The Artist's Body Takes Art to the Street: Paulo Bruscky's Performances and Political Activism in Times of Military Dictatorship

Abstract

The objective of this text is to reflect on conceptualist practices, focusing on the production of the Pernambuco artist Paulo Bruscky (1949), produced between the 1970s, the period of the feared “Years of Lead”, and the following decade, when the death throes of power have undergone relaxation. With conviction and determination, the artist developed an experimental and transgressive creative process, with a strong political bias, with the aim of challenging and ironizing the military regime. Bruscky produced an art of resistance, at a time when very few showed such daring; He acted as an “artivist”, at a time when this term was practically unknown and the expression “Southern conceptualism” had not yet acquired its current meaning. However, only in the last two decades has the artist's production gained recognition and visibility on the international circuit.