Cette thèse propose une réflexion sur la représentation de la figure humaine au-delà de la « ressemblance cadavérique » présumée par Maurice Blanchot. Nous interrogeons les appels à figurer la figure humaine dans diverses formulations et configurations iconoplastiques, par les moyens associés de la peinture et de la photographie, à partir d’un corpus de postures plastiques contemporaines. Comment la figure humaine se donne-t-elle à figurer pour déborder la seule figuration ? Il est aussi question de reconvocation puisque les œuvres étudiées procèdent de reprises, transferts, reconductions, revenances.Les êtres blanchis peints par Jean Marc Cerino, les portraits flous et dérobés de Gerhard Richter, un ensemble d’autoportraits photographiques assourdis de Jacques Damez, les Faces grimaçantes et les Masques Mortuaires rehaussés d’Arnulf Rainer, les défunts dévoilés et photographiés en gros plan par Andres Serrano et les faces surfacées peintes par Anthony Vérot ouvrent des analyses poïétiques et esthétiques qui nous amènent à distinguer deux voies de l’effacement : l’affaiblissement et tout autant la surenchère. Visibilités défectives ou exacerbées ? Deux pôles se succèdent et articulent la tension dialectique de la donation et du retrait : « figures affaiblies » / « figures excessives ». Figurer c’est opérer par distanciation, retrait, passage, dissimulation, déplacement. Ce travail de recherche relève des rapports de force qui travaillent les figures résistantes à leurs oblitérations mais aussi à toutes tentatives de dévoilement. Ces détours étudiés signalent les infigurables qui se désistent : le visage, l’être, l’autre, soi-même, la mort. / This thesis reflects on the representation of the human figure, beyond the “cadaveric resemblance” assumed by Maurice Blanchot. It looks at the calls for representing the human figure across a variety of iconoplastic configurations and formulations, by means of a combination of painting and photography, from a body of plastic contemporary approaches. How does the human figure can be represented so as to go beyond the mere figuration?The thesis also explores the question of return, since the works under study are based on revivals, transfers, renewals, virtual resurrections.The bleached out human beings by Jean-Marc Cerino, the blurred and hidden portraits by Gerhard Richter, the series of muted photographic self-portraits by Jacques Damez, the grimacing Faces and Death Masks by Arnulf Rainer, the corpses unveiled and photographed close-up by Andres Serrano, and the flatly painted faces by Anthony Vérot give rise to aesthetic and poietic analyses which lead us to distinguish two ways of erasure: the weakening and, just as much, the exaggeration. Defective or exacerbated visibilities? Two extremes alternate and structure the dialectical tension between giving and staying in the background: “faded figures” / “excessive figures”.Representing involves detachment, removal, transition, concealment, transfer. This research paper highlights balances of power where the figures stand up to their disappearance but, at the same time, to any attempt to unveil them. By analysing these roundabouts, this thesis shows the unfigurable which is stepping aside: the face, the being, the self, death.

