Page 102 - ARTE!Brasileiros #40

EXCLUSION, ART AND THE PLACE OF SPEECH ENGLISH VERSION

months before Kassel, with the same amount of artists, was not
SÃO PAULO merely a German occupation in the Greek capital.
NEW OPTION FOR THE ART While documenta 14 inaugurates the EMST building in Athens, the
MARKET IN THE COUNTRY Fridericianum gives visibility to the collection of the new museum,
focus on the Greek production. Curated by Katerina Koskina, the
exhibition Antidoros (Counterpart) reveals a powerful collection
In the third week of August, São Paulo housed the first edition and dialogues with the history of the Fridericianum, which also
of Semana de Arte [Art Week]. In a clear manner, the fair’ target served as parliament—the first in Germany—during a brief period,
audience was professionals who are able to pick among works by Di between 1810 and 1813, during the Napoleonic expansion in Europe.
Cavalcanti, José Pancetti or Ligya Clark. Held at the underground Therefore, many works there address the obstacles of democracy,
floor of the Unique Hotel, the event proposed an exclusive ambient. especially felt in Greece during the period of military dictatorship,
Only forty galleries participated—a few foreign dealers gave up between 1967 and 1974, time of expansion of conceptual art. One
for lack of tax exemption. In short: made for few, little noise, an of the most striking works on the show, and which covers that
aseptic space. One of the organizers is the gallery owner Luisa epoch, is Stefanos Tsivopoulos’s Precarious Archive. It is a long-
Strina. She was a pioneer, promoting the Brazilian contemporary term project with images collected between 1963 and 2002 in
art in international fairs such as Art Basel. In the project, another newspaper archives, seeking to create a reflection of Greek society
three names are added to hers: Thiago Gomide, marchand and that can be manipulated by visitors and watched in projectors.
gallery owner, current director of the Bergamin & Gomide gallery; In addition to the large number of Greek works, the show brings
Emilio Kalil, entrepreneur and former producer of the São Paulo together international names such as the Albanian Andreas Lolis,
Biennial and the critic Ricardo Sardenberg, one of the minds with marble sculptures that look like styrofoam and cardboard
behind the Inhotim Institute. The results were satisfactory. The used in homeless shelters, the South African Kendell Geers, with
fair might work, especially for being segmented, going against Acropolis Redux, an installation consisting of protection grids,
the grain of the contemporary cultural trends, which opens the and Gary Hill, with the video installation Wall Piece, in which the
doors for the inclusion as a means of attracting not only viewers, artist is seen constantly throwing himself at a wall, a feeling that
but buyers as well. many Brazilians currently share.
Still at the Fridericianum, at the rotunda, its noblest space, is the
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTA 14 KASSEL | PAGES 14 TO 18 Kassel version of the Parliament of Bodies, the section devoted to
the documenta’s public programs, curated by Paul Preciado. Here
KASSEL EMPHASIZES we see once more the relevance of the gesture as an important
symbolic factor, when the central space of the museum is put to
RADICAL GESTURES use as a kind of agora, thus stressing the importance of dialogue
and speech as part of the exhibition. With this, the variety of
IN DOCUMENT 14 possibilities of the artistic practice is reinforced, avoiding the
object as central expression.
This anti-monumental attitude in documenta 14 has few exceptions,
IT SHOWS SUBVERTS CENTRAL SPACE, DONATED TO GREEK MUSEUM, among them the Parthenon of Books, by the Argentinean Marta
AND OCCUPIES INSTITUTIONS IN THE CITY WITH SOCIAL AND Minujin, which returns to Kassel to reassemble her 1983 project,
POLITICAL CONTENTS using 25,000 books censored by the military dictatorship in her
country to build a replica of the Parthenon, the Greek building
used as a symbol of democracy. In the German city, one hundred
BY FABIO CYPRIANO thousand banned books from all parts of the planet are being used.
This will be the striking image of this issue, a sign of the collapse
“TO BE SAFE IS SCARY,” wrote, in English, the artist Banu of democracies the world over, an issue systematically tackled in
Cennetoglu where, up until then, the sign “Fridericianum” hung both Athens and Kassel.
on the façade of the first public museum in history, inaugurated
in 1779 and which, since 1955, is the headquarters to documenta. ETHICS OF SPACE
The expression sets the tone to the 14th edition of the show, The exhibition program in the German city follows what was seen
organized every five years in Kassel, Germany, also known as the in Athens: the exhibition venues
city where the brothers Grimm lived, who, incidentally, worked as determine the contents of the shows, in sometimes unexpected
librarians at the Fridericianum. dialogues, such as the one at Museum für Sepulkralkultur, the
The gesture of removing the name of the museum and, in its place, Museum for Sepulchral Culture, an institution dedicated to
pointing out the need for risk becomes the motto of Learning from displaying the different ways of burying the dead. The venue
Athens, the title of this documenta. In times of globalization and holds one of the modules dedicated to performance, which is very
spectacularisation, this is a project in which every gesture, however plausible, since the essence of this language consists of rituals, and
small, has real value, and artistic practice cannot be excluded from the different ways of facing death are no more than rituals. Thus,
it. It is like removing the turnstile from the São Paulo Biennial, this venue features from a small video exhibition called Exhibition
what was done in its 31st edition, or banning the logos from the for a Single Body to set design projects and homoerotic drawings
clothes of the staff, after all art cannot be mixed with advertising. by the Greek artist Yannis Tsarouchis (1910–1989).
This ethical issue in documenta 14 reveals itself in the very use of Another of these unusual dialogues happens in the Grimmwelt, a
Fridericianum, its gravitational center. For the first time in its history, museum dedicated to the universe of the Grimm brothers. There
the museum is taken by a show organized by another institution, on a is the production of Tom Seidmann-Freud (1892–1930), the niece
sort of loan to receive works of the National Museum of Contemporary of the father of psychoanalysis, who was born Martha Gertudre-
Art of Greece (EMST). With this gesture, Adam Szymczyk, documenta Freud, and at 15, changed her name to Tom, and thus justified her
14’s general director, points out that the division of the event into entire production as a book publisher, writer and illustrator. She
two acts, the first with the inauguration of the show in Athens, two even drew fables collected by the Grimm in a modernist style. The

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