A Petite Galerie, Franco Terranova e o circuito de arte no Rio de Janeiro, 1954-1988

Abstract

This research proposes a biography of the Petite Galerie (PG), an art gallery that operated in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo between 1954 and 1988, punctuated by an examination of the trajectory of its main partner, the marchand and writer Franco Terranova (1923- 2013). With the history of PG as the guiding thread, the formation of the art circuit in Brazil, focusing on Rio de Janeiro, is discussed in the context of the transition from the modern to the contemporary in art, and the contributions of the gallery and Terranova in the evolution of relationships between artists, critics, institutions and the art market are addressed in the period. The adopted methodology makes use of documentary data gathered from the the gallery s collection, as well as in newspapers archives, critical works and interviews. Based on these data, a survey of the chronology of exhibitions and events and the manual cataloging of gallery publications was done. About 90 authors of critical texts, 600 events and 160 artists were identified, including some of the protagonists of the transformations experienced by art in Brazil in those decades. According to a division proposed by Frederico Morais, PG went through three major phases corresponding to the successive partners and addresses of the gallery. From the analysis of the flow of activities of the PG, this research identified a fourth and final phase, linked to the economic and cultural transformations of the 1980s. The four phases are chronologically exposed and are shown to be marked by challenges in public formation, professional development of the market, search for commercial innovations and openness to multiple artistic languages and cultural activities. The roles of the gallery as an agent of activation of the art circuit in Rio de Janeiro and of Franco Terranova as a thinker, stimulating and provoking new relations between the different agents, are evidenced