Between the other and the same: Malangatana Valente Ngwenya in the city of Recife/PE

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the plots of the presence of the Mozambican artist Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (1936-2011) in the city of Recife/PE in 1998, at the invitation of the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation (FUNDAJ). Staying the city for a month, the artist produced a mural for the institution, had works exhibited and sold, and worked in local artistic circles. The works of Malangatana, one of the most recognized African artists of the 20th century, had a relatively small circulation in Brazil, notably the exhibition of nine paintings at the 19th São Paulo Biennial. His invitation to Recife was, therefore, pioneering, parallel to the greater internationalization that the artist underwent in the 1990s, mediated in part by a cultural rapprochement  with the former Portuguese metropolis. On the part of FUNDAJ, the interest in the artists can be seen as a possible theoretical-political legacy of Gilberto Freyre, founder of the institution, of encouraging the relationship between countries that went through Portuguese colonialism, under the narrative of an affective rapprochement.