Monuments in Vitória between 1971 and 1975: The Importance of the Chrisógono Teixeira da Cruz Administration in the Promotion of Art
Name: GIULIANO DE MIRANDA
Publication date: 10/03/2026
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| APARECIDO JOSE CIRILO | Presidente |
| LUIS JORGE RODRIGUES GONÇALVES | Examinador Externo |
| RENATA GOMES CARDOSO | Examinador Interno |
Summary: This dissertation investigates the configuration of public art in the city of Vitória between 1971 and 1975, a period corresponding to the municipal administration of Chrisógono Teixeira da Cruz, in a context marked by the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, censorship, and the political tutelage of local administrations. The work analyzes how monuments and urban interventions were produced, inserted, and mediated within the city's landscape, considering public art as a situated cultural practice, traversed by symbolic, political, and documentary disputes. The research is based on a theoretical framework that understands public art as a constitutive element of collective memory and urban identity, engaging with authors who address the monumentalization of memory and urban space. In this sense, monuments are analyzed not only as artistic objects, but also as symbolic devices that actively participate in the construction of narratives about the city, its values, and its subjects, being able to reflect aspects of the administrative politics of cities, revealing governmental trends and intentions. They are marks left on the city; materialized archives that reveal the cultural and political nature of the historically constructed moment. The works analyzed reveal an ambiguous field of symbolic negotiations, in which art operates within institutional limits, but remains open to resignification over time. By articulating formal analysis, political context, and documentary mediation, the dissertation contributes to a more complex understanding of the relationship between art, power, and the city, in addition to offering theoretical and methodological support for studies on public art in Espírito Santo.
