Art Systems

Rich in insightful historical details, Art Systems is an extremely valuable tool for researchers interested not only in the cultural politics of the 1970s but also in how the discourses and debates of this period constitute the roots of the current crisis and the artistic responses it has elicited. ~Journal of Latin American Studies

Art Systems is a brilliantly lucid, well-written reading of major and minor artists from the [1970s] and will be of interest to scholars of global conceptualism, political art, contemporary art, Brazilian studies, and Latin American studies. The breadth and range of its analysis is impressive. ~Latin American & Latinx Visual Culture

A laserfocused accounting of how a handful of Brazilian artists used popular systems to expose and interrogate government actions. [Art Systems] is one of those rare books that, although a recent publication, has made such an impact on the study of Brazilian art that it feels like a canonical text. ~Latin American Research Review

In prose that is engaging and clear, Elena Shtromberg proposes a novel approach to the study of Brazilian conceptual art during the 1970s, the most repressive period of military rule. By analyzing works in relation to larger systems of communication, she sheds light on vast realms of social life in Brazil during a phase of authoritarian modernization. While Art Systems explores works that explicitly expressed dissent, it also reveals more subtle forms of critique that effectively reimagined the terrain of political intervention through artistic practice. ~Christopher Dunn, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Tulane University, and author of Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture

An engaging, creatively organized text, Art Systems offers thoughtful and amply researched historical contextualization of a generation’s philosophical and aesthetic motivations. ~Claire F. Fox, Professor of English/Spanish and Portuguese, University of Iowa, and author of Making Art Panamerican: Cultural Policy and the Cold War