The “Immersive” as a Model for Action in Artworks from the Brazilian Avant-Garde

Abstract

The concept of “immersive” gives us a practical direction to embodying the understanding of art works created by avant-garde Brazilian artists. Building upon Simone Osthoff’s seminal argument about the legacy of “interactivity” in works by Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, in this paper I suggest that the “immersive” presents a better model for encompassing the experience of works by artists like Antonio Dias and Anna Maria Maiolino, in their historical and material potencies. By looking at works of painting and photography by these artists, instead of installations or objects, we need to consider “immersion” beyond its technological capacity, activating, then, its parallel with Oswald de Andrade’s modernist concept of Anthropophagy, which was actualized by these artists in the 1960s and 70s, and continues to resonate with many of our current search for the decolonial.