Abstract
The debate on modern form and autonomy marked a generation of critics and aesthetes in Brazil. Especially from the 1950s and 1960s, the question of the autonomy of art was present in the articulation between artistic freedom and the formation of the Brazilian nation from the internationalization of modern art. The autonomy of art came to be defended in this context as a barrier erected against the governmental instrumentalization of art or assimilation by the market. It is precisely these two options and their battlefield from the considerations of Antonio Candido and Mário Pedrosa in the discursive battles of the Cold War. From the institutional act of number 5, many artists and Frederico Morais, art critic, begin to act and interfere in the production of conceptual art. By setting themselves apart from the art market, they managed to break free from some of the conditioning of the art system.
Keywords:
Art and autonomy; Antonio Cândido; Mário Pedrosa; Cold War; Frederico Morais; conceptual art