Between April 3 and 7, the Biennial Pavilion, in Ibirapuera Park, will be home to the São Paulo Art Festival (SP-Arte) again. Celebrating the 15th edition, the fair will have its art sectors led by new curators. In addition, there will be 165 exhibitors in total: 121 Art galleries, and 44 Design and inaugurates the OpenSpace sector, which takes sculptures to the outside of the building, curated by Cauê Alves.
When invited to the curatorship of the Solo sector, the Chilean Alexia Tala immediately thought of a phrase that was said to her by Aracy Amaral a few years ago: that Brazil was with its back to Latin America. What she wanted to say was that the country was always focused on Europe and the United States, without creating ties with the very continent of which it is a part. That is why, says Alexia, who offered as a proposal to Fernanda Feitosa, director of the institution, “use the fair, specifically the projects in Solo, as a platform to open ourselves to look at themselves, understanding that Brazil is so much part of Latin America like the rest”, says the curator to ARTE! Brasileiros.
The thought led her to a work in the series Profecias, by Randolpho Lamonier, an artist who will be present at the show in the sector, in which it is predicted that by 2050 everyone will discover that Brazil is Latin America. Alexia, who is also working on curating the Bienal de Arte Paiz in Guatemala, has been putting together ideas and shaping her desire to form a curatorial structure that speaks of territory through postcolonial theories: “I have been selecting artists since the territorial contextual perspective of Latin America How do we see ourselves? “” How many different identities were created, and what became fictitious? “These were the first questions that made me think about colonial ideology”, she explains.
In this perspective, the curator of SOLO takes to SP-Arte Rafael Pagatini (Brazil, OÁ), Maria Edwards (Chile, Patricia Ready), Ayrson Heráclito (Brazil, Portas Vilaseca), Nicole Franchy (Peru, IK Projects), Feliciano Centurión Argentina, Walden), Manata Laudares (Brazil, Sé), Randolpho Lamonier (Brazil, Periscópio), Alejandra Pietro (Chile, Die Ecke), Sandra Vásquez de la Horra (Chile, Bendana-Pinel) and Fernando Bryce (Peru, Espaivisor) . They are artists who, with very different ways of working, raise the questions she asked herself: “Timeless questions that are updated every time we see the exoticism demanded from outside for our territory”.
Whether in the recovery of “a religious memory and the mystical force of Afro-Bahian culture” made by Heraclitus, in the reconstruction of history and in reflection on it “from the record of what is necessary to keep within history and not forget” made by Pagatini or Centurión’s awareness of AIDS in a “personal chronicle of his way to death” Solo sector is bringing countries closer to the continent through common issues.
In the Masters sector, former Repertório, the new curator, Tiago Mesquita, did not seek a thematic or historical axis. The art critic says that the curatorial experience of an event like SP-Arte is still very new for him: “It’s very unusual in relation to other works that I’ve curated”.
Tiago chose to bring to the Masters works produced between the 50s and 80s, because they are works that “we can look at with a certain temporal distance” to understand them and also to understand the production of their respective authors. Carlos Fajardo (Marcelo Guarnieri), Ridyas (Central) and a project by Rubens Gerchman (Surface), among others.
The biggest surprise is perhaps in the Performance sector. Marcos Gallon, who also organizes the VERBO art performance show, chose not to allocate a space only for the works that will be presented. The performances took place in spaces destined to them scattered among the exhibitors. Gallon’s idea is to encourage the galleries to also take their performance artists, so the genre is incorporated as another possible medium of art, not marginalized in a closed corner. Also, according to Gallon, the vast majority of art galleries in the state of São Paulo represent artists who work with performance.
Gallon is also driven by the idea of encouraging collectors to buy performances, make them look at it as something that can be sold through the galleries: “So it’s brought to the trade show’s axis.” For this, SP-Arte will buy one of the works presented and donate to the collection of the São Paulo Pinacoteca. The work will be chosen by the staff of the institution, led by Jochen Volz. The artists Cadu (Vermelho), Cristiano Lenhardt (Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel), Jorge Soledar (Portas Vilaseca), Maria Noujaim (Jaqueline Martins Gallery) and Jaime Lauriano (Galeria Leme/AD) will be in the sector.
