From Publishers Weekly
For some years, New York's Guggenheim Museum, whether exhibiting Harley Davidsons or opening a branch gallery in Las Vegas, has valued glitz and glitter, and its major new show about the country of Carnaval seems a good fit. Sullivan (Painting in Spain, 1650-1700) is chairman of NYU's Department of Fine Arts and one of the curators of the show, which after a run in Manhattan this fall and winter will travel to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Divided among large-scale sections like "Baroque Brazil," "Afro-Brazilian Culture," "Modern Brazil" and "Contemporary Brazil," the stars of the show of this massive catalogue are the more than 350 full-page illustrations, brilliantly reproduced. Among the highlights is a riotous painting of dancing, stunningly disrobed Tapuya Indians by the 17th-century Dutch painter Albert Eckhout. An anonymous 18th-century polychromed and gilded wood Saint Elesbao is an astonishing example of the so-called "black saints." Most of the modernist work disappoints, but other 20th-century practitioners like concretist Halio Oiticica and the embroidery artist Arthur Bispo Do Rosario are real finds. In general, the essays from various scholars stick to the theme of combined sensual and religious aspects, the "body and soul" of the subtitle an overfamiliar way of categorizing the country, its people and its art, and less than enlightening on subjects like architecture and cinema. Still, the images convey more than enough of their ostensible subject, and will be difficult for readers to exhaust. (Jan.) Forecast: This thick book's attractively modish orange cover may draw in browsers, but the price tag will deter many of them from making it to the register. Still, the Guggenheim, which recently announced layoffs that could reach a reported 40% of its staff, should generate adequate museum shop sales as tourism picks up in New York, and later in Bilbao.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Published to coincide with the New York Guggenheim's exhibition of the same name, which runs through January 2002 before moving to Bilbao, this exhaustive catalog is as extravagant as the show itself. This is the first time that the Guggenheim has devoted an entire exhibition to the art of a single Latin American country. Because of Brazil's geographical size and complex multiracial and multicultural heritage (which includes indigenous, African, and both Portuguese and Dutch components), the terrain covered by the show is a parade of explosive and varied influences. Body and Soul concentrates on two principal areas of Brazil's art history: the 16th-18th centuries' heavily Portuguese-influenced Baroque period and the 20th-century period of self-reflection and hybrid reinvention, coined as antropofagia ("cannibalism") in the 1920s by Brazilian intellectuals Oswald de Andrade and Tarsila do Amaral. Within these categories, the book also includes a look at 20th-century Afro-Brazilian art, the contemporary environmental sculpture of Ernesto Neto, cinema, and architecture. Sullivan (fine arts, New York Univ.) features several analytical essays by the likes of Robert Stam, Emanoel Ara#jo, and Cristina Avila that attempt to untangle the mystery of the creation of Brazil's national identity. Ranging from the oil portraits of semiclothed natives in proper European poses painted by Dutch artist Albert Eckhout in 1641 to intricately carved, handpainted wood oratories, or altars, to Afro-Brazilian religion-inspired wood replicas of saints, these works express the earthly and spiritual essence of Brazil's kaleidoscopic imagination. Highly recommended for all art collections. Adriana Lopez, "Cr!ticas"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.