Page 113 - ARTE!Brasileiros #49

ARTE!Brasileiros – Lucimara, how did you come up with the idea of creating the Inhotim was to stimulate a return visitation and strengthen ties with the local community.

consulting company Museu Vivo? After the event in Brumadinho, the institute assumed an important social commitment
With 20 years of experience in the area of Cultural Management, Museum Management role in the life of the city, an action that the director knows well, since between 1997

and Human Rights, I felt the need to create a platform that synthesized a bit of and 1998 she was a Fulbright organization scholar to observe programs focused on this
everything I had observed with the difficulties and learned along the way. In that sphere: “A challenge that I think it is important to emphasize that it is important for
sense, I spent a year and a half studying the UNESCO Program for leaders, change Inhotim in particular, but I think it is for many other spaces as well, it is the challenge
agents, focused on the 20/30 Agenda. This is a program that tries to discuss planetary of connecting with the territories where the institutions are inserted”, she comments.
boundaries, what are the most urgent causes, discussions at the service of a transition In the context of Renata’s arrival at the institute, a new phase of the Nosso Inhotim program
process in the world, but in fact aimed at environmentalists, social entrepreneurs, began, which has so far registered approximately 1500 residents of the municipality of
agents of social pacts. In taking the course they propose, Gaia Education caught my Brumadinho for free admission to the institution and a 50% discount on space activities.
attention, that there was no discussion around change agents in the cultural sector Previously, residents had only the right to half-entry. “There is a desire and action from
and museums. At that moment I decided to try to see how these guidelines could talk us for an even stronger reconnection, an even stronger bond with the city”. She points
to the museum area, cross-check and bring oxygen to the dying Museums. Trying to out that this involves from artists to the reinforcement of links with schools in the region
think organic solutions. and reaching out to residents in general, thus being a way of exchange, where the
institution opens its doors and the city makes a gesture of saying what It is interesting
How is this implemented in practice? to Brumadinho: “This opening to the territory today helps to define what Inhotim is”.
We researched models of institutions and decided to create a platform that proposes For the director, one of the main situations when arriving in Inhotim was to see even
sustainability solutions for culture. We set up a network consultancy that tries to more clearly the fact that institutions are made by people. “Inhotim lived this tragedy

use several areas to create these solutions. What new skills, what new languages are a lot on the skin because Inhotim’s skin is made of these 600 people who work here”,
needed to go through? she says. She says that the idea that a management needs, in all its spheres and
decisions, to be humanized was a reflection provoked by this event.
Yes, but it does not escape them that, most of the time, it is an economic problem.
I think you are bringing a borderline situation, which is the absence of public policy. In DECOLONIZING MANAGEMENT
our opinion, today we have to have a mixed pizza with diversification of resources. For Within the management sphere of public and private cultural institutions in the country,
many years we had direct and indirect transfers, such as Rouanet Law or the transfer it is important to highlight that Renata Bittencourt is one of the only black people
made to the OS, which always leave the institution “waiting” and without reaction or in charge of an institution of great importance in the country. The fact is related to
requirement to think of other alternatives. This system in Brazil is bankrupt. I think an institutional racism unfortunately still very ingrained in Brazilian society. Renata
in Brazil there was no public, civil mobilization that understands that sustainability points out that it is important that her position at this time serves as a way to create a
is a political act. dialogue in this regard and highlights people like Rosana Paulino, Renata Felinto, Janaina
MAR, for example, which is going through a major financial crisis, has a huge capillarity Barros, Amanda Carneiro and Helio Menezes, who do not necessarily act as managers
and a huge participatory relationship. But we think there is no real search for how but have active voice: It gives me an impression that there are ways that open up”.
to turn progressive campaigns into campaigns that can generate resources. We have At this point, curator, visual artist and teacher Claudinei Roberto da Silva says that
progressive people, these people have to be involved to the point where they feel part what one can “perceive is what is easy to see: there is a black-Brazilian competence
of the place that is being sustained. that has been historically neglected”. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from the School
of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (USP), former coordinator of
Have you operationalized this idea in any way? the Education Center of the Afro Brasil Museum, and serves as an independent curator
Yes. We have partnered with benfeitoria.com, a crowdfunding platform with expertise and professor of drawing, painting and art history. institutions across the country.
in crowdfunding campaigns; SITAWI - Finances of Good, which manages the fund, He points out that this concern with including this competence exists today, but in a
and we, who manage the proposals with the knowledge of cultural management. proportion that could be greater, highlighting the lack of black people in management
The three - Living Museum, benfeitoria.com and SITAWI are organizations that have positions in institutions across the country and points out: “The institution is not
their own expertise. On the other hand, BNDES has a financing line for investment decolonial because it promotes Diaspora Afro-Atlantic symposium, it will be decolonial
sustainability campaigns of up to R $ 300 thousand. Thus, in matchfunding campaigns: when it has blacks and natives in board positions”.
every $ 1 that citizens put, the BNDES puts another $ 2. In this line, we have already According to Claudinei, there is no possibility of talking about decolonialism without

