Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil brings together the work of ten artists who reflect upon the long-standing histories of oppressive power structures in the territory now known as Brazil. Blurring the line between art and activism and spanning installation, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, and video, these artists contribute to local and global conversations about the state of democracy, racial injustice, and the violence inflicted by the nation-state. This first English-language, book-length study of contemporary Brazilian art in relationship to activism assembles artist-authored texts, interviews, essays, and a conceptual mapping of Brazilian history to illuminate the function of art as a platform for critical engagement with the historical, political, and cultural configurations of a particular place. By refusing to remain neutral, these artists create spaces of vibrant and vital community and self-construction to explore how healing and justice may be possible, especially in the Black, LGBTQIA+, and Indigenous communities to which many of them belong.

An engaging investigation of contemporary Brazilian artist Lygia Pape's early body of woodblock prints, which profoundly influenced the trajectory of her oeuvre One of Brazil's best-known contemporary artists, Lygia Pape (1927-2004) was a founding member of the Neo-Concrete movement in the late 1950s along with artists such as Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica. Pape explored new visual languages in painting, performance, printmaking, and sculpture, and her work-much of it based in geometry- invited viewers to participate in the existential, sensorial, and psychological experience of her art. Presenting the first in-depth treatment of the experimental woodblock prints Pape made between 1952 and 1960, this volume examines the foundational role these works played in the rest of Pape's career, foreshadowing her philosophy of "magnetized space." Composed of overlapping geometric and linear elements that at times suggest atomic particles or slides of microscopic specimens, Pape's prints display an extraordinary depth accentuated by her use of incredibly thin, translucent Japanese papers. The artist applied the title Tecelares to these works decades after their creation. Loosely translated as "weavings," the term captures Pape's uniquely handmade approach to printmaking as well as her interest in indigenous Brazilian culture. Lavishly illustrated, this study is filled with revealing insights into how the artist's printmaking aesthetic, materials, and process embody her core ideas about art. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition Schedule: Art Institute of Chicago (February 11-June 5, 2023)

Art produced outside hegemonic centers is often seen as a form of derivation or relegated to a provisional status. Forming Abstraction turns this narrative on its head. In the first book-length study of postwar Brazilian art and culture, Adele Nelson highlights the importance of exhibitionary and pedagogical institutions in the development of abstract art in Brazil. By focusing on the formation of the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1951; the early activities of artists Geraldo de Barros, Lygia Clark, Waldemar Cordeiro, Helio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, and Ivan Serpa; and the ideas of critics like Mario Pedrosa, Nelson illuminates the complex, strategic processes of citation and adaption of both local and international forms. The book ultimately demonstrates that Brazilian art institutions and abstract artistic groups-and their exhibitions of abstract art in particular-served as crucial loci for the articulation of societal identities in a newly democratic nation at the onset of the Cold War.