O ritual como paradigma no processo e na criação plástica: um estudo comparativo entre a produção artística de Armando Reverón (Venezuela, 18891954) e Arthur Bispo do Rosário (Brasil, 1909-1989)

Abstract

Studying the ritual as a paradigm in the process and in the plastic creation through a comparative study involving the artistic productions of Armando Reverón and Arthur Bispo do Rosário have brought about several challenges, among which carrying out a selection ofconcepts of myth and ritual, both of them vast in the field of Anthropology, and put them vis-à-vis their conceptual counterparts in the sphere of Plastic Arts. Talking about ritual in the artistic production of these artists is talking about their mytho-poetics, their performances,their works fictionalized and materialized. Thus, this work approaches the concept of ritual from the standpoint of the religions that have a connection with the myth, using as a theoretical reference the studies developed by Mircea Eliade. From a broad perspective to theconstruction of these concepts, other theoretical references were also employed: from Anthropology, Martine Segalen and her historical panorama of the concept of ritual; Stanley Tambiah, with the definition that relates ritual and performance; Emile Durkheim, with thepositive and negative rites; and Arnold Van Gennep and the rite of passage. In turn, from the standpoint of ritual art, which comes from the Fine Arts, important researches were carried out by Lucy Lippard and Claude Lévi-Strauss, with their conceptual transfers betweenAnthropology, Literature and other arts.The methodology used in this work was the comparative analysis. We started off from a survey of the situation of the researches both in the academic and in the critical contexts, and then brought in the two artists, relating them to the History of Art in the timeframe each one of them is inserted. The fundamental concepts to the work were approached, and we have carried out a comparative exegesis of their works, the latter being understood as mythopoetics, the built-up and fictionilized space, the artistic and ritual procedures followed and the embodiment of the materials. For Reveróns materialized work we selected a group of ragdolls, the objects, the white works and the figurative works that demanded previous arrangements in their execution. From Bispo were selected the ORFAs and the assemblages or vitrines.Some concepts were detected in these groups of works, for instance: tridimensonality, which puts side by side ritual and materialization, according to Donald Judds proposition, applied to artists from the 1960s; aura, from Walter Benjamins and George Didi-Hubermans concepts;simulacrum and similitude, using the references put forward by Mario Perniola; and double articulation, based on the studies carried out by Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the analysis of other artists works. Finally, we have given special attention to the works La Mantilla, by Reverón,and Manto da Apresentação, by Bispo. This research is hoped to contribute to the specialized studies that focus on the works of these two artists who are of great importance in the context of South American Plastic Arts, and in the field of Fine Arts as a whole.