Art, architecture and diplomacy: Itamaraty's actions abroad since the 1940s

• Grant number: 22/09903-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2022
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Ana Lucia Duarte Lanna
• Grantee: Leandro Leão Alves
• Supervisor: Monica Raisa Schpun
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/04534-3 - Public and private agents in the fields of modern art and architecture: Rio-São Paulo + Brasília (1950s-1980s), BP.DR

Abstract

From the second half of the 1940s, Brazil's international policy underwent major changes. At the national level, this period will be marked by the end of the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship and related to it in a global panorama, the end of the Second World War. In the same period, international policies were restructured, with the institutional reform of chancelleries in a global context that began in the post-war period, due to aspects such as the creation of the United Nations. In Brazil, one of these redirections is the beginning of a modern national image construction projected abroad. From this period onwards, the development of an art system on the Rio-São Paulo axis, centered above all on modern art museums and on the International Biennale and the construction of Brasília, were cultural landmarks. The doctoral project related to this one proposes to investigate the intersection between these two historical events that are not historically connected. There is as a confluence of these landmarks the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as outstanding agents the couple Wladimir and Tuni Murtinho. This related BEPE project proposes to deepen the ongoing research, seeking primary sources and bibliographies abroad, especially for the exhibitions promoted by Itamaraty from the 1940s onwards. Thus, we intend to analyze the intersection between two historical events that, at first sight and according to the canon, are not connected: the construction of Brasília and the arts system on the Rio-São Paulo axis. This panorama also has as its nodal point the dialogues, exhibitions and legitimation of artists and architects on foreign soil by cultural diplomacy, object of this BEPE project. It is the foreign face that interests us here. (AU)