Of Adversity We Live: Hélio Oiticica, Decolonized Avant-Garde and Global Art

Miguel de Ávila Duarte

doi:10.25038/am.v0i26.468

Authors

Miguel de Ávila Duarte

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.468

Keywords:

Hélio Oiticica, global art, decolonial avant-garde

Abstract

This article discusses the works and writings of Brazilian visual artist Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980) as a way to rethink the notions of global art, especially through the lens of the artist’s unique vision of a decolonial avant-garde, against the background of Arthur Danto’s and Hans Belting’s theories concerning the end of art history. Oiticica's entire work is set against the double trap that haunts artists in the geopolitical silent zones of the art world: submission to the international art trends, at risk of becoming mere epigones following the footsteps of what is current in the art world’s centers, or the equally melancholic condemnation to a nativist art that doesn’t transcend it’s local status and can only come in to the international spotlight as the object of some form of “white savior” primitivism.

Article received: April 23, 2021; Article accepted: June 23, 2021; Published online: October 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper

How to cite this article: de Ávila Duarte, Miguel. "Of Adversity We Live: Hélio Oiticica, Decolonized Avant-Garde and Global Art." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 26 (October 2021): 41-52. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i26.468

Author Biography

Miguel de Ávila Duarte

Biblioteca SQN, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Brazil

Miguel de Ávila Duarte (1983), born in Belo Horizonte. Bachelor’s degree in history, Msc and PhD in literary studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Taught at Federal University of Ouro Preto, from 2018 up to 2020. Poet, musician, editor and independent researcher.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.468 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.468