Sizzling hot off the press: my article about Brazilian artist and photographer José Oiticica-Filho in ARTMargins. I introduce the first translation into English of his 1951 article about the photo-club culture (fotoclubismo). Through the example of the rivalry between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro photo clubs, Oiticica Filho offers a unique insight into the inner workings of the photo-club culture that became a truly global phenomenon in the 1950s.
Publication info:
Alise Tifentale, "Introduction to José Oiticica Filho's 'Setting the Record Straighter'," ARTMargins 8, no. 2 (2019): 105-115. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/artm_a_00239
This article is an introduction to accompany a reprint of Oiticica Filho’s 1951 article whose first translation from Portuguese into English (by Luisa Valle) I commissioned for a special edition of journal ARTMargins, edited by Chelsea Haines and Gemma Sharpe.
Learn more about my article about José Oiticica Filho and the global photo-club culture on the article page of my website: http://www.alisetifentale.net/article-archive/artmargins2019
Abstract:
This text introduces article “Setting the Record Straighter” (1951) by Brazilian photographer and artist José Oiticica Filho (1906–1964). The core of Oiticica Filho's article is a discussion of the significance of photo-club exhibitions, based on the example of an ongoing rivalry between the members of São Paulo-based photo club Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (FCCB) and Rio de Janeiro-based club Sociedade Fluminense de Fotografia. Oiticica Filho, as a member of the São Paulo-based club who resided in Rio, emerged as a mediator between the two groups—an impartial scientist who sought a solution in data, not in the clashes between egos. The article, partially translated here for the first time, illuminates the inner workings of photo-club culture, the motivation for photographers to participate, and their major concerns about the club exhibitions. Oiticica Filho's method, based on statistics and data analysis, anticipate the sociological approach to photography developed by Pierre Bourdieu in Photography: A Middle-Brow Art (1965). Understanding Oiticica Filho's statistical work is key to establishing a broader perspective on postwar photo-club culture as an international phenomenon that contributed to the recognition of photography as an autonomous art form during the 1950s.
Download and read:
Link to my Introduction on the ARTMargins website: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/artm_a_00239
Link to the translation of José Oiticica Filho’s article by Luisa Valle on the ARTMargins website (open access): https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/artm_a_00240
Download and read author’s pre-press version of my Introduction (as of February 2019) (NB: it may differ from the final, published version): Download the pdf
