Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Hassold, Cris

Keywords

Maciel, Carol, Gender, São Paulo, Brazil, Female Bodies, Graffiti, Socioeconomic Status

Area of Concentration

Art History

Abstract

Magrela (Carol Maciel) is an artist living and working out of São Paulo, Brazil. Her work addresses the female body, and all the political implications that the embodied subject holds. This thesis aims to explicate Magrela’s graffiti practice in relation to gendered inequality in São Paulo. I wish to emphasize Magrela’s multi-faceted approach to challenging gendered oppression through her representation of the female body in public spaces. Through the theoretical combination of abject imagery crossed with a phenomenological approach of feminist embodiment, I suggest how Magrela’s practice is a successful critique and challenge of patriarchal models. There are three main issues that I present here: the first is Magrela’s representation of women’s bodies in relation to women’s poor socio-economic standing in São Paulo, Brazil. The second issue is how embodiment, represented in Magrela’s work, can be both reflective and challenging to social oppression. The third issue deals with the act of illegal graffiti and street art, and how Magrela’s work becomes subversive of cultural norms through the interruption of public space. I suggest that the subject matter of Magrela’s art and her artistic production itself mobilizes symbols that function phenomenologically to challenge cultural paradigms of oppression, culturally normative conceptions of the female body, and the culturally normative consumption of art.

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