Page 100 - ARTE!Brasileiros #48

THE ART OF MEMORY ENGLISH VERSION
importance. Due to the volume of material and the complexity of the theme, the great EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 52 TO 56
assemblies. Women’s Histories: Artists Until 1900 and Feminist Histories: Artists after ARTISTIC PRACTICE AS
show of the year was divided into two extensive and different but complementary
2000 are independent, yet integrated, faces of a strategy of mapping the plastic creation HISTORIAN PRACTICE
of authors at different historical times.
The first of the exhibitions goes back to the past, reveals the perverse process of erasure CURATED BY ANA PATO, META–ARQUIVO EXHIBITION BRINGS TOGETHER UNSEEN
to which women painters have been subjected for centuries, having been relegated to a WORKS BY NINE ARTISTS AND COLLECTIVES FROM ARCHIVAL RESEARCH ON
position of inferiority in the international art scene, despite having a production capable THE BRAZILIAN MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
of rivaling it. in terms of equality with their male peers. The second focuses on the present
moment, shows the strategies and clashes of the authors to produce an art capable of BY MARCOS GRINSPUM FERRAZ
dealing with central issues in the contemporary world.
Women’s Histories, which occupies the first floor of the museum, brings together almost “FILES ALONE HAVE NO MEMORY. It is with them that you build memory”, says researcher and
90 works by 50 authors, carried out between the 16th and 19th centuries. The triple curator Ana Pato. And in this process of reading, interpretation and meaning of documents
curator was in charge of Julia Bryan–Wilson, Lilia Schwarcz and Mariana Leme. The and records – traditionally associated with the academic practice of historians and other
ensemble reveals a scholarly and technical virtue that clashes head–on with the hard researchers – artists play a fundamental role, argues Pato, curator of the exhibition Meta–
evidence attesting to the marginal role for women in art history, such as the fact that Arquivo: 1964–1985 – Listening and Reading Space of Dictatorship Histories.
most canvases come from private collections (only one of twelve paintings of the first Based on this finding, the exhibition at Sesc Belenzinho, created in partnership with the
room, dedicated to the sixteenth century, belong to a museum), the disappearance of a Memorial da Resistência, brings together unpublished works by nine artists, conceived
significant portion of their work (De Cornelia van der Mijn, for example, there is only one from research in different public and private archives on the Brazilian dictatorship.
identified work) and the poor visibility of this production. “Because putting documentation in motion always goes through a mediation process”,
This impressive set has been mined in various collections around the world and has says the curator. The mediators in this case are the artists and collectives Ana Vaz,
required a number of displacements, as much of the work has been stored in technical Contrafilé Group, The Whole Group, Giselle Beiguelman, Icarus Lira, Mabe Bethônico,
reserves and is not yet available on websites and online collections. MASP’s own collection Paulo Nazareth, Rafael Pagatini and Traplev.
is an interesting example: from the period covered by the exhibition (prior to 1900), The works, in various media and languages, set in motion information and materials that
the museum has only three works by female authors. The situation improves as the have opened the violence perpetrated by the military regime over 21 years in different
20th century enters, but overall there is still a large under–representation, as female areas of national life. The artistic practice emerges – with its peculiarities – as a historian
participation in the acquis is around 22%. practice, from a desire to make public little known stories and often to question the
If in general the set is of great interest, the show becomes even more seductive official historiography. For, as Giselle Beiguelman points out in a work exposed in the
when the visitor focuses on the trajectory and production of each of these women. show, memory is always a construction. “What did you forget to forget? What did you
Fascinating histories are depicted here, such as Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, who forget to remember? What did you remember to forget? What did you remember to
achieved exceptional popularity in the eighteenth century, becoming the first painter remember?”, question the phrases written in neons.
of Marie Antoinette, or of Eva Gonzales, the only student, both male and female, The artist herself, at the Gaveta de Ossos installation, “remembers remembering”, through photos
accepted by Manet Interwoven with this rich set of works, revealing both individual and audio, of the reconnaissance work done with the bones in the Perus Ditch, where several
talents and histories and customs over a wide period of time, the exhibition also people murdered by the dictatorship were clandestinely buried. Paulo Nazareth, in Inquérito,
contemplated a type of art normally associated with the feminine: textile work. The discusses the criminalization of black people by reading police inquiries found by the artist and
earliest example of fabric in the show is a pre–Columbian piece dating from the first turned into audios – in work done in collaboration with Michelle Matiuzzi and Ricardo Aleixo.
century. But throughout the show the public can enjoy embroidery from different In Escola de Testemunhos, the Contrafilé Group reproduces on headphones – set on a
eras and regions, from the Ottoman empire to the American quilt quilts. The contrast “blackboard table” surrounded by school chairs – reports from former political prisoners
between paintings on one side and fabrics and embroidery – traditionally symbols of and their families belonging to the Archives of the Memorial da Resistência Regular Witness
the feminine – aim to unmask this place of craftsmanship as a place of women and Collection program. The work, like that of Nazareth, expresses a desire of the exhibition
at the same time contribute to broaden the idea of art. “It is not a question here of to expand the knowledge about who were the acting characters in the fight against the

