Page 94 - ARTE!Brasileiros #50

ENGLISH VERSION BACK TO THE NATURE

in the 12th edition of Mercosur? feminism has become a movement of artists, afro Latin American artists It is a
Andrea Giunta - The biennial was not criticism of postcolonial theories and process so incipient that the power of the
designed due to a geopolitical strategy for provoking an important empowerment market can not yet soften its criticism, its
Porto Alegre, but in relation to the richness of women artists hitherto erased in art intense revolt We are facing a new situation
of this exceptional city by the cultural plot history. You’ve been doing important shows completely I am full of expectations in the
that surrounds its history. Since 2018, that rethink the official narratives of art face of this scenario, which I consider the
when we established two of the axes of history. How does black feminism fit into most stimulating of Brazilian art
the biennial, feminism and Afro-Brazilian this Biennial? In the #4 of women, you speak of “materials
culture, we inaugurated at the Book Fair of AG – We would like this to be the strongest and techniques traditionally attributed
Porto Alegre the seminar “Art, feminisms contribution of the biennial. Black, not to the arts of the feminine”. Can you give
and emancipation”, with artists, curators exclusively feminist. An art performed by examples of artists or works with this
and cultural agents from various fields. The black females, completely expelled from premise?
presentations made there were the initial patriarchal, racist and classist history AG – Yes, just one, since I do not want to
critical platform of the biennial. that dominates the concept of modern decrease the ad dxs artists: Rosana Paulino,
Porto Alegre is not an airbnb city. 70% of and contemporary art: a geography of who more than embroider, suture. She uses
the biennial takes place around a square power that universalized, imposing itself needle and sewing as a powerful symbolic
full of people who live and work in the city. as a parameter before which all others mark of oppression, racism and violence
Around this square there are infinite times. forms of thought and affection involving against black women in Brazil. She revolts
It does not matter so much the place of art are marked as “cases”, “curiosities”, us about the serenity of the domestic. It
Porto Alegre on the world geopolitical “exceptions”, “particularities”. Let’s not makes its seams with the archives of racism
map, but the place that will have art, for talk about our project in percentages, from the photographs of Auguste Stahl
four months, in the heart of a city of one although it is often expected of a biennial, [1824–1877] compiled by Louis Agassiz [in
and a half million inhabitants. During 2019, but we want to present to the public a set the book Viagem do Brasil, 1865/6], in the
the educational program, which has an of works completely involved with those pretense of 19th century European science,
extraordinary tradition in this biennial, put that represent more than half of the Latin which articulated itself as an instrument of
into operation a tornado of questions that American population. The culture and racism. It crosses this fundamental criticism
allowed us to make visible what we see, sophisticated language of Afro-Brazilian to understand Brazil (the violence of race,
what we think, what we feel. artists will have a wide presence in the not the harmonic coexistence) with the
The term Mercosur has already been biennial. agendas of feminism, violence against the
problematized in some editions of the The Biennial occupies traditional art spaces bodies of black women. And its focus is also
Biennial. Do you intend to make an artist in Porto Alegre, such as the Iberê Camargo fundamental on the canon of Brazilian art
clipping that spans this region or will Museum, Margs, the RGS Memorial and history, an art that is collected and hierarchy
you also be flexible to go beyond the even CHC Santa Casa. The exception as an example of the union between
geographical boundaries limited by the is customs square. How can one “rub abstraction and progress. Concepts of
trade agreement? boundaries and conditionings” and “invent cleansing and asepsis that conceal the
AG – Mercosur is widely represented in new ways of doing, saying, thinking and tragedy of slavery whose matrices remain
the biennial by Brazilian, Argentine and, creating” in such conventional spaces? in force.
to a lesser extent, Uruguayan artists. But AG – It is possible to intervene in power Lucy Lippard, in a beautiful text for the
we were more interested in working on the from the margins, but you can also do this Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial, defends the
idea of a cultural region than the region in the very spaces that concentrate power. need to reduce scales as a way to oppose
