“Hileia Amazônica” at MASP: Observation on Art and Ecology in the 1970s in Brazil

As in the United States, the 1970s in Brazil saw the emergence of environmental activism in the realm of the art. However, if in the US artists mobilized against the expansion of consumer society and related disasters, such as the “Big Spill” in Santa Barbara or the use of DDT, in Brazil environmental consciousness rose among artists as part of their resistance to the Military Regime. During the dictatorship period, the Military pushed forward a developmentalist agenda that included monumental projects such as the Transamazônica road, the Carajás mining, and the construction of hydroelectric and atomic power plants. These projects, implemented in an authoritarian manner, produced serious ecological disasters, impacting Indigenous communities in particular. Many artists reacted to these undertakings, using their art to protest against official government policy. The present paper will examine the exhibition “Hileia Amazônica,” shown in 1972 at the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP), as a crucial moment in the emergence of environmental discourses in the arts of the 1970s in Brazil. It will consider the exhibition as a deliberate act of resistance against the implementation of the Transamazônia road by the military government (initiated in 1970), discussing the curatorial principles that guided the show. It will also look closely at a series of photographs by Claudia Andujar and George Love, which were central to the display, to consider how they relied on an animistic perspective to generate public awareness about the Amazon, its populations, and the threat posed by government intervention in the area.