Flávio Tavares e a alegoria de uma cidade: Reflexões sobre gênero n’O Reinado do Sol

Abstract

This research presents an analysis of the Reinado do Sol panel, written by the Paraiban visual artist Flávio Tavares, produced in 2008, commissioned by the João Pessoa City Hall (PB) to be part of the permanent collection of Cabo Branco Station - Science , Culture and Arts. The work intends an allegory on the history of the conquest and foundation of Paraíba and is suitable for analysis both for its documentary character and for being a symbol in the (and the) city of contemporary João Pessoa, making possible the production of a local art historiography, socially critical, with support in complex and transdisciplinary perspectives. Considering the History of Art as History of the City and using feminism as a theoretical-epistemological and political project, the link between the history of the past and the current historical practices was discussed, thinking the characteristics and interpretations of the "feminine" in that panel. For that, three moments were identified in the artist’s plastic and poetic vocabulary: the baroque dichotomy, Latin American modernisms and regionalisms (with emphasis on the armorial movement) that permeate not only the central "history" of the panel, but also the formation of an entire generation of artists from northeastern Brazil. In this work, we point out the need to understand the way of the various institutions’ articulation that corroborate with the representative constructions of gender, reflecting on how the meanings of power and gender can occur in the work of art and how these construct each other the image memory of a city.