Pau Brasil. Je vindt niet wat je zoekt

In part two, made by Jef Cornelis and Chris Dercon, an attempt is made to penetrate five hundred years of Brazilian culture. What are they looking for and what are we looking for?’You won’t find what you’re looking for’ is a maxim which can be found on a work by the Brazilian artist Cilde Mereiles. Mereiles and countless other Brazilian contemporary artists continually express the tension which is Brazilian culture. Because how does one describe the cultural identity of a country like Brazil, where that cultural identity is a mixture of the most varied cultures more than anywhere else in the world?In the twenties, countless intellectuals and artists mused on this question. Such as the movement of artists, writers, musicians and film-makers mainly from Rio de Janeiro, who called themselves ‘Tropicalists’. In the same period Sao Paulo grew to be the largest and most impressive metropolis on the continent of Latin America. Since the mid-eighties a group of young artists has emerged in this city who want to rise above the sentimentality of the Tropicalist movement. The work of e.g. Jac Leirner is unmistakeably an expression of the confrontation between the so-called international art from the major art centres and art made on the fringe.