Abstract:

Brazil is emerging as a hot market for contemporary art with their artists gaining solo exhibitions at prominent museums such as Tate Modern in London. Emerging Brazilian art is quickly gaining the reputation of being passionate, sensual and risqué. Numerous art galleries are currently sprouting across Brazil as well as esteemed international galleries are choosing to exhibit this art. That said, 92 per cent of the Brazilian population has never set foot in an art museum. In such a contradictory setting, we are presented with some crucial questions: in what ways are Brazilians exposing themselves to this art and how are they making sense of it? How are they participating in the construction of this new Brazilian aesthetic? How is this learning process taking place: who is the learner and who is the teacher?
Internet with its low barrier of entry for participation as well as the digitalization of information, promises new ways and means of engagement with art, especially, in a country like Brazil, which has the largest online population in Latin America. When looking at fields of both art appreciation taste and new media studies, little has been said about the developing world context. The Western world is somewhat of a constant in online art constructions and participation; of how users are inhabiting, collaborating, and expressing themselves through new media spaces such as online forums, social network sites, to twitter. However, this study poses as a unique opportunity to delve deeper into how Brazilian art is constructed, understood, discussed, and framed by users in the online world.
In order to carry out such an investigation, research is conducted by doing content analysis of online forums and discussion boards engaged in discussing topics related to art and art policy in Brazil. We analyze participation in these online places and finally, in-depth semi-structured interviews with active users in order to investigate who these users are, what motivates them to engaging within these spaces, what are their understandings of Brazilian art and how does this shift and evolve through online interaction.
This study is important to situate larger discourses on the amateur and expert relationship online as radically reconstituting the power dynamic in shaping of information in the art world. Also, by juxtaposing the framing of what is considered to be “Brazilian” art as something unique, concrete and culturally specific, we can contribute to discussions on globalization and knowledge constructions within the world of high culture. Furthermore, we address the extent to which Web 2.0 interactions democratize access and engagement with art, and how judgments are created and made at these online platforms.
We pay special attention to how new media environments in the art world have consequences on notions of taste in art, specifically notions of good taste, fine taste or exquisite taste, which traditionally came from official sources - art experts such as curators, critics to academics. We leverage on Bourdieu’s framing of taste as influenced by socio-economical capital where knowledge is to a great extent seen as being shaped by those who have more social, political and cultural resources and thereby, a higher status in society. We map these understandings and learning experiences onto the virtual realm to gauge if they still apply as new media intersects with high culture.

Keywords:

Informal learning, Brazilian Art, experts, construction of knowledge.