The rationale behind doing art: studying the perspective of a theater group

Abstract

This paper aims at discussing which rationality types may orient contemporary artistic practice. This objective emerged from a research made in Grupo Galpão, a twenty-eight years old theatre group from Belo Horizonte. As we entered into the research locus, by documental analysis, non participant observation and interviews, the rationality issue became a prominent theme to be discussed considering contemporary art production. By means of discourse analysis elements, we could identify in artists discursive practices meanings about art-making, sometimes related to instrumental rationality and to surviving in the market of cultural goods; and sometimes, on the other hand, were related to substantive rationality and to practices oriented by ethical or esthetical ideals. By the end, despite of economic pressures from the cultural industry context, we understand that authentic art is intrinsically a transcendent practice and keeps moments of freedom and assertion of out-of-the-ordinary life values.