Arte e política: A consolidação da arte como agente na esfera pública1

Abstract

This article aims to discuss recent movements, forged in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, that build a narrative in which art performances and installations appear both in and out of art institutions as forms of political action, developing growing processes of artification of the public sphere and the politicization of art. We argue that, perhaps, the failure of the avant-garde project in merging art and life, as discussed by Peter Bürger, can still have further developments. More than institutional critique, the new phenomenon encompasses politics as a third term that enables art to play a new role in the political arena. Artistic actions are being incorporated by militants in the streets and political acts are being appropriated by museum institutions. Thus, our hypothesis is that June 2013 marks the start of a transformational movement in Brazil: artistic experience as political element.