Flavia Fonseca Gimenes

'The Wild Thought on Maria Martins – A Close Reading of her ‘Amazon’ Works (1942-3)' is a new readership of the Amazonia series by the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins, considering the Amerindian Perspectivism theory developed by the anthropologists Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Tania Stolze Lima.

After much recognition as an artist and as part of New York's Surrealist circle in the 1940s – exhibiting in Julien Levy Gallery and in the group show 'The Surrealism in 1947' in Paris – Maria Martins remained forgotten until very recently. It is only in the last ten years that her biography and achievements as a sculptor have been more carefully studied, in an effort to reposition her as an artist in her own right and not merely the muse of Marcel Duchamp for 'Étant donnés...'. 'The Wild Thought on Maria Martins...' is my contribution to those studies. My aim is to integrate this ongoing conversation by reading her works alone after contemporary theories about the Amerindian mythologies.