MASP

Claudio Tozzi developed a work in dialogue with pop art, especially that of artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), but also placed within the Brazilian new figurative art movement. References to mass culture, as well as strategies coming from advertising and comic books were tools to elaborate a commentary on the country’s political situation at the time. Tozzi worked as a graphic designer and, as a student, he used to photograph demonstrations, crowds, and manifestations. Such images were reproduced in panels and would later become one of his main working themes. In Repression, two militaries are represented in profile with thick contours emphasized by pronounced shadows, standing out of an orange backdrop. The silhouettes’ simplified traces along with the reduction of the palette to two colors refer to graphic solutions typical of posters and illustrations. The image that originated this composition is the same one used in USA e abusa [USA and abuse] (1966), in which are represented two armed North-American militaries. The proximity of these two images might suggest a broader understanding of this work of the MASP collection. If Repression makes a direct reference to the Brazilian context — that would experience the decree of the Institutional Act n. 5 later that same year —, the approximation with this previous work also suggests a wider critical position of the artist regarding the imperialism and the North-American interventions in the context of the Cold War.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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