CEU eTD Collection (2025); Farah Nassif de Moraes, Maria Carolina: City, Participation, Experience: Art in Public Spaces During the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1968-1982)

CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
Author Farah Nassif de Moraes, Maria Carolina
Title City, Participation, Experience: Art in Public Spaces During the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1968-1982)
Summary This master's thesis explores artistic production in public spaces in Brazil during the military dictatorship, between 1968 and 1982. To achieve this, the research examines three case studies, addressing the curatorial and critical production of Frederico Morais (b. 1936), the artistic and pedagogical work of Anna Bella Geiger (b. 1933), and the urban interventions of the artist collective 3NÓS3 (1979-1982).
The research posits that this shift in Brazilian art towards public space stemmed from a two-fold dynamic: it is both a reflection of the renewal of strategies for the production and circulation of artworks existent in Brazil from the late 1960s onwards, as well as a direct response to the country's political scenario, given the military regime's intense curtailment of cultural production.
Thus, this thesis seeks to assess the implications of conceptualizing and producing art as a public practice under authoritarian rule. It argues that it was the very public nature of the artistic projects by Frederico Morais, Anna Bella Geiger and 3NÓS3 that enabled them to challenge the military dictatorship, as they engendered and materialized spaces of freedom, artistic experimentation, contestation and political action, coexisting with and resisting authoritarianism.
Supervisor Brito Alves, Margarida
Department Historical Studies MA
Full texthttps://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/farah-nassif_maria.pdf

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