Abstract (Short paper)

Keywords: Suplemento Dominical do Jornal do Brasil, archive, documentation, neoconcretism, site-specificity, tactical media, Ferreira Gullar, Robert Smithson, Art Forum, graphic design.

This paper focuses on a Brazilian newspaper archive from the 1950s—the Suplemento Dominical do Jornal do Brasil—usually considered as the vehicle for the neoconcrete movement. It argues that the artists and poets working in this six-year publication increasingly engaged this media as a medium. It further raises methodology and historiography questions regarding the status of documents and digital archives. And, hopefully, it helps disrupt established narratives with fresh transnational histories crafted through comparisons between a couple of artworks published in this cultural supplement and related examples from the New York based Art Forum magazine in the 1960s and 70s.

• Simone Osthofff is a professor of art and critical studies in the School of Visual Arts at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. A Brazilian-born artist and scholar, her research on contemporary art, theory, and criticism focuses on experimental art practices and postcolonial histories. She is part of the editorial board of the Flusser Studies journal and a frequent presenter in national and international symposia. Osthoff’s numerous book chapters, essays, and reviews have been published internationally. She is the author of Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Documents to Art Medium.

Full Text (PDF)  p. 225-227