Never-before Imagined Futures: Legitimacy and Blackness in Contemporary Brazilian Art

This presentation aims to reflect on the processes of legitimising Black artists in the field of contemporary Brazilian art, analysing how issues of race and Blackness impact artistic trajectories and access to established institutions, such as galleries, museums, and prestigious exhibitions. Drawing from the sociology of ethnic-racial relations intertwined with the sociology of art, the research investigates how Black artists have challenged exclusionary structures and built spaces of recognition within a universe historically marked by the marginalisation of their works.

The research employs qualitative methodologies, including interviews with artists, analysis of catalogues and exhibition records, as well as a mapping of institutional policies that either promote or restrict the inclusion of Afro-Brazilian narratives in the contemporary art circuit. Special attention is given to the strategies developed by the artists to assert their identities and insert their works into a system that frequently perpetuates colonial dynamics of invisibility and silencing.

The presentation will also explore the fine line between Afropessimism and Black optimism, discussing how, despite historical difficulties and symbolic violence, Black artists have been creating futures previously unimagined, where their subjectivities and aesthetics are legitimised and valued. By focusing on life after the death of slavery and ownership, the presentation questions how art can serve as a transformative social space, capable of opening up new understandings of Blackness, resistance, and agency in contemporary Brazil.

Thus, the objective is to contribute to the debate on how the field of art, far from being neutral, reflects and reproduces structural inequalities, while simultaneously offering a space for struggle and emancipatory possibilities.