1 a Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo 1st Bienn/al of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
A I Bienal Internacional de São Paulo representou um divisor de águas no cenário das artes plásticas no Brasil: até então a comunidade artística - e o público - vivia isolada dos grandes centros produtores de arte. O modernismo, cujos dois principais representantes eram Portinari e Di Cavalcanti, se por um lado ainda disputava o espaço com o academicismo, de outro mostrava sua face conservadora reagindo contra a entrada do abstracionis.m o, que no Brasil ocorreu no final dos anos 40.
The 1st Biennial was a watershed event in the Brazilian visual arts world: up to then the artistic community-and the public-had been isolated from the great art producing centers. Modemism, at that moment represented mainly by Portinari and Di Cavalcanti, was on the one hand still competing for space against academicism, while on the other reacting against the entry of abstractionism, which had reached Brazil during the 1940s. When the exhibition was opened on October 20, 1951, its character was in keeping with the time, one of growing "industrialism through substitution of imports, " demographic growth and the beginnings of
a cosmopolitan thinking which over a few decades A· criação do evento, em 20 de outubro de 1951, como escreveu o crítico Mário Pedrosa, seguiu as linhas gerais do espírito da época, isto é, uma crescente "industrialização através do meca.nismo de substituição das importações", o crescimento demográfico do país e o esboço de um pensamento cosmopolita que levaria o Brasil, num processo de algumas décadas, à condição de parceiro
was to make BrazlJ an indispensable partner to the great industrialized nations.
Sala Roger Chastel Foto Photo Fileg
"What were the effects and repercussions on the expansion of modem art in Brazil occasioned by the series of Biennials that followed the first one?" was the question posed by Mário Pedrosa in his article " A Biennial de cá para lá" ln 1970. "Most of ali, the São Paulo Biennial widened the horizons of Brazilian art. Created literally in the mold of the Venice Biennale, its first result was to break the enclosed circle in Which the art activities in Brazil had taken pia ce, removing them from a provincial isolation. It provided an intemational meeting in our land, while allowing the Brazilian artists and the public a direct Roger Chastel França France Namorados num Café Couple at a Cafe 1950/1951 97x161 cm Óleo sobre tela Oil on canvas Prêmio pintura Painting prize Coleção Colfection MAC/USP Foto Photo Romulo Fialdini
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contact with the 'newest' and most audacious work being produced in the world. "