Impacts of the pandemic on the Brazilian visual arts system

Abstract

This article presents the investigation carried out around the visual arts system in Brazil, in Latin American and in the global context, which was the  part of the activities that the authors of this article developed  in the study group on "Covid-19 and its impacts on society”, in the instances of Consumption, Academic Life and Culture. Based on secondary sources, reports and research on the sector, as well as in-depth information in the webinar “The system, museums and public art collections in pandemic times”, the Brazilian art circuit is analyzed in symbolic and economic dimensions of the art, covering the initial moments of the pandemic, the periods of suspension of activities and reopening. In addition to a certain consensus on how much the pandemic opened up the deep socioeconomic inequalities in which we lived, also present in the relations and dynamics of operation of the art system, the fundamental question that was posed is less about the media, digital and face-to-face, and more about the model of society itself. Thus, in a prospective view, art, in its latent potentiality and certain autonomy, proved to be fundamental for the conception of new utopias.