Interview with Marcos Carvalho-Canto,
architect in charge of documentary studies at the 20th Century Architecture Archives Center of the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine.
IESA arts&culture and its Latin America department and the Maison de l’Amérique latine present the L’Œil pense lecture cycle.
The lecture cycle continues for its second year. It is still an exploration of Latin American art in the 20th and 21st centuries. A stroll, following current events, through this very rich scene, highlighting the great moments that have made art history and that weave the one now in progress. It is of course illusory to think or see everything. That is why it is fitting to joyfully adopt as a motto the lines of Octavio Paz: The eye thinks / thought sees / the gaze touches, for it is indeed by exalting the senses and blurring the lines that one sees further… closer! Artists, curators, art historians, art critics, gallery owners, and collectors, all bringing diverse perspectives, will join these gatherings throughout the year to present, discuss, analyze, and testify.
This lecture retraces the highlights of a quest: that of a national architecture in Brazil. From the Portuguese Baroque sublimated by Antonio Francisco Lisboa to the Neoclassicism acclimatized by Grandjean de Montigny and the "French Mission," through to the feverish contributions of a 20th century hungry for Novelty, the question of assimilating the Western heritage will be raised. Thus, like the cannibal tribes of these distant lands who, after battle, celebrated victory by eating the enemy’s body in order to commune with his strength, it is the mystery of colonial expansion that seems to be revealed.
