scale, to attend some ambiguous purposes which confirm in particular the magic and hyper-representative power of the artist just when it pretends to dissolve in the sharing of the action. The cultural presence and the duration of this ideal represent a structuring strength, a production apparatus which confirms the peculiarity of the aesthetic thought when this one articulates ethical aims and bodily technics.

Keywords

• représentation
• image
• art brésilien
• (néo)concrétisme
• participation
• artiste (mythe de l’)