Outros modernismos – uma questão de mérito, não de ritmo

Abstract

The essay retrieves the bonds between art and the economic and political context of São Paulo in the First Republic, showing a unique synergy between social elites and the artistic avant-garde, in combat against Rio’s soft power. This synergy then grows through the critical work that consecrates the modernist values by USP’s intellectuals. The work analyzes the character of the avant-garde as such, its celebration of rupture as an ideal, and comments on the fact that the São Paulo modernist avant-garde reached power within a few years, imposing an exclusive reading of literary and cultural things. It concludes by postulating that the many modernisms in Brazil will only be visible if the exclusive lens of São Paulo Modernism is duly called into question.