Arthur Bispo do Rosário

Abstract

Arthur Bispo do Rosário is one of the best-known and most studied Brazilian artists. His work has been discussed and exhibited as art of the unconscious, popular art, modern and contemporary art and, more recently, as Afro-Brazilian art. In this article I will challenge these labels and the idea that Bispo had a psychotic health condition, namely schizophrenia. I discuss how Bispo, whose alleged mental illness was first acknowledged, then silenced or seen as a riddle, was constructed as a Western artist. In due course I dismiss the history of art labels and argue that he developed his work as a messianic spiritual practice and the result of trances. Finally, I suggest that in order to do Bispo and his work justice it is necessary to decolonise the Western history of art. Only if we take into consideration other cosmo-perceptions can we call him an artist and see his work as art.