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2 days ago
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At the exhibition Indomitable Presences, currently showing at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, works by artist Mayara Ferrão are on display. Created using generative artificial intelligence, they emulate old photographs in order to “resignify the past”: indigenous and enslaved women kissing (example), scenes that probably occurred but of which we have no records for obvious reasons.
The Rio CCBB’s Instagram profile has been getting into arguments with some followers who are outraged by the promotion of art created with the help of AI. Even on profound topics that still lack answers from those who make a living finding these answers (philosophers, in general), @ccbbrj is taking a stance:
AI is a tool that responds to commands. The authorship belongs to whoever had the aesthetic consciousness to create a new project.
Is that really the case?
In another comment further down, the argument remains controversial but improves. It becomes more grounded, more defensible:
Yes, artificial intelligence is a tool used in many activities. The artist did beautiful, representative and investigative work to arrive at these creations.
(Even today, in 2025, I find it strange to comment on the “opinion” of a brand that expresses itself on social media as if it were a person. I think this bothers me more than AI-invented portraits.)
In progressive corners of the Brazilian internet, like this forum on Reddit, the negative tone prevails. The revulsion seems greater due to the fact that the exhibition — which features 15 other artists besides Mayara, many (all?) without using artificial intelligence — is organized by the Ministry of Culture.
On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative folks seem more receptive to the technology. How about that.
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It’s difficult to discuss the issue without getting into the artistic merit of the work (I’m not qualified to debate this and I think it’s a tangential question) or raising the infamous “what is art?” debate.
Other questions that help us reflect: if instead of AI, the artist had used… I don’t know, Blender to create super-realistic images, would that be art? Or if she had enlisted the help of actresses to act out such moments and taken conventional photos? If the “art” has a pragmatic purpose, like the ad by the city of Ulianópolis (PA), then is it okay?
Furthermore: is digital photography art? Does the make-believe of historical record discredit the artistic character of the result? If so, should fictional period films be discarded?
I saw Mayara’s AI-generated photos on Sunday morning (1st) and spent the following days thinking. They didn’t bother me, at all. One can question a lot of things there — the (supposed) lack of effort, the intellectual property of the images used to train the AI, even the aesthetics and what the work represents. The artistic merit? That, I don’t think so. At least, I haven’t come across arguments that justify invalidating them as art, whatever definition of “art” is used.
If history serves as our guide, I’d venture to say that the folks outraged by Mayara’s work are going to need a lot of free-time to argue online. What we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg of art made with AI. It’s similar to that of the “photography is not art” crowd in the early 20th century, the “computers don’t make art” folks at the end of the same century, and other groups opposed to new artistic production techniques.
Accepting AI-made art is not fatalism or determinism. It’s just that fighting with those who make this use is, in the end, a misdirected waste of energy. We have bigger problems to worry about.