O presente estudo buscou compreender as relações que as crianças estabelecem com a arte contemporânea quando a mesma é apresentada, discutida e explorada no contexto escolar. Refletindo sobre a desarticulação e lacuna existente entre a arte contemporânea e a concepção de arte escolar, pensada somente como um produto e aquém de um processo, esta pesquisa se propôs a investigar junto às crianças como elas se articulam com a arte contemporânea, a partir de ações propositivas que ampliam suas formas de perceber os materiais e objetos do cotidiano. Neste sentido, a arte contemporânea serviu para pensar a metodologia de pesquisa e as crianças. Sendo utilizadas referências artísticas como: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Nelson Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto e Sandro Ka, investigação ancorou-se teoricamente nos estudos sobre Pesquisas com Crianças (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), nos estudos da Arte Contemporânea (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli e Canton), e nos estudiosos que discutem acerca das Crianças Contemporâneas (Dornelles e Heywood). Tratou-se, portanto, de uma investigação realizada dentro de uma escola pública na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS, com um grupo de nove crianças de um primeiro ano. Para este estudo foram realizadas duas semanas de observação, dezessete encontros, além de uma visita ao MARGS – Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul – ocorridos entre os meses de julho a dezembro de 2012. Como recursos metodológicos, foram utilizados os encontros propositivos – denominados metodologicamente como “Encontros Crianceiros” – os registros audiovisuais, diário de campo da pesquisadora e os materiais explorados e produzidos pelas crianças. As perguntas centrais deste estudo: como as crianças se relacionam com as modalidades que a arte contemporânea suscita? E como as crianças exploram a arte quando ela adentra a escola? Foram respondidas por meio das análises feitas, que se desdobraram ao longo do período da pesquisa com as crianças. As concepções sobre arte, as maneiras como seus processos de criação ocorreram e suas relações com a materialidade, e ainda, a experimentação dos objetos por meio dos afetos estabelecidos foram os eixos principais de análises. O estudo destaca a potência existente no encontro entre as crianças e a arte contemporânea, principalmente no que se refere à proximidade e receptividade dos pequenos com as modalidades da mesma. Além disto, a pesquisa demonstra através dos processos de criação das crianças como estes são encharcados de significados e relações externas ao contexto escolar, que emergem em suas experimentações, assim como os afetos e enfrentamentos que se estabelecem na exploração, ressignificação e apropriação dos materiais e materialidades. Ao aproximar os pequenos da arte contemporânea, este estudo dá suporte para que se pense e discuta as articulações existentes entre arte e crianças nos contextos escolares, e o quanto estas relações podem ser pautadas pelos processos de experimentação e ressignificação, além de serem possibilidades de ampliação de repertórios, tanto para crianças, quanto para os educadores. / This study sought to understand the relationships that children have with contemporary art when it is presented, discussed and explored in the school context. Reflecting on the disarticulation and gap between contemporary art and design art school designed only as a product and a process falling short, this research proposes to investigate with the children how it relates to contemporary art, from purposeful actions that expand their ways of perceiving the materials and everyday objects. In this sense, contemporary art served to think about the research methodology and the children. Being used as artistic references: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto and Sandro Ka. The research anchored itself theoretically in studies on Research with Children (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), Studies of Contemporary Art (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli and Canton), and researchers who discuss about the Contemporary Children (Dornelles and Heywood). It was, therefore, an investigation into a public school in the city of Porto Alegre / RS, with a group of nine children of a first year. For this study were made twice weeks of observation, seventeen meetings, plus a visit to MARGS - Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul - occurred between the months from July to December 2012- As methodological resources were used in propositional meetings - as methodologically called "Encounters Crianceiros" - audiovisual records, the researcher's field journal and materials exploited and produced by children. The central questions of this study: how children relate to the modalities that contemporary art raises. And how children explore art when it enters the school? Were answered through of the analyzes performed, which unfolded over the period of research with children. Conceptions of art, the ways their creative processes occurred and its relationship with materiality, and also experimentation of objects using of affections were established the main axes of analysis. The study highlights the potency existing in the meeting between children and contemporary art, especially in relation to the proximity and responsiveness of children with the same modalities. Apart from this, research demonstrates through the processes of creation of children as they are drenched in meanings and relationships outside the school context, that emerge in their experimentations, as well as affections and confrontations that are established in the exploration, redefinition and appropriation of materials and materiality Approaching the children of contemporary art, this study supports that think and discuss the joints between art and children in school contexts, and also how these relationships can be guided by the processes of experimentation and reframing as well as being possibilities expansion of repertoire, both for children and for educators.

