Cacos e entulhos : memória e narrativa biográfica na obra de José Rufino

Abstract

This paper explores the intersections of memory, biographical narrative, and art in the trajectory of the Brazilian artist José Rufino, drawing on Walter Benjamin’s philosophical concept of involuntary memory. José Rufino, known for his installations, performances, and works that engage with historical, familial, and political themes, frequently employs personal documents, letters, and objects (such as those of his grandfather, José Rufino) to construct visual narratives that disrupt linear temporality. His work evokes a fragmented memory, where the biographical resurfaces in flashes—akin to Benjamin’s notion revealing layers of forgetting and historical violence. Benjamin, in works such as "On the Concept of History" and "The Storyteller," discusses involuntary memory as an unconscious retrieval of the past, emerging in moments of disruption and challenging official narratives. Applying this framework to Rufino’s art, we observe how his pieces—often rooted in archives and traces—activate buried memories, not as historical reconstruction but as dialectical montage, where the personal and collective intertwine. The study concludes that Rufino’s art enacts a politicization of memory, aligning with Benjamin’s thought by destabilizing hegemonic narratives and revealing, through the involuntary nature of remnants, the fissures of history. Biography thus becomes a site of symbolic struggle, where the past is critically reanimated in the present.