Page 97 - ARTE!Brasileiros #48

names show how there is a universality in Brazil that is very fascinating and can unfold by the law itself.” , how to portray in an exemplary way the daily discrimination in Brazil.
in programming, in moments. Already in Illusions II, the artist deals with how “narcissistic is this patriarchal white society
in which we all live that is fixed in itself and in the reproduction of its own image, making
So do you intend to show Lothar? Can you talk about something you intend to bring all others invisible”, using here also its own narration. In the show’s catalog, Djamila
to programming? Ribeiro points out how, in Brazil, Cida Bento already used the same idea with the term
I am not yet able to present a program, I just arrived, I am talking to the teams. First I want “narcissistic pact of whiteness”. According to her, this concept advocated that “white
to hear a lot. And I’m happy to arrive and have a great schedule set for the first year, it’s people consent to a pact to reward themselves, to protect themselves, regardless of the
a happiness to come and have a show opening Harun Farocki, with whom I have never circumstances and, thus, to maintain an unfair state of affairs towards black people.”
worked, but respect a lot. It is one of the works that most motivate the thinking between Nothing more appropriate, then, to see works like this on the second floor of the Pinacoteca,
cinema and society, political history and new forms of narration. where is the collection of the institution, so that they function as a disruptive agent in the
My first attitude, then, is to know how the institute works, how its teams, its programmers official narrative of art history that has made the minorities so invisible in Brazil. majorities.
work, and gradually build an identity with them in programming. The works of Grada Kilomba occupy exactly the rooms in the corners of the collection, as
I think an institution has to have an identity in programming, the institute has unique to allow, between one displacement and another, to be able to reflect on the trauma of
possibilities for the interaction of its archives and for a very particular action in the the colonizing process. In Table of Goods, for example, she creates a sculpture with cocoa,
integration with the concept of memory. Who has archives like the institute has an coffee and sugar, precisely the products produced by slaves in Brazil. Topped by candles,
obligation, which is to propose to preserve a memory, but to preserve memory is also this sculpture becomes a kind of memorial to the sacrifice of millions of black women.
to build a point of view on that memory and a point of view that is put into discussion. Already in The Dictionary, it creates an environment where five words are described in
Memory is always something collective, something to be discussed, because those their meanings – denial, guilt, shame, recognition and reparation – establishing a kind
who work with memory work with the present. So, back to your initial question, if the of pathway for how oppression can go through different phases until it is eliminated.
institute did exhibitions like Corpo a Corpo and Conflitos, there is no way not to keep What is notable in this small set of works is the use of the body in a performative way,
doing exhibitions like that. particularly in the videos, where Kilomba herself works with a group of actors who act
on the boundaries between dance and theater.
This strategy is consistent with its position in defense of decolonization. As she states:
REPORT GRADA KILOMBA AND DJAMILA RIBEIRO | PAGES 34 TO 36 “The key moment of decolonization is to position ourselves in our subjectivity to always
I AM REFLECTED IN MY WORK say which place, what time and space I am writing, who I am and what biography of
mine is what leads me to write this and to this production of knowledge. I am reflected
in my work and this is the key moment in the decolonization of knowledge and the arts. ”
GRADA KILOMBA ASSUMES PERSONAL POSITIONING AS A WAY OF The Pinacoteca discussion is accessible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovSKrDLs9Ro
COUNTERACTING COLONIALIST CULTURE; PORTUGUESE ARTIST LAUNCHES Besides participating in the opening of his exhibition, Kilomba was in São Paulo to launch
BOOK AND PARTICIPATES IN EXHIBITIONS AT PINACOTECA the book “Memories of Plantation. Episodes of daily racism ”, his doctoral thesis defended
10 years ago in Germany, a text that questions not only social violence in discrimination,
BY FABIO CYPRIANO but the academic format itself.

“IT IS UNTHINKABLE NOT TO POSITION ourselves on what we do. If I don’t position myself
in what I do, then my position is so great in power and privilege that I don’t need to EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 38 TO 41
artist Grada Kilomba in debate. at the Pinacoteca do Estado at the opening of his Poetic PINACOTECA REVIEWS AND
mention myself, and being an exercise in power, then it’s a colonial exercise, ”defended
Disobediences exhibition, running until September 30th. UPDATES BEUYS AND OITICICA
Kilomba answered an audience question about the reasons for biographical elements in his
work, so positioning there denotes this first–person character: “It is important to explain EXHIBITION SOMOS MUIT+S: EXPERIMENTS ON COLLECTIVITY BRINGS 20TH CENTURY
why writing in the first person; I don’t talk about others, I have to talk about myself, about ARTISTS WHO REPOSITIONED ART IN DIALOGUE WITH CURRENT PROJECTS
my issues, ”said Djamila Ribeiro, a journalist who today embodies the debate around the
place of speech, one of the elements present in the Pinacoteca debate. BY FABIO CYPRIANO
For Kilomba, taking a stand represents a major break in art history, as “many artists and many
white women artists base their work on the absolute exploration of blackness, testimony, THE EXHIBITION Somos Muit+s: experiments on collectivity takes up the thinking of two
language, speech, images, archives and performance of blackness ”. In writing this, I essential artists in the second half of the 20th century, Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986) and
remember the paintings in which Adriana Varejao portrays herself as an Indian in one of her Hélio Oiticica (1937 – 1980) to think about artistic practice today.
series, and I think that one really needs to question representation strategies like this one. In a way, that’s what the 27th São Paulo Biennial, How to Live Together, did in
Kilomba herself acknowledges that “this worked until recently because many black female 2006, which started from Oiticica’s proposals to map productions that questioned
artists did not have access to these platforms, but in 2019 it is absolutely impossible to representation through the antiart proposal and sought to create collective
give credibility to these works. It is important that there is no reenactment of colonialism. experiences.
When we speak on behalf of the other we are reproducing the essence of colonial discourse, After thirteen years, does it make sense to keep looking for reference in Beuys and
which is to use the other as an object for which I speak as a subject. ” Oiticica? YEA. During this period, the art market in Brazil expanded considerably, the
In his deep, paused voice, Kilomba uses the words precisely, as in the narrations of city’s art institutions strengthened, and the country entered a war against culture. Thus,
two of his second–floor video projections of the Pinacoteca: Illusions Vol. I Narcissus the radical proposals of art are still more necessary, but are still exercised in a few spaces.
and Eco and Illusions Vol. II Oedipus. In them, the artist recounts the Greek myths in a However, they are the oxygen of the system and as such essential to understanding what
performative way and then deconstructs them from questions surrounding race. While art can mean today.
Freudians understand the death of their father as a family conflict, Kilomba points out While visiting the show, I heard a gaucho–accented lady comment with her friend as she
that “this fixation on the (white) family ignores the historical and political dimensions of read about the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera’s Useful Art project: “No wonder there is so
this conflict,” according to his own narration. much persecution of art in recent times, because what she [a artist] wants is change,
She goes on to say, “Within a colonial relationship, however marginalized people obey the ”she said emphatically, as if seeking approval. Impossible not to have empathy. It is even
law, we rarely become the legal authority, instead we become the punished and murdered a relief to realize that even just in a state of power, since Bruguera’s work was not being

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