2025 ISLAA Plataforma Forum Keynote: Dr. Claudia Mattos Avolese

In 2023 the Brazilian Indigenous artist Denilson Baniwa was invited to create an artwork for the Octogono in the São Paulo Pinacoteca, one of the most prestigious art spaces for the arts in the city. Instead of a traditional art piece, he proposed to build a three-story high metal structure designed to host a series of community-based activities, spanning from Baniwa and Guarani language classes, to indigenous music and performances. As the structure was occupied, two colorful wings slowly spread out at each side to create the image of a gigantic butterfly, or Panapaná in Guarani. The work was titled Escola Panapaná, or Butterfly School. Denilson Baniwa is not alone in his recent engagement with community. Other Indigenous artists who entered the Brazilian art scene in the last few decades, such as Daiara Tukano, Jaider Esbell, Gustavo Caboco Wapishana, Gliceria Tupinambá, are equally reflecting on how to navigate the contemporary art world, while also building and maintaining meaningful relationship to their original communities. For most of these artists, community has become a major concern and an integral part of their work. This paper will look at some examples of why and how contemporary Indigenous artists in Brazil are focusing on community -based practices and offer some remarks on the challenges that this poses to Art History.

A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Claudia Mattos Avolese obtained her PhD in art history from the Free University in Berlin, Germany, and was an associate fellow at the Courtauld Institute in London for a year. In 2003 she became a professor for the history of art at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), in Brazil, where she taught visual culture and art history until moving to the United States in 2019. She was a visiting professor at Harvard University in 2017 and became a Senior Lecturer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University in 2021. Dr. Mattos Avolese continues to collaborate with the Graduate Program in Art History and Visual Studies at UNICAMP, through a Getty Connecting Art Histories Grant. Her principal areas of interest are visual culture in Brazil, indigenous art, material culture, global art history and theory. Her recent research focuses on indigenous arts in Brazil, the imaginary of the forest and ecology. She has published widely on global exchanges in the 19th century, including scientific expeditions by explorers to Brazil, and the creation and development of art academies in South America. Additionally, she has published on connections between German art theory and 19th century visual culture in Brazil, and on the history of art history with special focus on Winckelmann and Aby Warburg. Her scholarly work has appeared in many peer review journals including, The Art Bulletin, Perspective, Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, and the Journal of Art Historiography. Claudia Mattos Avolese was president of the Brazilian National Art History Committee (2013-2016) and is member of the directory board of the International Art History Committee (CIHA)

The Plataforma Keynote Lecture is generously supported by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) and is part of The ISLAA Forum: Latin American and Latinx Art Pre-Dissertation Plataforma, an annual event that provides support to CUNY Graduate Center doctoral students of Latin American and Latinx art and visual culture for the development of research projects and fosters an international network of scholars throughout the Americas.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, United States