Ernesto de Sousa – On the Avant-garde as a Necessity: Chronicles 1974-1978
This volume of the "Art and Artists" collection from the National Press (Imprensa Nacinal) brings together texts published by Ernesto de Sousa in the magazines *O Século Ilustrado*, *Vida Mundial*, *Opção*, and *Modas e Bordados*, between 1974 and 1978.
"[In these texts] one notices an urgency and a euphoria that yearn to finally, and absolutely, bring about an avant-garde, together with, and in communion with, the newly conquered freedom. However, there is also a constant warning against the shortcuts, the exploitation of post-revolutionary confusion, and the persistence of a conception of art that Ernesto did not consider compatible with the revolution. Urgency and vigilance – a word that Ernesto uses more than once – often lead him to return to topics, quotations, and reference authors, or artists whom he considers the best to exemplify what it means to create a revolutionary avant-garde, one that can reinaugurate art in the form of new collective experiences."
