Marginal and anthropophagous: the poetics of the body in Hélio Oiticica

Abstract

In this article, we examine anthropophagy as a matrix for interpreting Brazilian culture, from the colonial imaginary to the modernist re-signification proposed by Oswald de Andrade, highlighting its ramifications in the work of Hélio Oiticica. We focus our analysis on the triad of parangolés that inscribe the statements “Da adversidade vivemos” [From adversity we live], “Incorporo a revolta” [I embody revolt], and “Estou possuído” [I am possessed], articulating them with the notion of the wild body (Viveiros de Castro, 2017) as embodied knowledge, manifested in the ginga, in incorporation, and in possession. We explore the performativity of the parangolés within the context of counterculture and the military dictatorship, and we conclude that, despite the tensions between collective invention and institutional circulation, the parangolés reactivate anthropophagy as a decolonial strategy (Quijano, 2005) and assert a counter-history of Brazilian art (Benjamin, 1991), centered on the power of the wild and marginal body.