Nino Cais’ Aesthetic: European vs Brazilian identity - deconstructing colonial icons

Abstract

Nino Cais is approached as an aesthetic case study: how stereotyped colonial iconography can be subverted through a staged visual irony? In late past, European artists travelled to Brazil fulfilling anthropological missions: to register and make known the "New World", fulfilling political, scientific and/or pragmatic purposes. Cais conceives exotic iconographies that disable colonial political dogmatisms; he assumes a deep identity, opposing uniformity of taste, patterns of behaviour, proposing racial counter-movements and social criticism. He pursues cultural themes, interacting for strong convictions, subverting stereotypes by staging a new iconography – presenting himself as a singular 'projected/introjected' self-portraits; deconstructs decolonial stereotypes, thus ensuring an aesthetic and ideological precision without shackles.