In the 1980s, Brazilian art went through an important transformation. Traditional stylistic standards were questioned and gave way to new forms of creation. Unlike the previous generation that was fueled by a militant project, the artists who emerged in this decade focused on expanding modes of expression in connection with Brazil’s redemocratisation process. The political opening offered an environment with more creative freedom, in which diverse languages and references began to coexist.
The exhibition Como vai você, Geração 80? (How are you, 1980s Generation?), held at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1984, became a landmark for bringing together key figures from that generation for the first time. The exhibition displayed the plurality of artistic practices from that period and showed that the participants didn’t form a homogenous group, despite having a shared interest in painting, generally on a large scale. On the contrary, the artists developed distinct practices and procedures, employing gestures, colours, allegories, landscapes and overlays that broadened the expressive possibilities of the image.
The questioning of style as a fixed category also redefined these artists’ relationship to art history. Rather than being understood as a linear succession of movements, art history became a repertoire, open to interpretation and appropriation. Artists engaged with different visual traditions, such as the baroque, expressionism, pop art, mannerism and abstractionism, and incorporated elements from these languages into their works. Tradition no longer functioned as a model to be followed and transformed into material for creation.