CLARA IANNI is a visual artist with a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from the University of São Paulo (2010) and a master’s degree in visual and media anthropology from Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany (2013). Her work investigates the relationships between art, politics and ideology and their historical implications, with frequent reflections on the contradictions of the Brazilian modernization process. Moving between video, installation, object and site-specific, she challenges historical hegemonic discourses, exploring their invisibility zones. She took part in the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014) and Istanbul (2011), besides the exhibitions Utopia/Distopia, MAAT, Lisbon (2017); Talking to Action, LA/LA, USA (2017); and the 33rd Panorama de Arte Brasileira [Panorama of Brazilian Art], MAM, São Paulo (2013), among others.
The work DO FIGURATIVISMO AO ABSTRACIONISMO (2017) explores the relationship between art and politics by investigating the dynamics between the institutionalization of Brazilian modern art and the colonial past. Based on images of artworks displayed at the opening exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo in 1949, it revisits the role of abstractionism during the Cold War as a means of political and ideological contest. Combining letters to MAM-SP with spying reports on Latin America –both by Nelson Rockefeller –and images of artworks of the museum’s first exhibition, it explores the role of modernization as a mechanism to preserve relationships of subordination and dependence.
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