Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Adriana Varejão : Cutting through layers of Brazilian History

2013; UMR ESPACE et UMR LISST; Volume: 5; Linguagem: Inglês

10.4000/artelogie.5796

2115-6395

Alice Heeren,

Historical and Scientific Studies

In the Entrance Figure series, one of the first major works of Brazilian contemporary artist Adriana Varejão, the female body is the canvas in which the artist challenges the historical and artistic canon. It is where the oscillation between the noble savage – in the form of the maternal and domestic muse – and the cannibal – symbolized by the perverse, macabre flesh-eating native – converge and conflate. This article examines how Varejão questions of purity in the construction of a shared identity by using multiple iconographical references in her Entrance Figures. By highlighting the layered nature of the notion of Brazilianess, what Varejão proposes is that the construction of a modern national identity is a process that brings together disparate pasts and visions of the future.