Page 95 - ARTE!Brasileiros #45

FROM DECEMBER 6 TO 9 , the public can enjoy one of the largest and most important “BRAZIL HAS A HUGE PAST AHEAD”: Millôr Fernandes’s phrase never seemed more current and
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art fairs in the United States, which will take place in Miami Beach Convention Center. accurately summarizes the sense of a significant part of the public that met last October at
Very bustling, the fair Art Basel in Miami is a strong bet to several Brazilian galleries, Tomie Ohtake Institute to discuss the future of the country, on the eve of the election of Jair
specially because it is an event that values Latin American art. The preview takes Bolsonaro to the Presidency of the Republic. The meeting, organized around the exhibition
place on December 5th. “AI-5 - It is not yet finished”, played a double and deeply connected mission: to discuss
In this edition, the fair will have the participation of 14 Brazilians galleries, among the 268 the content of the exhibition in the cultural center until the last day of November 4 and at
that are involved. They are: A Gentil Carioca, Bergamin & Gomide, Casa Triângulo, DAN the same time to update this reflection to the present day, evidencing the links between
Galeria, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Mendes Wood DM, Galeria Nara Roesler, Simões de Assis the legacy of the dictatorship period and the repressive retrogression experienced today.
Galeria de Arte, Galeria Luisa Strina and Galeria Vermelho will be in the sector Galleries; Once again, it was observed that silence and erasure in relation to those made during the
SIM Galeria is the only Brazilian in the sector Positions; the cariocas Silvia Cintra + Box 4 period of dictatorship are deeply responsible for the virulent return of policies denying
and Anita Schwartz Galleria will be in the Nova section. To complete it, Galeria Jaqueline historical facts, of hostility towards cultural practices that propose to expose the wounds of
Martins will have its place in the Survey sector. the past and present, and by the growing attempts to forge narratives that reconstruct and
It is the fifth year that Bergamin & Gomide will participate of the event, having a stand in modify this past, turning victims into thugs and thugs into heroes. Students, artists, critics
the Galleries sector, in which curators chose to carry Brazilian works of art from established and editors present at the Assembly unanimously agreed that silence is the main reason for
names from the 1970s to the 90s, putting the works to dialogue with international artists. this ghostly rebirth of repressive actions. And not just in relation to the more recent past.
Names such as Mira Schendel, Lygia Pape, Ivan Serpa and Fabio Mauri are included. The This phenomenon is repeated in longer historical processes, such as slavery and indigenous
gallerys director, Antonia Bergamin, comments that Art Basel Miami Beach was the first genocide, denied because they were not properly expunged. This shared diagnosis repeats to
fair of great importance that they participated: “It was what drove the internationalization a certain extent the one already outlined in the exhibition “Osso”, held in the same space also
of the gallery. It is important for the maintenance of contacts and customers”, she says. curated by Paulo Miyada and which is admittedly the starting point of the exhibition on AI-5.
She explains that most of their clients today live in the USA. The gallery also participates The desire to reflect on this terrible moment in Brazilian history, the suspension of rights
of the section Kabinett, with Paulo Roberto Leal’s works. and political persecution on the part of the state apparatus, is not only the result of the
Maxwell Alexandre should be the main artist of A Gentil Carioca at the fair. Gallery’s director, 50th anniversary of Institutional Act No. 5, but of the feeling that it was necessary to
Elsa Ravazzolo, says she has worked for the artist to be known internationally and to insert treat latent issues. It arises both from the experience of bringing together contemporary
him into large collections in institutions. It is the tenth year that the gallery is in the event: works interested in dealing with these ghosts and from the effort to create a space
“It is certainly the most important fair in America. It creates a junction between Latin for symbolic reflection on the intense social violence in the country. “Osso” - both the
America and North America art “, says Elsa. exhibition and the debate it aroused - united two important points: the artistic expression
Cover of this edition of ARTE!Brasileiros, Rubem Valentim will have three works at the of social and political issues and the denunciation of a specific case of injustice against
fair, taken by Mendes Wood DM and ceded by the gallery Almeida e Dale. The pieces are: Rafael Braga, unjustly framed in the anti-terrorism law for carrying cleaning products.