understanding feminism as the pursuit of equality in a system of oppression, but of dictatorship, as Pato explains: “We wanted to take off some of this imagination that the
dissolving these hierarchies. Working on gender differences is much more than talking resistance to the dictatorship was basically made. by white, young, middle–class men and USP
about women”, says Mariana Leme. students who joined the guerrillas. Contrafilé’s work brings a broader view, which includes the
There is also in contemporary selection an important presence of textile making. The workers’ movement, the movement of women and mothers from the periphery, for example”.
fabric and embroidery weave is now used as a way to overcome the often insidious and The expansion of the geographical notion about resistance to dictatorship – beyond the
masked barriers imposed by patriarchy. Carolina Caycedo, for example, embodies the Southeast or of famous cases such as the Araguaia Guerrilla – also occurs in the work of
names of women she admires in clothes she collects from nearby people and makes them Ícaro Lira on Crítica Radical, a movement formed in the 1970s in Fortaleza. Active even
big banners. Also present at the show is the wedding dress created by Daspu with sheets today, the group had a multifaceted trajectory, with a fundamental role in the feminist
of motels in the prostitution zone of Rio de Janeiro, on which erotic designs were printed struggle and passage through institutional politics, the guerrilla and, subsequently, taking
and which was originally presented at the 27th São Paulo Biennial. on a struggle against the vote and capitalism.
Feminist Histories: Artists after 2000, which occupies the basement of the museum, In another little–known story, Rafael Pagatini follows his research on the role of cultural
gathers works by 30 authors, who began their artistic practices as early as this century institutions during the military regime, showing the intricacies of relations between the
and that somehow incorporate activist practices. These are works that, in general, government and three São Paulo institutions: Sesc, MASP and Pinacoteca. Images of dictators
“work urgencies from a feminist perspective”, summarizes Isabelle Rjeille. Productions at fabric exhibition openings, for example, reveal how these institutions helped to give the
that focus on burning themes, such as the issue of housing in urban centers, as Virginia regime a certain air of normality – “it was like a shield”, says the artist – as exhibits kept
de Medeiros does, or the issue of transphobia and body vulnerability, addressed by Lyz happening and art went on. having its institutional space, with the approval of the government.
Parayzo in Bixinha, a collapsible object that also refers to Lygia Clark’s Bichos. In other Developed by Traplev from extensive archival research – including those resulting in the
words, they are artists who extend the critical reach of their poetics beyond gender, book Brasil: Nunca Mais, clandestinely conducted by sectors of civil society during the final
showing how the web of invisibility that strikes women is usually associated with other years of the dictatorship (1979–1985) and which revealed a number of crimes committed
forms of exclusion, related to racial, economic and geopolitical issues. “Feminism goes by the regime – Arma da Crítica/ Orientação para a Prática installation features two large
far beyond art”, recalls Isabelle. organizational charts, one of the left–wing organizations and the other of the repressive

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