Attack to Indifference: Essays on Art and Politics

The book collects essays on various artists who, beyond their historical contexts, nationalities and formal associations, are connected by a common stance: refusing the norms and agreements that uphold inequality and injustice in the contemporary world. These practices propose kinds of existence to come, guided by an ethics of empathy and care — a gesture that rejects the comfort of indifference facing life and death, and that confronts it with gusto and fury.

Attack to Indifference: Essays on Art and Politics analyses the work of Aline Motta, Alfredo Jaar, Artur Barrio, Carlos Vergara, Clarissa Tossin, Doris Salcedo, Hélio Oiticica, Jean-Luc Godard, Jimmie Durham, José Antonio Vega Macotela, Lygia Pape, Miguel Rio Branco, Nan Goldin and Teresa Margolles.

Excerpt

“Seeing, after all, isn't only the act of capturing what is seen; it's also an opening towards doubt, what exists of another's interpellations in each image. Seeing is losing certainty, it's fracturing established consensus about the life around us. As suggested by the philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman, things look back at us when we see them, and interrogate us. The disappearance of images makes the world smaller and, therefore, less susceptible to transformation. Images stolen from sight are missed by political imagination, making it more sheepish and less vibrant.”

About the author
Moacir dos Anjos is the general director of the Museu do Homem do Nordeste, at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife. He was the director of Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães — MAMAM (2001-2006) and coordinated the research and exhibition project Política da Arte [Art Politics], at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco (2009-2023). He was the curator of the 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010). Among his most recent curatorial efforts are Negros na Piscina (Pinacoteca do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2022, with Fabiana Moraes), Hélio Oiticica. Delirium Ambulatorium (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Brasília and Belo Horizonte, 2023-2024), Mutirão. MCP | Movimento de Cultura Popular 1960-1964 (Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2024) and Arte Subdesenvolvida (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, 2024-2025). He’s the author of Local/global: Arte em trânsito (Zahar, 2005), ArteBra crítica (Automática/Martins Fontes, 2010) and Contraditório: Arte, globalização e pertencimento (Cobogó, 2017).

Specifications
Title Ataque à indiferença: ensaios sobre
arte e política [Attack to Indifference: Essays on Art and Politics]
Author Moacir dos Anjos
Language Portuguese
Page count 320
Publisher Cobogó
ISBN 978-65-5691-176-2 
Cover Julia Custódio
Format Softcover
Size 14 x 21
Year 2025
Price R$ 96.00