Marcel Gautherot: photography and the modern nation

• Grant number: 14/14737-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: September 01, 2014
• End date: January 04, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Samuel de Vasconcelos Titan Junior
• Grantee: Samuel de Vasconcelos Titan Junior
• Host Investigator: Jacques Leenhardt
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France

Abstract

This project is a study of the photographic oeuvre of the French-Brazilian Marcel Gautherot (1910-1996) both in the context of the Modernist longue durée he took part in and in the more circumscribed context of the rise of modern photography in Brazil. When he first set foot in his new country, in mid-1939, Gautherot brought with him a solid aesthetic education in a markedly Modernist vein, under the aegis of larger-than-life figures such as Le Corbusier and Van der Rohe. In the following thirty years, Gautherot came to be one of the main actors in the establishment of a modern photographic language in Brazil; however, his work cannot be understood simply in terms of a transposition of an European formal matrix into a new context. Working in constant dialogue with major representatives of Brazilian modernism in the arts (ranging from Drummond and Bandeira to Burle-Marx and Niemeyer), collaborating with institutions such as Iphan or Novacap, travelling extensively through the country with a deep interest in natural landscapes and popular culture, Gautherot eventually came to a formal synthesis all his own, one that seeks to fuse documentary work and symbolic aspirations, international sources and local experiences, tradition and modernity, modernist dreams and popular traditions. This project tries to examine some of the main aspects in this complex synthesis, both through documentary research and formal, immanent analysis of chosen works by Gautherot and by some of his French and Brazilian contemporaries. (AU)