Este trabalho estuda três obras de arte contemporânea que têm como proposta intervenções espaciais sutis e a consequente ressignificação dos espaços em que estão inseridas. Partimos de uma revisão histórica da apropriação do espaço na obra de arte, desde a expansão da escultura moderna para o espaço até o formato instalação, no qual a obra trabalha o espaço de forma específica. Em seguida, discutimos a relação entre os conceitos de tempo e duração, bem como sua relação com o espaço, como embasamento para análise das obras escolhidas. A partir daí, nos dedicamos ao estudo de três obras contemporâneas: a instalação Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012) [Vídeo-caminhada Alter Bahnhof (2012)] de Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, realizada na estação central de trens de Kassel, Alemanha; a instalação I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorise (The Invisible Pull) [Eu preciso de algum significado que eu possa memorizar (A piscina invisível)] (2012) de Ryan Gander realizada no museu Friedericianum, Kassel, Alemanha - ambas apresentadas durante a 13ª Documenta de Kassel (2012); e a instalação Sem título de Fernanda Gomes, apresentada na 30ª Bienal de São Paulo (2012). O interesse deste trabalho é apontar como tais obras interferem no espaço existente, sem necessariamente alterá-lo fisicamente, desde a ideia de vazio, analisandoos criticamente em relação aos seus precedentes. / This dissertation studies three works of contemporary art that have as their purpose subtle space interventions and the consequent redetermination of the spaces in which they are inserted. We start with a historical revision of the appropriation of space regarding the work of art, from the expansion of modern sculpture into space to the installation format, in which the work uses the space in a particular way. Next, we discuss the relationship between the concepts of time and duration, as well as their relationship with space, as a basis for analyzing the works selected. Hence, we study and analyze three contemporary works: Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012) by Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, designed for the central train station in Kassel, Germany; I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorize (The Invisible Pull) (2012) by Ryan Gander, at the Friedericianum Museum, Kassel, Germany - both presented during the 13th Documenta, Kassel (2012); and Untitled by Fernanda Gomes, presented at the 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012). This paper aims to point out how such works interfere in the existing space - the idea of emptiness, analyzing them critically in relation to its precedents - without necessarily changing it physically.

Esta tese tem como objetivo delimitar e analisar uma estratégia artística recorrente a partir do final da década de 1960, que consiste exclusivamente, ou incorpora como seu elemento fundamental, o ato de andar, na maioria dos casos por parte dos próprios artistas. Para definir essa prática, utiliza-se aqui o termo deriva, cuja matriz situacionista introduz o olhar social e politicamente engajado a partir do qual a maioria das obras analisadas foram criadas, e com base no qual elas são lidas neste contexto. Na primeira parte da tese, são desenvolvidas algumas considerações teóricas, com o fim de evidenciar algumas características recorrentes na produção das derivas, ao passo que elas são contextualizadas em preocupações e tendências mais gerais, como a que visa a desmaterialização da arte, ou a chamada estética relacional, entre outras. Na segunda parte, apresenta-se um compêndio bastante amplo, e apesar disso ainda longe de poder ser considerado completo, de obras pertinentes nesta discussão, produzidas ao longo das últimas quatro décadas. / This thesis seeks to delimitate and analyze an artistic strategy that can be considered recurrent since the end of the 1960s, and which consists basically, or at least includes as its core element, the act of walking, mostly undertaken by the artist him/herself. In order to define this practice, the word employed is the Situationist term \"deriva\" (drift), which situates the reader in the socially and politically engaged context in which most of the works here analyzed were created, and based upon which they are therefore read. In the first part of the thesis, a series of theoretical considerations is made, aiming at identifying a few recurrent characteristics of the \"drifts\", while at the same time placing them in the context of more general trends and concerns, as the so-called Demateriali- zation of art, or Relational Aesthetics, among others. The second part consists basically of a large, although certainly not complete, summary of works that are relevant for this research, produced during the last five decades.

A dissertação Espaços para o corpo: antropometria na arte contemporânea apresenta a pesquisa em relação às operações poéticas desenvolvidas em uma série de trabalhos artísticos; dentre os quais, recortes da produção tridimensional de Hélio Oiticica, Anish Kapoor e Ana Maria Tavares, que visam à criação do que chamaremos de escala antropométrica. Partindo da escultura, a construção desses tridimensionais, ainda que neles seja superada toda figuração, pode se aliar à escala que dimensiona o ser humano. Desse modo, essas obras se relacionam com o corpo do visitante ao se darem à sua experiência como trabalho artístico, uma dimensão, tanto poética, que inclui o espectador, ou o convida a participar dela. Em segundo passo, apresenta a pesquisa estética do próprio autor deste texto e em parceria com Deyson Gilbert, cuja produção resulta em explorações espaciais e temporais propondo questionamentos parcialmente sucedâneos aos dos artistas precedentes. / The dissertation Spaces for the body: anthropometry in contemporary art presents the research related to operations carried out in a poetic series of artworks, among which cutouts of Hélio Oiticicas, Anish Kapoors and Ana Maria Tavares three-dimensional production, aimed at creating what we will call anthropometric scale. Based on the sculpture, the construction of three-dimensional, although they can be overcome every figure representation, can be allied with the human scale. Thus, these works relate to the visitor\'s body when they give to their experience as artwork, a dimension, so poetic, that includes the viewer, or invites to participate. The second part presents the text author\'s aesthetic research (on his own and in partnership with Deyson Gilbert), whose production results in temporal and space exploration by proposing questions to partially succeed the previous artists.

