Abstract
Arthur Bispo do Rosário, psychiatric patient who represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale in 1995, is perhaps the best known Brazilian outsider artist. The analysis I propose to do of his work considers and respects the rights of people with mental illnesses, addressing their work through the perspective of contemporary art. Bispo never assigned artistic status to his production. I investigate if classifying his work as contemporary art, as Frederico Morais does, leaves one type of epistemic control (the psychiatric) to adopt another: a timeless aesthetic formalism. I support the need for more studies to understand how Bispo, whose psychopathological identification is intertwined with race and class discrimination, became one of the most prestigious Brazilian artists.
Keywords:
Arthur Bispo do Rosário; contemporary Brazilian art; psychiatric art; Frederico Morais