created, for example, two campaigns: one for the Museum of the Unconscious and working on the idea of anticolonialism: “Treating decolonialism without talking about
another for the Bispo do Rosário Museum, which involve the preservation of works hegemony, not to mention cultural hegemony, whiteness is very difficult. People need to
and restoration. recognize their delay at this point in history”, he points out, are from what he observes
As part of the project, the institution then receives a consultancy to work with the a lot in Sao Paulo. He points to the utmost importance of making an effort to bring
mailing that was produced in this initiative. It is one thing for a donor to reach a out a story, to record it in books, catalogs, or “extraordinarily well done” documents,
campaign, another is what to do with your “data.” In fact, it becomes an “economic but that nothing is more fundamental than observing in the staff of institutions. The
entity”. At the box office, you just “sell an event, an activity.” In this proposal, people black presence is contemplated.
“buy an idea”. And being able to retain your data contributes to the possibility of
continuing to offer you support services to the institution.
People in crowfunding leave money for a campaign, at the box office they leave money INTERNATIONAL_NEW YORK | PAGE 42 TO 44
for an event, for an activity. It’s different, because in the first case you are giving money
Museum, where I worked, they strongly consider the person who enters the museum NEW NARRATIVES
to a cause you want to support. At the box office, it’s just a cost. At the Children’s
as an economic entity. When you come in to buy a ticket, just like a telecom, they
create an economic relationship with that person. I think it would be very important US MUSEUM PRECURSOR IN PRESENTATION OF MODERN ART, OPENS EXPANSION
for technology companies, for example, in addition to paying sponsorships, to be able REVIEWING CONVENTIONAL ART HISTORY
to offer museum know-how.
BY GUSTAVO VON HA, IN NEW YORK
About the title of our seminar, how would you summarize these challenges?
The institution understands itself as a cause; have a listening to your problems as ONE OF THE FIRST US INSTITUTIONS devoted exclusively to the exhibition of modern art, the
co-curated; work the married cultural connection with public and private policies, New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) emerged in the late 1920s, initially conceived
bring the knowledge of entrepreneurial culture in the managers. as a constantly changing museum. In the words of founding director Alfred H. Barr
MANAGEMENT IN TIMES OF TRAGEDY Jr. himself, “a torpedo moving in time-space with its nose always advancing from the
Inhotim’s executive director since last April, Renata Bittencourt arrived at the institute present and its syrup reaching a recent past at most 100 years ago.” The idea was
three months after the breaking of the Feijão Dam in the city of Brumadinho. Previously, that as the MoMA collection grew older, his works would be recycled, selling those
among other things, she had been Director of Muscular Processes at the Brazilian over fifty to other museums - such as the Metropolitan and Whitney - while works by
Museum Institute (IBRAM) from 2017 to 2019, and secretary of Citizenship and Cultural emerging artists would continue to be bought.
Diversity in 2016, both at the now-defunct Ministry of Culture (MinC). She holds a Since 2014, MoMA has been undergoing an expansion process. This renovation goes far
master’s degree and a doctorate in art history from the State University of Campinas beyond the museum’s new “west wing”: the old MoMA merged perfectly with the extra
(Unicamp), a degree in Social Communication from the School of Advertising and 14,000 square meters. Walking through the museum you can no longer understand
Marketing (ESPM). Renata is specialized in Art Museum Studies and Communication where the new part begins and ends. The real value of the “New MoMA” expansion is to
and Culture Process Management from the University of São Paulo (USP). rescue its initial mission, a space that allows us to rethink the collection, transforming
The mud of human and environmental tragedy did not reach the large open-air museum, artistic experience into critical thinking within the museum, and to question how this
but it affected the functioning in various ways. In an interview to ARTE!Brasileiros collection has been presented to this day, discovering new voices and new perspectives.
website in June this year, Renata stated that some of her main goals when arriving in MoMA has often been bold in positioning itself by inserting American artists into broader

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