A pesquisa analisa o conjunto de mudanças que nas últimas duas décadas ampliaram a projeção da arte contemporânea brasileira no exterior, tendo como ponto de partida a obra e a projeção internacional do artista Hélio Oiticica, deflagradas com a mostra do PS1 Brazil Projects, onde aconteceu seu (re)lançamento. Através de uma análise crítica sobre a percepção da produção artística nacional em território estrangeiro, o estudo visa contribuir para a compreensão do campo da arte e das diversas variáveis que incidem no processo de reconhecimento do valor de uma trajetória artística, quer potencialize sua difusão, quer contribua para intensificar sua produção. O trabalho identifica os atores que compõem este circuito, nomeadamente os estrangeiros-críticos, curadores (independentes ou ligados a instituições), colecionadores, marchands e artistas. Apresenta e compara diversos pontos de vistas e ações quanto a produção contemporânea brasileira e permite que sejam identificadas ressonâncias e confrontos entre a recepção internacional e a local. Ao detectar um conjunto de pensamentos, foi possível revelar elos e assimetrias estabelecidas com a cultura brasileira. / The present work analyzes the foreign reception of Brazilian contemporary art in the last two decades. The exhibition of the work of Hélio Oiticica, starting from the show Brazil Projects held in PS1, is the reference point for this analysis. The critical examination of the reception of Brazilian art abroad intends to expand the comprehension of contemporary art practices, as the multiple influences that may contribute to the value of an art object and intensifying the production of an artist. This research identifies the persons involved with Hélio Oiticica\'s work - critics, independent curators, collectors, marchands and artists - and compares different points of view related to Brazilian contemporary art. In particular, the work contrasts the foreign and national attitudes toward Brasillian art, unveiling convergences and divergences in the perception of Brazilian culture.

This research identifies the negotiation of inherited understandings of the term ‘community’ as an increasingly widespread concern within the field of contemporary art since 1989, particularly in the wake of art’s communitarian turn during the 1990s. The thesis examines these artistic investigations in connection with the work of philosophers such as Maurice Blanchot, Roberto Esposito and Jean-Luc Nancy during the 1980s and 1990s, where we find the most thorough interrogation of the term ‘community’ since the nineteenth century. Contending that art has significantly contributed to a discourse long established in philosophy, the thesis reflects on what precipitated the widespread shift from an artistic interest in ‘this or that community’ to ‘community as such’ during the 1990s, and on what art has offered to the negotiation of community that philosophy has not. These dual concerns have been developed in the two sections that comprise the thesis, entitled ‘Untying the “Unique Epochal Knot”’ and ‘Collaboration, Participation, Performance and the Negotiation of Community’. An important issue the thesis broaches is whether art can (despite concerns about its co-optation within neoliberal institutions) constitute a potent site for the negotiation of community. The affirmative, if critical, answer given considers the unorthodox forms, logics and strategies that art is permitted to employ, art’s ability to enact material interventions into social relations and, overall, art’s operation as an alternative/complementary mode of articulation to that offered by philosophy. Through the analysis of pertinent case studies, the thesis examines how collaborative, participatory and performance practices have been particularly employed by artists including Tania Bruguera, Kristina Norman and Artur Żmijewski, seeking to scrutinise factors crucial to the rethinking of community. These factors include singularity, commonality, temporality and ethics. Springing from interviews, research trips to key case studies, and a thorough literature review, as well as implicating a range of work from diverse geographies and spread over the past two decades, the thesis situates the move towards the negotiation of community in art both historically and theoretically. In doing so, the analysis develops an important reconsideration of contemporary art’s widely noted attendance to the social. In privileging a conceptual framework for the discussion of this tendency in art, as opposed to the more prevalent formalist model, greater critical purchase may be gained on this urgent development in contemporary art history.

