International modernism outside Europe has rarely been considered in the history of photography. It is not very well-known, for example, that Brazil played a prominent role in photography from the 1830s onwards and developed an outstanding repertoire of techniques, discourses and individual formal languages. Based on intensive archival work and starting out from the photographer Valério Vieira, Alina Hofmann reconstructs the aesthetic and cultural context of photography in the "Brazilian Belle Époque". She explores the question of what could or should have been achieved by photographic images around 1900. Vieira found humorous and critical answers to this question. His photographs convey a more comprehensive picture of the turn of the century than previously considered in research.

• First German-language publication about Valério Vieira
• A key research contribution on international modernism outside Europe
• Combines art and media studies discourse with the history of photography