By ruling out the subjectivity inherent in any description of the image, the use of photographic reproductions of artwork could very well be the most correct and sure way to study the visual arts. But as Fabris warns, photographs of artwork confers a fragmentary quality on the information, highlighting certain details, and that amplification may falsify the perception, changing the values in play. In this essay, the writer is witness to the fact that photographic studies became more important in the visual arts of the 1980s. However, the use of photographs in the visual arts had already emerged in the prior decade, especially in connection with Conceptual art.
Annateresa Fabris is an art critic and professor at the Universidade de São Paulo, performing an important role in the study of the photographic image, especially in the context of contemporary art.
The premise of the journal Arte em São Paulo was the possibility of developing a journal that would have its own independent impact on the Brazilian art world. To begin with, its editor was artist Luiz Paulo Baravelli, and years later, the editorial function was performed by journalists Marion Strecker Gomes, and Lisette Lagnado, who was also a curator. There were a total of thirty-seven issues of this journal, which was published until 1987.