Crossovers between Word and Image in Three Moments of Brazilian Art

Abstract

This article approaches the intersection between word and visuality in three moments of Brazilian art: Concretism, Neo-Concretism, and New Brazilian Objectivity. From a first moment in which the identity between word and image is pursued in a predominantly optic way, a second occurs in which the word is admitted in its symbolic dimension and identified with space, becoming haptic. At a third moment, these instances maintain their differences, establishing a relation of metonymic contiguity that mobilizes the context in which they are inscribed. The hypothesis here formulated is that a shift in the semantic-visual relation paradigm takes place, having as a point of inflection a theoretical text by Hélio Oiticica from 1967 and his concept of “semantic participation”.