Letícia Parente

Born in 1930, Salvador Brazil, Letícia Parente was a Brazilian visual artist who specialized in politically charged video art. She also holds a degree in chemistry and has combined her dual interests in science and art to create the exhibition Medidas (Measurements), held at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro in 1976. Her surreal short films feature elements of body art and performance art which announce body subjectivity and the female condition in a sexist society as central to her practice. Much of her work focuses on protesting the use of mass torture by the military dictatorship in Brazil throughout the 1970s. Parente's pieces have been selected for important exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, such as the 16th Bienal de São Paulo (1981); International Open Encounter on Video Art (1975, 1976, 1978, 1979), organized by the Center of Art and Communication, Buenos Aires; and Pioneers of Brazilian Video Art, 1973–1983 (2004), organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.