Tatiane de Oliveira Elias: Urban Spaces in Brazilian Contemporary Art

Her current research, ‘Urban Spaces in Brazilian Contemporary Art,’ focuses on Brazilian artists that used public spaces to bring art to areas outside of museums and galleries, using streets, slums, and landfills. Many Brazilian artists were interested in urban spaces during the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1980). They were inspired by the guerillas, and brought arts to the streets. Moreover, they were committed to radical experiences in their works, and used the body as an important element of art. Exhibits and events became spaces for discussion among artists who proposed new forms of art. The era of military dictatorship was important for Brazilian experimentalism and opened the way for contemporary artists to use public space to disseminate their art.

After the military dictatorship, contemporary Brazilian artists continued to use spaces considered as peripheral to create their work. Brazilian artists are promoting art, and also transmitting a political and social message, playing an important role in art more geared towards the social.

Tatiane de Oliveira Elias is a post-doctoral fellow at Porto University, Portugal. In 2016, she was a teaching assistant at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She taught introductory and upper-level courses in Art History and Museum Studies. She is currently teaching Brazilian Art, Art Theory and Global/Local and Transcultural Art at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) in Brazil. Her research interests are contemporary Brazilian Art, Global Art, Latin American Art, Women’s Art, Queer Art, Art and Politics, Art and Diversity, Urban Spaces and Films. From 2004 to 2008, she studied Art History at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In 2008, she studied abroad at the Venice International University (VIU). In 2003, she received her MA in Art History from the University of Campinas, Brazil. She earned her PhD (2016) in Art History at the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart, Germany. She has written articles on Brazilian Art and Brazilian Films.