Emblema (1971), Emblema 79 (1979) and Emblema logo-poético (1974). The artist has great Such forgotten negotiation did not occur in countries like Argentina and Chile. Instead
individual shows in three places in São Paulo: Masp, Caixa Cultural and Mendes Wood DM of “conciliatory” amnesty, the neighboring countries have judged and imprisoned those
Gallery. Nara Roesler Gallery enters in its 11th year in the fair and will take works by Abraham who seized power. And they continue in this purge movement, as evidenced by the current
Palatnik, Antonio Dias, Artur Lescher, Daniel Buren, Daniel Senise, Eduardo Navarro, José lawsuit filed in Chile against the military involved in an extensive network of corruption.
Patrício, Julio Le Parc and Vik Muniz. From the point of view of art, the parallel is the same. While what was seen in Brazil was
Dan Galeria also has a show in the Kabinett section, featuring paintings by Alfredo Volpi. For a silencing in relation to the most critical production of the 1960s, the predominance of
its place in the Galleries section, it will take works of names such as Macaparana, Wyllys de an attitude of institutional self-censorship and the disregard for these issues in the later
Castro, François Morellet and Ferreira Gullar. The curatorship, according to director Flávio period, in the neighboring countries there was an effort - both institutional and society
Cohn, seeks to folloew the history of the gallery and aims to: “Presentva bridge between civil - to institute memorials capable of transmitting to the population the tragic feats of
Brazilian and international constructivist and concrete art”. the military period. It is true that we have in São Paulo the Memorial of the Resistance, but
its scope and dimension fall far short of the gravity of the facts on which they are based.
FRESH AIR Memorials have meaning beyond the symbolic field. They are effective actions that prevent
Murilo Castro, director of the homonymous gallery from Belo Horizonte, says he thought the erasure of memory, but are also testimonies of how art is vital for the elaboration
for two years of where he could have another headquarters. He perceived Miami as an of these traumas. The project developed by Nuno Ramos for the Parque de la Memoria
important propagation place for Latin American art, main product of the gallery, and had in Buenos Aires, which is still to be built, seems to touch precisely on the nerve of this
no doubts about opening a place in Miami: “It’s the best place in terms of fairs in the USA question of visibility / forgetting. The proposal, one of the 18 winners of the contest
and facilitates our logistics to participate in fairs in the whole country”, he points. held in 2000 involving more than 600 projects from 44 countries, is both simple and
The gallery will not yet attend to Art Basel Miami Beach, but confirmed presence in other forceful: the artist proposed to recreate part of the “Olimpo”, feared torture center of the
fairs. The new space was inaugurated on November 17th, with the exhibition This is Brazil, Argentine capital, but reversing its architectural appearance. What is opaque, like walls,
a collective with works by Anna Bella Geiger, Amélia Toledo, Luiz Hermano, Vítor Mizael, would be made of glass, while openings such as doors and windows would become black
among others. marble, thus spelling out the occult and terrible character of the regime’s persecutions.
Author of some of the most compelling works on the social and political situation in
MEMORY INSTITUTIONAL ACT Nº 5 | PAGES 28 TO 31 the country, such as 111 - a work that deals with the Carandiru massacre in 1992 - Nuno
SILENCE AND ERASURE is frightened by the “discursive madness” that we live in the country. to this violence
came in the form of a series of performances, almost theatrical works, developed in
ABOUT AI-5 recent months. These presentations, which interweave speeches, television narratives,
political debate, tragedies (such as “Antigone”) and allegories (such as “Terra em Transe”)
MEETING DISCUSSES THE LEGACY BY THE DICTATORIAL are available on youtube. “Very acute moments bring more immediate reflections,”
PERIOD AND THE REPRESSIVE RETROGRESSION IN CURRENT TIMES says the artist, emphasizing the importance of dealing with things in the heat of the
hour, expressed in the title “Aosvivos”, which gives name to the trilogy of the pieces.
BY MARIA HIRSZMAN Perhaps the most scary thing about Nuno is the unbearable degree of violence

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