cover image BRAZIL: Body and Soul

BRAZIL: Body and Soul

Edward Sullivan, . . Abrams, $85 (600pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-6933-9

For some years, New York's Guggenheim Museum, whether exhibiting Harley Davidsons or opening a branch gallery in Las Vegas, has valued glitz and glitter, and its major new show about the country of Carnaval seems a good fit. Sullivan (Painting in Spain, 1650–1700) is chairman of NYU's Department of Fine Arts and one of the curators of the show, which after a run in Manhattan this fall and winter will travel to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Divided among large-scale sections like "Baroque Brazil," "Afro-Brazilian Culture," "Modern Brazil" and "Contemporary Brazil," the stars of the show of this massive catalogue are the more than 350 full-page illustrations, brilliantly reproduced. Among the highlights is a riotous painting of dancing, stunningly disrobed Tapuya Indians by the 17th-century Dutch painter Albert Eckhout. An anonymous 18th-century polychromed and gilded wood Saint Elesbão is an astonishing example of the so-called "black saints." Most of the modernist work disappoints, but other 20th-century practitioners like concretist Hélio Oiticica and the embroidery artist Arthur Bispo Do Rosario are real finds. In general, the essays from various scholars stick to the theme of combined sensual and religious aspects, the "body and soul" of the subtitle—an overfamiliar way of categorizing the country, its people and its art, and less than enlightening on subjects like architecture and cinema. Still, the images convey more than enough of their ostensible subject, and will be difficult for readers to exhaust. (Jan.)

Forecast:This thick book's attractively modish orange cover may draw in browsers, but the price tag will deter many of them from making it to the register. Still, the Guggenheim, which recently announced layoffs that could reach a reported 40% of its staff, should generate adequate museum shop sales as tourism picks up in New York, and later in Bilbao.