Anthropophagic experimentation in Brasiliana

Abstract

This paper seeks to think about Brasiliana column, from the first phase of Revista de Antropofagia, as an anthropophagic experiment. The column is a fixed section of the Revista, and also one of the parts that best incorporates anthropophagic values in this first moment of the publication: montage, an artistic procedure dear to the avant-garde, is used to, in a corrosive and mocking way, make fun of common sense, pointing to outdated values and the presence of nonsense in everyday life. More than the avant-garde irreverence, the section anticipates montage in concepts that appears only in the middle and late 1930s, such as ideas around the dialectical image of Walter Benjamin, in the notes of the “middle phase” (from 1930 to 1937) of his Arcades project and also in the review that Eisenstein makes of the montage concept in the essay “Laocoonte”, of 1939. Written by Alcântara Machado, director of the Revista in this first phase, made an enemy in the second, the section shows us the assertiveness of the experiment, even in a publication with varied contributions that go in different directions as it happens in the first dentition.