Aesthetics of Hunger
Aesthetic of Hunger
Glauber Rocha
Leaving aside the type of informative introduction which characterizes discussions about Latin America, I prefer to situate the relation between our culture and civilized culture in term less reduced than those which characterize the European observer's analysis. While Latin America bemoans its general wretchedness, the foreign interlocutor cultivates a taste for this wretchedness not as a tragic symptom, but rather as simple formal information for his field of interest. Neither does the Latin convey his true wretchedness to civilized man nor does civilized man truly comprehend the Latin's wretchedness.
Here lies, basically, the situation of the arts in Brazil before the world: until now, only lies drawn up as truths (formal exoticisms that vulgarize social problems) have been conveyed in quantity, producing a series of errors not limited to Art, but that contaminate, above all, the terrain of politics. The European observer is only interested in artistic creation from the underdeveloped world to the extent that it satisfies his nostalgia for primitivism; and this primitivism is hybrid, dressed up as late legacies from the civilized world, misunderstood because imposed by colonialist conditioning.
Latin America is still a colony, and the only thing that differentiates yesterday's colonialism from today's is the colonizer's more perfect form as well as the subtle forms of those who assemble future blows on us.
The international problem of Latin America is still a case of a change of colonizers, given that any possible liberation will be a function of a new dependence for a long time to come.
This economic and political conditioning led us to philosophical emaciation and impotence which, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, produce first sterility and then hysteria.
Sterility: this is seen in the abundant work in our art where the author castrates himself through formal exercises that are still not in full
Glauber Rocha
Leaving aside the type of informative introduction which characterizes discussions about Latin America, I prefer to situate the relation between our culture and civilized culture in term less reduced than those which characterize the European observer's analysis. While Latin America bemoans its general wretchedness, the foreign interlocutor cultivates a taste for this wretchedness not as a tragic symptom, but rather as simple formal information for his field of interest. Neither does the Latin convey his true wretchedness to civilized man nor does civilized man truly comprehend the Latin's wretchedness.
Here lies, basically, the situation of the arts in Brazil before the world: until now, only lies drawn up as truths (formal exoticisms that vulgarize social problems) have been conveyed in quantity, producing a series of errors not limited to Art, but that contaminate, above all, the terrain of politics. The European observer is only interested in artistic creation from the underdeveloped world to the extent that it satisfies his nostalgia for primitivism; and this primitivism is hybrid, dressed up as late legacies from the civilized world, misunderstood because imposed by colonialist conditioning.
Latin America is still a colony, and the only thing that differentiates yesterday's colonialism from today's is the colonizer's more perfect form as well as the subtle forms of those who assemble future blows on us.
The international problem of Latin America is still a case of a change of colonizers, given that any possible liberation will be a function of a new dependence for a long time to come.
This economic and political conditioning led us to philosophical emaciation and impotence which, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, produce first sterility and then hysteria.
Sterility: this is seen in the abundant work in our art where the author castrates himself through formal exercises that are still not in full