Au début du vingtième siècle, une rupture radicale et fondatrice de modernité artistique eut lieu au Brésil. Cette modernité se démarque de celle d’Europe par la prise de conscience des distances géographiques, culturelles et politiques vis à vis de l’Europe et surtout de l’ancienne puissance coloniale, le Portugal, par la recherche de son identité à travers la multiplicité des métissages du Nouveau Monde, ses mythes et son histoire réelle décolonisée. L’avant-garde brésilienne émerge autour de 1928, à travers les Manifestes anthropophages d’Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954) qui est donc le fondateur des anthropophagies, que l’on peut définir comme un indianisme à rebours. Le ″mauvais sauvage″ exerce sa critique contre les impostures du monde. « La ″Descente anthropophagique″ n’est pas une révolution littéraire, ni sociale, ni politique, ni religieuse. Elle est tout cela à la fois ! Sa loi est simple : Ne m’intéresse que ce qui n’est pas à moi ! Loi de l’homme, loi de l’anthropophagie ! » . Elle prescrit donc la dévoration des modèles importés et leur digestion dans l’hybridation au nom de l’identité brésilienne, par déplacement de concepts freudiens : « L’anthropophagie c’est la transformation permanente du Tabou (manger de l’homme) en Totem (de l’identité brésilienne) ! » . Ici l’influence notable de la psychanalyse et de l’anthropologie est à resituer : le déplacement du tabou anthropophage demeure une transgression symbolique, une métaphore, mais la référence anthropophagique ne concerne pas que la période précolombienne, car elle se réactualise. Nous nous proposons d’étudier ce phénomène à travers quatre questions : 1°- Quelles relations existent entre l’anthropophagie, l’histoire, l’esthétique et l’idéologie ? 2°- Quelle est la place des femmes artistes brésiliennes dans l’émergence de ce mouvement, compte tenu de leur présence décisive dès l’origine ?3°- Compte tenu de la résurgence rhizomique de l’anthropophagie dans la 2e moitié du XXe siècle, y compris jusqu’à aujourd’hui, quelle est la place des femmes artistes dans ce phénomène ? Y a-t-il continuité avec l’époque fondatrice ?4°- Etant donné ce qui précède, peut-on déduire qu’il existe un courant spécifiquement féminin dans l’anthropophagie d’hier et d’aujourd’hui ? Quelle est son importance réelle ? Quelles sont ses relations et postures par rapport à la postmodernité et à la mondialisation de l’art contemporain ? / At the beginning of the twentieth century, in Brazil, a radical artistic rupture took place, which marked the beginning of a new era. The resulting modernity differed from its European counterpart by the awareness of geographical, cultural and political distances that alienated Brazil from Europe and more specifically from its former colonial owner, Portugal. Brazilian modernity sought to define its identity through important basic elements that constitute the stuff that the New World is made of: cross-breeding, mythology and post-colonialism. The Brazilian avant-garde emerged around 1928 with the publication of The Anthropophagy Manifesto by Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954), who is thus the founder of the Anthropophagy, that we can define as a backward step into a reinvented form of ″Amerindianness″. The ″bad savage″ voices his criticism against impostures of the world. « Anthropophagy art is not a literary revolution, nor is it a social plea, nor a political pamphlet, nor a religious tract. It is all these things at the same time. Its law is simple: everything that is not me is of interest to me. The law of men is the law of Anthropophagy ». It thus prescribes eating up imported models and digesting them through the process of hybridization in the name of Brazilian identity. By displacing Freudian concepts, «Anthropophagy is the permanent transformation of the Taboo (man-eating) into a Totem (Brazilian identity) ». The permeating influences of psychoanalysis and anthropology need to be put in perspective: the displacement of the anthropophagous taboo remains a symbolic act of transgression, a metaphor, but the anthropophagic reference does not concern the pre-Columbian period, because it is updated. We propose to study this phenomenon through four questions: 1°- What are the relations between Anthropophagy, history, esthetics and ideology? 2°- What is the place of women Brazilian artists in the emergence of this movement, taking into account their decisive presence right from the start? 3°- Taking into account the resurgence of Anthropophagy from the second half of the 20th century onwards, what is the place of women artists in this phenomenon? Are they pursuing the same interests as the founders of the movement?4°- Can we deduce that there exists a specifically female genre within the anthropophagic movement of yesterday and of today? If so, what is its relevance? Where does it stand with respect to the contemporary concepts of post-modernity and globalization in the present-day art world?

