Page 105 - ARTE!Brasileiros #47

example, structural racism and police violence, use of public space, indigenous and and seeking other ways of existing and acting. Maxwell Alexandre, for example, is an
environmental causes, gender issues, and the existence of other possible spiritualities. artist who engages in galleries, exhibits in museums and institutions, but at the same
With a majority of commissioned works, the exhibition brings together works by Ana time is always straining, seeking other ways to exist outside of these media - in the
Lira, Ana Pi, Ana Vaz, Antonio Obá, Fulni-ô Cinema Collective, Cristiano Lenhardt, community where he lives, for example.
Dalton Paula, Daniel Albuquerque, Desali, Gabi Bresola & Mariana Berta, Gê Viana , And there are artists who are in university, others who sometimes do not even
Gervane de Paula, Lise Lobato, Luciana Magno, Mabe Bethônico, Mariana de Matos, recognize their practice as artistic practice. So I find this a very interesting place to
Maxim Malhado, Maxwell Alexandre, Michel Zózimo, Paul Setúbal, Yandê Radio, observe, very pulsating of what we are calling a production of experimentation and
Randolpho Lamonier, Raphael Escobar, Raquel Versieux, Regina Parra, Rosa Luz, resistance. That is not necessarily an opposition to the system and to the market,
Santídio Pereira, Vânia Medeiros and PokaRopa Vulcanica. Read below the full because I find it interesting to get things done all the time. And it is part of this
interview with curator Júlia Rebouças. practice to seek other forms of existence that are not submitted. This is what I think
ARTE!Brasileiros – On the subject of this Panorama, you have already pointed out that matters, you are not subject to the dictates of the market, the institutions or
that with “backwood” it does not necessarily intend to deal with the caatinga, the wishes of the healers.
the semi-arid or the states that make up the Northeast, but rather a “sertão Professor Durval Muniz says that the sertão is a multiple experience, although
art”. What is this “sertão art”? it tends to be narrated from certain clichés. Does your proposal have considers
JÚLIA REBOUÇAS – The first place is to think of the sertão not as a theme, but as a fighting cliches and stereotypes around the idea of the sertão?
concept. Because a theme you illustrate, you react to it, and that’s what I’m trying Yes, because it is not “over” the sertão. When we talk about the sertão as a
to escape. I think it important to think sertão not only as a cultural place or matrix, theme, it has this place of reiteration of an image and an identity that are part
but as a way of thinking. And it is in this sense that I speak in a “sertão art”, which of a political project, done largely for the submission of the sertão itself or the
I think is a way of thinking that engenders experimentation and resistance; who Northeast itself - since the sertão and the Northeast are often treated almost
understands a context and tries to relate to it; which creates solutions from what is synonymous. So it is crucial to escape from this, not to reiterate these clichés. To
available; which does not yield, for example, to the pressures of a hegemonic system, some extent I think it would be important to talk about some fundamentals of a
but which will try to find fissures in the classical flows of power. So to speak of an art Northeastern production or very important artists that are in the semi-arid, but I
that has sertão as epistemology is also to ask what practices we are talking about. resisted it. Because I thought that would be the easiest way, to try to pass on this
So I’m here speculating about what those ways of thinking and acting would be, but direct production, this direct image. And when we look, for example, we have the
I’m also trying to find in artists’ practice the places they point to. exposure to the Northeast, which I even joked about as if it were the theoretical
And what answers have you found? foundation of Panorama. We have the book by Durval, the play A Invenção do
It has an aspect that appears in several works in the Panorama that has to do with Nordeste, which won the Shell Award, the book À Cidade by Mailson Furtado, we
thinking of art as a mechanism of healing, returning to some issues and wounds that have Flip also talking about this theme. So I think these clichés and the need to
have remained in history, in relationships. They are artists who propose, through deconstruct them, this is put, is in the debate. And I wanted with Panorama to
their works, either a repair or a process of re-elaboration of historical questions. take a step in another direction, to think of the sertão not as this set of images
For example, Dalton Paula, Antonio Obá and Ana Pi. There is another aspect of this and affections, but as this way of thinking and existing.
sertão epistemology that has appeared that has to do with a certain reverence to And speaking more directly of the artists, how was the choice of these 29 names?
the mystery. An understanding that not everything is explained by language, that I tried to identify artists who already had a “sertão practice”, rather than picking
science does not account for everything, that reason does not reach all things and people up and making them react to a featured theme. Of course, every selection
that there is a set of knowledge, practices and sociabilities that work from what we is partial, limited. There are a number of other artists I could be working with. But,
do not know and does not explain. This manifests itself in spirituality, but simply in anyway, I wanted to have some regional diversity because I find it important to do
that tacit knowledge of knowing that there are things that we exchange and that will the exercise of looking at less obvious places, and there was an exercise to try to
never be worked out are in the subtle field. break this structure a bit in which the exposures are mostly made by white men.
And when I speak of a “sertão art”, I am also thinking of this half-indomitable Then there are more non-whites than whites and more women than men. This was
feature of the sertão, which is a characteristic I also see in art. However much we not exactly a goal, but I think everyone who works today has to worry about another
try to classify, surround, dominate, control or structure in front of the sertão, this type of representation. And I think that in those places, which are less visible or
is always a failed task, because the sertão always escapes, it is always something less represented, is where normally, by nature, there is more experimentation and
different. It is only to think of all the attempts of the Brazilian culture itself to define resistance. More of this “sertão art”.
what was sertão, from the novel of 1930 to the new cinema. And the sertão can When you speak of resistance, it is impossible not to think about the political
not be defined. There is always a trace of stereotype, or a specific cut, or a look context we are living in, with a conservative government and very forceful speeches
from the outside. And that I think is a feature of art as well. You can conceptualize, against art and culture. Is Panorama’s curatorial line also a kind of response to this?
delimit, institutionalize and commodify art, but something always escapes. When I think Brazil is in a very critical moment in terms of politics, in its social relations,
you realize, the art is beyond. And all the time we are having to update and rework in the way of building its places of affection and the possibilities of meeting. Not
what is art, what are artistic practices, how art deals with power, with politics, with to mention the more structural issues with regard to culture. But I do not think
the system. So I think that art has this sertão quality, to be somehow uncolonizable. Panorama is an answer, because it’s all very old and at the same time very new.
Although it can be colonized, it has some force of it that does not allow itself to Especially during the election period, it was very clear that it is necessary to
be apprehended. reorganize, that any strategy of opposition to this government needs to be reworked,
Does this have to do with their interest in contemplating a production that also because many tactics and practices have been overcome, overcome. And I think
exists outside established institutional and marketing circuits? this is about art as well, to think how art will react. I think any immediate reaction
I think artists have speculated not only on alternative circuits, but also on other will be superficial and superficial. What is sometimes necessary in the heat of the
materialities, other authorship relations, collaborations with different disciplines moment, but I think perhaps this Panorama will try to discuss more what would be
and fields of knowledge. And I think that’s by concept what I mean by “sertão art”. a tactical thought or strategies of reorganization of that resistance than to bring
Of course they have artists who work in the galleries, with more classical supports, answers or offer a frontal and direct confrontation. Many artists are making a
but I do not think that simply by being in the gallery they can not be questioning diagnosis of what is happening in the present, but many are speculating on ways

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