Paulo Bruscky
Paulo Bruscky was born in 1949 in Recife, Brazil where he lives and works. A pioneer of mail art in Brazil in the 1960s, he held his first mail art exhibition in 1976, which was shut down by the police. In the 1970s he was associated with Fluxus and influenced by the work of avant-garde artists such as Marcel Duchamp and John Cage.
Highly experimental, innovative and controversial, Bruscky's work reflects a simultaneous engagement with the local artistic framework of his hometown of Recife and a global network, which he documents through performance, mail art, poetry, photography, collage and film. For years he worked at the Agamenon Magalhães Hospital in Recife, where he used the basic resources available to him - printer paper, photocopiers, blueprint machines, envelopes and stamps - to continue making art while earning a living.
Combining visual and literary language, Bruscky voices a humorous, yet critical commentary on local and international culture and politics; a response to a lifetime of political repression experienced while living under Brazil's military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, where he was imprisoned several times and threatened with 'disappearance'.
Today, Bruscky remains one of Brazil's most influential contemporary artists. He has been included in the São Paulo Biennial four times (1981, 1989, 2004 and 2010) and in the 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2009). His work is included in the collections of MoMA; Guggenheim Museum; Tate Gallery; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; Stedelijk Museum, among others. [1]
- Publications
- "Paulo Bruscky by Antonio Sergio Bessa", BOMB, Oct 2013. Interview.
- Links