Cette thèse s’attache à mettre à jour les mécanismes de représentation et de réappropriation de l’intérieur domestiqueau sein des installations depuis les années 1950.Il s’agit de s’interroger quant aux raisons et significations de la présence de motifs hérités du XIXe siècle (nivellement social, distinction entre espace domestique et public, mise-en-scène de soi, accumulation de biens, valorisation de l’ornementation... ), au sein de pratiques contemporaines. Plus loin, on cherche à établir une typologie de personae archétypales au sein des oeuvres contemporaines. Témoin de l’émergence de l’intérieur autant que de la normalisation des conventions sociales, le XIXe siècle est également le creuset des avants-gardes artistiques autant que des révolutions – politiques, industrielles, sociales. Pourtant, c’est vers la figure conservatrice du bourgeois et d’un espace très réglementé que se tournent les artistes lorsqu’ils choisissent de se réapproprier l’intérieur domestique. Dès lors, existe-t-il des changements structurels ou des modulations dans la représentation des intérieurs depuis le XIXe siècle ? Le cas échéant, les formes adoptées par ces oeuvres sont elles issues des mêmes sources que lors de la naissance du genre ?À travers un ensemble d’exemples empruntés au champ de la création contemporaine, mais également à ceux des pratiques curatoriales et muséographiques, de la sociologie, de la littérature ou de la micro-histoire, il s’agit de dresser des pistes de réflexion quant aux enjeux soulignés par ces réalisations, afin d’en présenter les variations et ce qu’elles induisent, hors d’un compte rendu exhaustif. La pratique plastique est partie liée du sujet de recherche, l’anecdote y est érigée en guide en ce qu’elle offre une liberté d’accès sans précédent aux faits historiques, transformations sociales, mécanismes de domination ou productions culturelles. C’est à son émergence au sein de l’intérieur par le décoratif que cet objet est afférent au sujet de recherche. / This dissertation intends to unveil the mecanisms of representation and influence on the domestic interior in installations from the 1950s onwards.It is about questioning reasons and meanings of the presence of 19th century patterns ( social levelling, distinction between domestic and public space, hoarding, promotion of the ornementation...) in contemporary practices. Furtheron, the dissertation tries to establish a typology of archetypal personae in contemporary works.19th century is not only the testimony of the rise of the interior and the standardization of social conventions but also aspring of artistic avant-gardes as well as political, industrial and social revolutions. However, when artists deal withdomestic interior they would rather refer to the conservative figure of the bourgeois and a regulated space. Consequently,has there been structural changes or modulations in the representation of interiors since the 19th century ? If so, do the forms used by these works have the same foundation as when the genre was created ?Through examples drawn from contemporary creation but also from curatorial and museographic practices, sociology, litterature or microhistory, we intend to find approaches in link with the issues raised by these works in order to present their variations and what they imply. A complete report is not intended in this dissertation.The visual art practice is directly related to the research topic. Anecdote is used as a lead because it offers an unprecedented access to historical facts, social changes, mechanisms of domination or cultural productions. It is thanks to its appearence in the interior through the decorative that this object is linked to the research topic.

In this thesis, I will examine the difficulties of documenting ephemeral art and the possible solutions that archivists, curators, artists and other museum professions have come up with. I will begin by presenting a background of the history of performance art, which was the impetus for all ephemeral art to come. Then I will present case studies of three artists: Allan Kaprow, Eva Hesse, and Richard Tuttle, and their archival processes, all of which provide very different approaches to similar artistic problems. Finally, I will discuss the implications of re-performance and re-creation of ephemeral artworks.