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| Klaxon (magazine) | |
|---|---|
| Title | Klaxon |
| Category | Literary magazine |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Firstdate | 1922 |
| Finaldate | 1923 |
| Country | Brazil |
| Based | Rio de Janeiro |
| Language | Portuguese |
Klaxon (magazine) was a short-lived but influential Brazilian avant-garde periodical published in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1920s. It served as a central organ for the Brazilian Modernist movement, promoting radical experiments in literature, visual arts, and criticism. Klaxon connected Brazilian readers with contemporary developments in Paris, New York City, Madrid, Lisbon, and beyond, while asserting a distinctive national modernity rooted in urban and cultural change.
Klaxon emerged amid the social and artistic ferment following the Semana de Arte Moderna of 1922 in São Paulo, when figures associated with Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, and Heitor Villa-Lobos sought new channels for dissemination. The first issue appeared in September 1922 and the magazine published irregularly through 1923, overlapping with activities in Rio de Janeiro and correspondences reaching Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Paris, and Lisbon. Klaxon functioned within networks that included the Modernismo (Brazil) movement and intersected with international currents such as Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism. Financial constraints, political tensions connected to cultural debates in Brazil's First Republic, and editorial disagreements contributed to its brief run.
Klaxon assembled editors and contributors drawn from leading avant-garde circles: key figures included Mário de Andrade as an intellectual touchstone, Oswald de Andrade as a provocateur, and artists allied with Tarsila do Amaral and Anita Malfatti. Poets and writers publishing in Klaxon included Manuel Bandeira, Cassiano Ricardo, Menotti Del Picchia, and Raul Bopp. Visual contributions involved artists connected with the Semana de Arte Moderna, designers linked to Lasar Segall, and emerging typographers influenced by Alejo Carpentier-era debates and contacts in Parisian ateliers. International correspondents and translators brought texts and manifestos by figures associated with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Tristan Tzara, André Breton, and Pablo Picasso into Brazilian circulation, while interchanges with editors of magazines such as L'Esprit Nouveau, Der Sturm, Poetiste, and Merz informed Klaxon's editorial stance.
Klaxon published poetry, prose, critical essays, manifestos, visual art, caricature, and translations that emphasized rupture with past aesthetic norms. Recurring themes included urban modernity as symbolized by Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo cityscapes, national identity debated alongside Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian presences invoked in the company of discussions about Amazon Rainforest imagery, and the role of industrialization and mass culture as framed by references to São Paulo(industrial) transformation. Contributors debated cultural nationalism vis-à-vis cosmopolitanism, interrogated literary form influenced by Symbolism and Parnassianism antecedents, and experimented with free verse, concrete layout, and collage influenced by Cubism and Futurism. Reviews and polemics engaged with works by Machado de Assis and contemporaries such as Aluísio Azevedo and Graça Aranha, often reframing canonical texts through Modernist critique.
Klaxon was printed on modest paper stocks with bold typographic choices, striking covers, and photomontage-style illustrations. The typographic and graphic approach showed affinities with Constructivism, Bauhaus typography emerging in Weimar Republic circles, and the graphic experimentation found in Vorticism and Dada magazines. Issues varied in page counts and dimensions; many featured woodcut, linocut, and lithographic plates by artists associated with the Semana de Arte Moderna. The magazine's circulation was limited but influential: subscriptions and single-issue sales reached readers in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, and diasporic Brazilian communities in Lisbon and Buenos Aires. Production relied on small presses and private patronage rather than established publishing houses.
Contemporary reception was polarized. Conservative critics aligned with institutional literati in Rio de Janeiro and provincial newspapers condemned Klaxon for radicalism, while younger writers and artists hailed it as a breakthrough comparable to European avant-garde journals such as Littérature and Merz. The magazine catalyzed debates in periodicals like Correio da Manhã and O Estado de S. Paulo and influenced subsequent publications including Verde, Saci, and later Revista de Antropofagia endeavors tied to the Antropofagia movement spearheaded by Oswald de Andrade. Klaxon's fusion of manifesto, literature, and visual art contributed to altering curricula and public exhibitions, shaping programs at institutions like the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and events inspired by the Semana de Arte Moderna legacy.
Although short-lived, Klaxon left a lasting imprint on Brazilian Modernism and the international reception of Latin American avant-garde practices. Major libraries and archives hold partial runs and single issues: holdings are found in the Biblioteca Nacional (Brazil), the Museum of Modern Art special collections, the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, and university libraries at University of São Paulo, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and University of California, Berkeley. Several museums, including the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, preserve original artwork and proofs associated with Klaxon. Scholarly reprints and facsimiles have been published in Brazil and abroad, informing dissertations, exhibitions, and catalogs of Brazilian Modernism.
Category:Magazines established in 1922 Category:Magazines disestablished in 1923 Category:Brazilian avant-garde magazines