Photographic art by Benjamim Abrahão: Brazilian resonances, technologies, culture and memory, mid-1930s.

Abstract

Thinking Benjamin Abrahão's experiences as resonances of the last century requires necessary and constant updates of concepts, especially those of technology, languages, and cultures, which should mirror the intricate and complex processes of the photographic art of this author. This essay aims to analyze the elements of Benjamin's photography and to raise questions that justify possible explanations of this historical moment that was under multiple technological and at the same time political and social effects of an assortment of orders. Our purpose will be, besides rescuing the importance of recording these photographic images is to analyze them, taking into account the ideas of Heidegger in "The origin of the work of art". It is also intended to study the conception of “art as doing”, “concrete and empirical making”, including aesthetic and interpretative questions, eclipsed or not by the current technological facilities, ways to understand the process of art construction as something intelligible and rational. It is also proposed to analyze the concept of art work, in the philosophical sense, without forgetting its origin and applications, but objectively rescue the author Benjamim Abrahão and his significant photographic records that, in cultural, historical and aesthetic dimensions allow studying the time. It is important to add that besides the ideas Heidegger, authors such as Umberto Eco, Edmond Couchot among others complement reflections and theoretical implications of this work, accompanied by some elements of image theory and its media developments.