Painters by profession: conditions of artistic production in Brazil in the 1980s

This article addresses the social conditions of artistic production within the Brazilian art field in the early 1980s, analyzing both the genesis of the controversial category “Geração 80” and the state of the field at that time. First, we reconstruct the emergence of this category in relation to the newcomers it classified, establishing contrasts between the positions-takings by the young artists associated with it and the modes of operation of those who had entered the field earlier. To avoid restricting ourselves to the national space, we also reconstruct the international circulation of the artistic trend of the period in Brazil, known a “return to painting”, which, in turn, took different forms due to the specificities of the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo art fields. We argue that the genesis and meaning of the “Geração 80” are products of this international circulation, which conditioned the positions-takings by artists and critics within the national space. Next, we analyze one of the structural changes in the field that made possible the beginning of the careers of the so-called Geração 80 artists, namely, the emergence of other new agents: contemporary art gallerists. These newcomers to the field contributed to the early insertion and success of the young artists who began their trajectories during the initial phase of the political and economic opening that would consolidate in the country over the course of the decade.

Keywords
Visual arts; Geração 80; Sociology of Art; Sociology of Culture