In the name of geography: The conceptual maps of Anna Bella Geiger.

摘要

Brazilian artist Anna Bella Geiger incorporated maps into her work in the 1970's during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). As a professional artist and teacher, this oppressive climate politicized her pedagogical motivations and artistic practices. Yet, Geiger's conceptual practices and material experimentation never followed the material trends of her Concrete and Neo-Concrete contemporaries. Geiger's cartographic impulse, pedagogical aims, and historical narratives place her outside the art movements of Brazil that are most-represented in art exhibitions in the United States.;In recognizing this need to expand the scope of study on Brazilian art, this paper assesses the conceptualism of her maps and the semiotic challenges that form her pedagogical aims. By focusing on four archival drawers central into her 2001 installation Indiferenciados [Undifferentiated], this argument overcomes her fragmented visual language in order to navigate the complex histories and political lessons embedded within the cartographic documents. The disparate historical fragments harbored in Indiferenciados prove Geiger to be a dissident educator and deft conceptualist.