Dossiê 2026.2: Geopolíticas institucionais: redes artísticas e intelectuais no pós-guerra

Institutional Geopolitics: Artistic and Intellectual Networks in the Postwar Period

Thematic Scope
This thematic dossier aims to bring together reflections and analyses on international visual arts exhibitions that circulated in Brazil and other South American countries in the postwar period, or that were organized in the region. The focus lies on the artworks presented, the awards granted and controversies generated, as well as the institutional, diplomatic, and aesthetic-political connections involved in the organization and circulation of these exhibitions, understood as privileged devices for examining the articulations between art, power, and geopolitics.

We are interested in exploring how local, national, and transnational networks of agents, artworks, and institutions were formed through these exhibitions, revealing discursive strategies, aesthetic affinities, and tensions between symbolic representation, cultural visibility, and international diplomacy. What associations, clashes, and disputes emerged from these exhibitions, in which diverse interests overlapped? What role did private patronage and governmental organizations play within this ecosystem? How can the study of these exhibitions contribute to understanding changes in the power structure of the art world and the ways in which arts and culture function as privileged spaces for the construction of positive and assertive images of nations?

We invite scholars working in the fields of art history, exhibition criticism, cultural diplomacy, and the international relations of art to submit articles that discuss the multiple dimensions of these events: their aesthetic impacts, their conditions of production and circulation, their effects on criticism, historiography, and the canon, as well as the ways in which they project or challenge national imaginaries on the global stage.

Accordingly, this dossier is interested in the following themes:
• Cultural diplomacy and international exhibitions: agents, strategies, and national symbols;
• History and criticism of exhibitions and their local, national, and/or transnational articulations;
• Exhibitions as discursive strategies and politics of representation;
• The formation and circulation of networks of artists, curators, critics, and cultural institutions;
• The echoes and repercussions of traveling exhibitions in the art world: criticism, historiography, and artistic practices;
• New frontiers shaped by the circulation of exhibitions and artistic objects in the postwar period;
• The exhaustion and reinvention of universal, biennial, and seasonal exhibition formats;
• National representations and stereotypes in international art and culture exhibitions;
• The role of exhibitions in the consolidation and contestation of the artistic canon;
• Intersectional approaches to gender, class, and race in art and culture exhibitions;
• Connections between aesthetic values and geopolitical issues in international art circuits.

Objectives of the Dossier
• To map international visual arts exhibitions that circulated in Brazil and South America in the postwar period, identifying their institutional articulations and production networks;
• To stimulate interdisciplinary debate on exhibitions as devices of cultural, diplomatic, and political mediation;
• To foster the circulation of research dedicated to exhibition history, institutional critique, and cultural diplomacy as interpretive frameworks for the visual arts;
• To bring visibility to studies that reveal how these exhibitions and the artworks displayed therein shape the canon, symbolic circulation, and the construction of national and international imaginaries;
• To contribute to the theoretical and methodological advancement of art research by addressing historical or overlooked exhibitions through geopolitical and intersectional approaches.

Target Audience
This dossier is aimed at scholars who hold a PhD or are PhD candidates (in co-authorship with PhD holders) in the fields of Arts, Art History, Exhibition History, Museology, Cultural Studies, and the International Relations of Art, whose work approaches exhibitions as aesthetic-political phenomena and as spaces for symbolic circulation, network building, and the negotiation of cultural values.

Deadlines:
• Article submission: from June 15, 2026 to August 15, 2026;
• Publication: scheduled for the second half of 2026.

Submission Information:
Articles must be submitted through the journal’s online submission system, in accordance with the formatting and style guidelines available on the journal’s website (https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/nava/about/submissions).

Bibliographical References:

ALTSHULER, Bruce. Biennials and beyond: exhibitions that made art history, 1962-2002. London; New York: Phaidon, 2013.

AMARANTE, Leonor. As Bienais de São Paulo: 1951 a 1987. São Paulo: Projeto, 1989.

BARREIRO LÓPEZ, Paula (org.). Atlántico frío: historias transnacionales del arte y la política en los tiempos del telón de acero. Madrid: Brumaria, 2019.

BULHÕES, Maria Amélia (org.). As novas regras do jogo: o sistema de arte no Brasil. Porto Alegre: Zouk, 2014.

CAVALCANTI, Ana et al. Histórias da arte em exposições: modos de ver e de exibir no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Books, 2016.

COUTO, Maria de Fátima M. A Bienal de São Paulo e a América Latina: trânsito e tensões (anos 1950 e 60). Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp, 2023.

COUTO, Maria de Fátima M.; MALTA, Marize; OLIVEIRA, Emerson D. G. Histórias da arte em museus. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Books, 2020.

FOX, Claire F. Making art Panamerican: cultural policy and the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

GIUNTA, Andrea. Vanguardia, internacionalismo y política: arte argentino en los años sesenta. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2004.

GLICENSTEIN, Jérôme. L’art: une histoire d’expositions. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009.

GLICENSTEIN, Jérôme. L’invention du curateur: mutations dans l’art contemporain. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2015.

GREEN, Charles; GARDNER, Anthony. Biennials of the South on the edges of the global. Third Text, v. 27, n. 4, 2013, p. 442-455.

GREEN, Charles; GARDNER, Anthony. Biennials, triennials, and documenta: the exhibitions that created contemporary art. Chichester; Oxford; Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.

GREENBERG, Reesa; FERGUSON, Bruce W.; NAIRNE, Sandy (orgs.). Thinking about exhibitions. London; New York: Routledge, 2003.

JAREMTCHUK, Dária. Políticas de atração: relações culturais entre Estados Unidos e Brasil (1960-1970). São Paulo: UNESP; FAPESP, 2023.

MADEIRA FILHO, Acir Pimenta. Instituto de cultura como instrumento de diplomacia. Brasília: FUNAG, 2016.

MYADA, Paulo. Bienal de São Paulo desde 1951. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 2022.

MYERS, Julian. On the value of a history of exhibitions. The Exhibitionist, n. 4, 2011, p. 24-28.

SANT’ANNA, Sabrina M. P. Construindo a memória do futuro: uma análise da fundação do Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: FGV Editora, 2011.

ZAGO, Renata (org.). História(s) de exposições: perspectivas e trajetórias. Juiz de Fora: Ed. UFJF, 2021.