Arthur Bispo do Rosário:

the art of making signs "go crazy"

Abstract

The essay analyzes the work of Arthur Bispo do Rosário from the point of view of its relation to art history (as well as to the history of aesthetics) in the 20th century. The text emphasizes that since the “recognition” of Bispo’s work as art, studies on the artist has privileged the celebration of his “genius”, and the comparison of his work to the production of artists as Duchamp, Arman, César or Andy Warhol. This attitude is understandable if one takes into account that Bispo is marginal in many ways (as black, “crazy” and poor, as well as part of the so called “third world”). On the other hand, this attitude has condemned Bispo’s works to stand under the shadow of the works of those classics of modernity, hindering an approximation to them. The essay proposes a double movement toward a better comprehension of Bispo’s works. First it emphasizes the necessity to recall, in analyzing his work, the romantic enthronization of a complex subjectivity that included some dose of “craziness”, and has been since then enacted by the artists and writers. In a second move, it suggests that we have to learn to take some distance from this romantic cliché and try to look at the works of Bispo as a genuine manifestation of new tendencies in art, as they have developed since the middle of last century.