Banca de DEFESA: DIOGO GUEDES DUARTE DA FONSECA

Subversion in three frames: patterns of intention in the work of Laerte Coutinho

Laerte Coutinho – comics - Michael Baxandall – patterns of intention

This work aims the production of comic strips by Laerte Coutinho that started in 2004, when he began to try to subvert this genre, that normally only accept humorous narratives. First, it talk about the particularities of the language of comics, trying to establish the current situation of the academic studies on the field, using works of Groensteen, McCloud, Eisner and Cyrne. To the analysis, it uses the reflections of Michael Baxandall, who proposes that we should look to visual objects using the concept of author’s own intention, realizing how the works respond to social, personal and material contexts, in a historical and esthetical methodology. After that, it observes 31 days of publication of Piratas do Tietê, Laerte’s comic strips published on the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. This study uses the concept of “troc” – the symbolic and material market in which an artist circulates -, seeing how Laerte creates a new relationship with his public. It looks through the rejection of the humor at Laerte's comic strips; his particular use of the concept of “open work” of Umberto Eco; the proximity he imposes between his comic strips and koans; his references to an erudite and pop cultural repertory; and the way he takes the questions of his work to his life and his body when he goes public about being a transgender, making his own life a defense of art as a way of life.