Four years later, Brazilians would march again, this time in the opposite direction, and with bodies less burdened by the weight of the cross and gold. In 1968, 100,000 demonstrators occupied the streets of Rio carrying signs of Abaixo a Ditadura (Down with the Dictatorship), and contaminating the walls and the spirit of the city with other colourful slogans such as Power to the People, and, suggestively, Power to the Imagination. Such slogans did not differ so radically in form and content from Hélio Oiticica’s banner commanding Seja Marginal Seja Her?i (Be an Outcast Be a Hero). And to be an artist at that time - or ever - in Brazil, did not differ so radically from being an outcast; and to succeed as an artist, from being a hero.

The artists’ responses to political repression and oppression were of two kinds: some turned their attention to the manifestations and the repertoire of popular culture, by approaching the CPCs: Cultural Popular Centres, organised by the Students’ National Union. Others also turned art into an instrument of resistance, but still believing in and without renouncing the critical potential of erudition. The transition from the 60s to the 70s is marked by this turning point, and by this choice between turning aesthetics into politics and politics into aesthetics.

This paper will focus on four artists who have chosen the latter alternative. Without pretending to be a documentary paper, this is a commentary - and an exercise of personal interpretation - on artists who represent this transition, working specifically in Rio de Janeiro, and on some of their works in particular.


Carlos Zilio

If, around 1968, to be an outcast was a necessary condition for any Brazilian artist, and to become a hero one of its possible risks, Carlos Zilio took both. By adopting the most radical form of political militancy and embracing armed resistance, Zilio’s political practice cannot be isolated from his artistic practice. Speaking in 1996 about his actions of urban guerrilla, the artist declared:

I used to see those actions as something aesthetic, not something related to beauty proper, but to the absolute; as if they were a kind of installation, or a performance, something capable of changing and transforming reality, in a conception of aesthetics as a means to transformation.

Marmita (1967), is one of Zilio’s last works before he interrupted his artistic practice to join political militancy - or his unconventional new form of artistic practice. A marmita is a small tin box used by workers for carrying food. Carlos Zilio’s Marmita does not carry food, and contains instead a faceless human mask with the word LUTE (FIGHT) printed in place of the mouth. Marmita is a pamphlet-work, and perhaps the artist’s ultimate effort to connect art and politics, say, in a conventional way, as it marks the artist’s discredit in the efficacy of the formalised artwork as an instrument of resistance. In 1970, Zilio was seriously wounded - he was shot - and arrested by the police, only to be released in 1972.