This dissertation is a critical reflection on contemporary poetic-politics of black authorship presented in the editions of the São Paulo Biennial exhibitions on the debate of ethnic-racial relations. In this text, the works of art, that is, the poetic-politics of black authorship are understood around the notion of the body-witness in what concerns that these poetics produce statements, arguments or evidence of an experience that when testifying about the phenomenon lived, the artistic language manifests itself as a testimony of the commitment of the black artist with his body, and therefore, these creations give intelligibility to collective impressions from a point of view of the experience lived by himself (SOARES, 2020). In order to give intelligibility to the critical reflection on the debate of ethno-racial relations imbricated in the field of Visual Arts, this research analyzes the poetic-politics of black authorship presented in the exhibitions of the Bienal de São Paulo over the first two decades of the 21st century, under the key concept of epistemic radiography. This key-concept is inspired by the thought of the Racionais MC's regarding the issues of ethno-racial relations that run through their work. It is understood that the group's thought in relation to the problematization of anti-black racism is configured as an epistemological basis for the understanding of social relations. To promote the dialogue between the visual artistic production of black authorship and the critical thinking of the Racionais MC's in relation to the racial debate is to make use of the interpretative proposition that the language of the sensitive elaborated by black subjects collaborates to the construction of a critical epistemic radiographic synthesis that reflects the social experiences of the Brazilian and Afro-diasporic social reality that is mediated by racialized social relations. In this way, it is believed that these artistic creations of black authorship radiograph and problematize social relations in contemporaneity, and in this way, these poetics collaborate to the widening of the public debate of ethno-racial relations beyond the traditional spaces of this discussion.

In short, in this text I present three fundamental questions for the development of the reflection. 1. namely: How is the ethno-racial debate presented in the exhibitions of the biennials from the poetic-politics of black Brazilian authorship and from other diasporas? 2. In what way are these radiographies expressed considering that the discussion on race and racism are still considered taboo in a country that expresses itself through the myth of racial democracy? 3) Considering that anti-black racism is structural and structuring in Brazilian society, is it possible to articulate counter-epistemic strategies in the field of the sensitive, considering the tactics of anti-black racism permeated in the very heart of the visual arts? In this way, I understand that the poetic-politics of black authorship in the field of visual arts contribute to the elaboration of self-revealed critical x-rays of blackness, producing black narratives and epistemes that contribute to the understanding of the field of studies of ethnic-racial relations.