Art and photography

a semiotic study in light of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between a painting, a photograph present in a journalistic story and the necropolitics that was amplified during the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil. For this purpose, the work “Retirantes”, by Cândido Portinari, and a photographic record by Ricardo Borges, which are part of a report in Veja magazine, were used. The dialectical method was chosen to investigate the research, which highlighted the contradictions that were aggravated during the course of the pandemic. It was verified that the necropolitics established by the federal government in the management of the sanitary crisis to combat the virus resulted in a significant increase in social inequalities, making current images of the poverty of the Brazilian population.