The rustic modern: Art and Clothing in the 1960’s

Abstract

When the dead die, are they dead? How do they resist forgetting? Can the remaining objects tell who they were or what they did? From the private archive accumulated by an immigrant couple, I develop in this article some analyzes on the construction of this collection and the relations between the carioca cultural field and the production of clothing in the 1960s. Brazilian modern art museums, especially MAM- RJ, appeared as important institutions of diffusion of modernities. The idea of ​​the rustic founded in the period an industrial dimension that relied on the production of ethnic groups as a guarantee of uniqueness. This collection of documents made explicit the use of private space as a political dimension for the construction of this particular modernity crossed by gender, class and race.