established by an economic agreement. In Why give up museums? With Ferrari at the the current economic-social system.
this sense, it is important the participation of Recoleta Cultural Center, with Radical Biennials are usually grid-scale events.
Chile, as well as Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia. We Women in the Hammer, Brooklyn and Is it possible or even necessary to rethink
also consider artists from the Caribbean. In Pinacoteca de SP, we managed to rub this Biennial format?
addition to questioning the representations the power of the Church, patriarchy and AG – I fully share the idea of Lucy Lippard.
of females, we are interested in approaching misogynistic discourses embodied in Initiatives opposed to the spectacle
colonial legacies, which translate in terms political power. I never devalue that the contribute to imploding the symbolic bases
of stereotypes or racism, and which bring works act in front of 100,000 spectators of the dominant economic-social system. I
cultural geographies that involve America to privilege a circle of 25 cultural agents have always been interested in the power of
in its entirety. A decolonial perspective, a who sustain a small conversation. the precarious, to what extent a work that
hemispheric perspective and a transatlantic Workshops, seminars, residences are moves away from the abundance that can
and trans-Pacific perspective, amid so extraordinary laboratories, which we used be seen in the theme parks of the facilities
many stereotypes that serve as the basis for in the preparation of the biennial, and the has a power of friction that is not based on
racism and discrimination, are not exclusive educational program was a constant its size, but on its affections. With affections,
to America and less to Mercosur. In this platform in 2019, but we do not fear or powerful revolts were created.
sense, there is a strategic presence of discard the irradiating spaces of museums. At the same time, biennials are spaces for
artists from Europe, Asia, Africa considered Among the five females listed on the public intervention, which does not seem
more due to the concept of diaspora than biennial’s website, by the way, why not strategic to abandon. I do not believe
of continental geographies. female? —, the #2 speaks of “all non- that articulating a biennial as a critique of
Shows such as Radical Women or even the binary, fluid, non-normative sensitivities” biennials adds to the critical power of art in
reorganization of the Malba (Verboamérica) Art galleries are starting very slowly and society. It is an institutional criticism that
collection, which had their participation, discreetly a process of inclusion of non- by communicating with a very small and
had a very historical character. What should binary artists How was performing this privileged circle can end up swallowed up in
we expect from the 12th Biennial? mapping outside the commercial circuit? its strategic logic. We have seen biennials
AG– Radical Women, yes, had a historical AG – We attribute to the word of the title with few works, cold, distant. I don’t
perspective. One of its purposes was to dig many senses Women because the feminine see interesting the rhetorical curatorial
up female artists who had been eradicated is not only a subject of Women’s Women exercises or closing in on a biennial to
from official stories. This was not the case in would reinforce the binarism I believe it is debate with a select circle of experts. These
Verboamerica, where we misrecised history. false that galleries are incorporating non- topics, I prefer to discuss in a café.
The biennial is distinct. I can anticipate binary artists The art world has marginalized
that there are historical works and works subjects who transit through fluid identities ESSAy: TARSILA [pAgES 20 TO 26]
by very young artists. But what interested Less in contemporary art What art and the
us was not covering a grid of countries or market are doing is incorporating subjects TARSILA’S DRAWINGS IN
ages. We are interested in thinking about a that empower from non-binary identities,
proposal of problems and also approaching fluid, non-normative So they theme them, ITU AND THE ARTIST’S
an experience of beauty. Enjoyment and investigate from matrices philosophical, PECULIAR JOURNEY
thought. This is what we want to offer to and do it in the first person It is worth
the public of Porto Alegre and anyone who asking us again if the domestic market
comes to visit the biennial. At the same time, I am also interested in Exhibition “Studies and Annotations” will
Feminism, and more specifically black the slow inclusion in the market of black present 203 works at the Fabrica de Arte

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