Page 94 - ARTE!Brasileiros #54

ENGLISH VERSION IN THE DEBACLE...

it also constitutes a cultural paradigm, and is for refurbishing the luxurious Royal Monceau formation of repertoire, family inheritance and
reflected in interpersonal, sexual, affective, hotel in Paris, a meeting place for artists and socioeconomic position, although the initiates
symbolic, subjective and family relationships, as celebrities. In 2008, before renovating the strive to make it sound like a natural gift and
David Harvey had already noted. The neoliberal hotel, Allard threw a “farewell party”, giving natural sensitivity. That’s why Allard “loves” the
model is everywhere, with the contradictions his illustrious guests hammers and helmets creative process, because he seems to access
and complexities that this involves. to have fun demolishing the old walls, which something magical and divine when he sees
In the specific case of art, it is not so difficult earned him the Strategies award for the best someone working on “how to add notes”. That
to measure its effects. There is less and less event of the year. is why their ventures are also permeated with
state support and public funding for artistic In Brazil, there was no demolition show, but art - it is the aura that makes them legitimate and
production and more and more markets. There in 2014 the group organized the exhibition Made admirable. It so happens that, here, art is indeed
is more precariousness and less guarantees. By... Feito por Brasileiros [2], to symbolize the at the service of political and economic ends,
More well-intentioned speech and less social beginning of the project and to mark its gesture but it sounds as if it were not. “The spectacular
commitment. More competition and less of creativity. With the participation of more than is a good enough substitute for the democratic”,
collective articulation. More spectacle and 100 artists and curatorship by the French Marc would say Hal Foster in his The Art-Architecture
less democracy. Pottier and Pascal Pique and the Canadian Complex (2013).
The partnership between contemporary art Simon Watson, the show raised R$ 3.2 million The beginning of this marriage is distant, but
and neoliberal logic ranges from the small scale via Rouanet Law. Although mostly endorsed I would like to draw attention to the fact that the
- such as the promise of individual freedom, for by the cultural milieu at that time, the case has “autonomy” of art, which made us believe that
example, which comes close to the artist’s cliché sparked some controversies, such as Cildo artistic practice is untied from moral, scientific
image - to the larger scales, with the presence Meireles’ refusal to participate even after it and functional functions, is now triggered
of art in projects of “revitalization” of cities, as was previously announced. The artist claimed with other intentions. After all, the work “has
well as their role of camouflage reflected in to the press that, “if he had known it would be a autonomy” in relation to the project, the artist
operations involving pollution, gentrification, real estate project, he would have asked more is responsible for making his art, the curator
money laundering etc. and such. In addition to questions” [3]. is responsible for making his exhibition, and
the economic discussion, we can interpret the It was just a harbinger of the magnitude of nothing more. Such an autonomous perspective
new ways of doing politics according to some the undertaking, which also includes a luxury put cultural work at the key of transcendence,
artistic methodologies, see the way in which commercial area and the largest private park whose premise is that creation takes place
authoritarian populist leaders have explored a in São Paulo. It is not by chance that the title of beyond social and political conditions, so all
certain elastic and spectacular performativity, the project is “Cidade Matarazzo”. The promise that remains is for the agents involved to wash
which knows how to compete (and win) the is that there it will be possible to experience their hands very well and move on to the next
attention of large audiences. In general, we a kind of private city endowed with the best adventure. Responsibility is a hot potato.
can recognize the stamp of “contemporary art” services and unaware of the ruin of the world. In But the notions of autonomy and utility
directly involved in the transformation of global February of this year, the project announced a are mutually interchangeable and not at all
patterns of power, especially in what we now partnership with Banco Bradesco to inaugurate stable. In the above characterization, it would
call post-democracy, something that demands “Casa Bradesco de Criatividade”, including a be possible to invert them, depending on what
more attention, and perhaps another text. sumptuous exhibition space. Curated by is being emphasized. Work that is supposedly
Perhaps the recent episode around the Marcello Dantas, the program intends to bring committed to certain topics and issues may
Pacaembu stadium in São Paulo is fresh in the disputed international names into large- be appropriately disinterested. In the opposite
the reader’s mind. The management of Bruno scale commissioned projects, starting with way, a supposedly disinterested work can be
Covas and the consortium Allegra Pacaembu Anish Kapoor [4]. Alongside this, emerging and very useful in the construction of a certain
closed a concession contract for the stadium established artists are being invited to produce social narrative, it can be used as a symbolic
for 35 years. Before the reforms started last permanent projects for the complex, in order to force. The senses are constructed above all in
December, “Paca” held a large exhibition called make the City a constant experience of beauty, the way work circulates, in the way the world
Arte em campo, with the participation of 25 inspiration and transcendence. moves and inhabits. There is no disincarnated
galleries and 54 artists [1]. In an interview with Forbes, the French work. A clear example of this is the relationship
According to the official pronouncement, millionaire spoke about art: “There is nothing between the market and independent “nonprofit”
the exhibition would have the role of stating more poetic than the creative process. I love initiatives, which end up adding value to the
something that the consortium intends to do when I see someone in a music studio, working artist or initiative because they are recognized
throughout its management: diversify the use on how to add notes, I love fashion, I created for their critical and challenging purpose to the
of the stadium beyond football games, investing some fabulous brands, I love when I see system (in the case of Pacaembu, the presence
in cultural and leisure activities. One of the someone preparing a show. I am a lover of the of works who were indirectly criticizing the
goals of the reform, however, is to demolish the creative process because I believe it will save project is evidence of this). In the intertwining
toboggan - an area recognized for democratizing the world. ”[5] between artistic production and neoliberal
the stadium and housing low-income fans - It certainly is not for me here to doubt his infrastructure, it is necessary to recognize more
and, in its place, to build a large building in moving sensitivity, but there is something and more curators, institutions and enterprises
the style of shopping centers, which already else in his speech. I believe that for Allard, the as fundamental pieces in the construction of
seems to indicate that the consortium’s “culture” creative process will not save the world, it will meanings that a work institutes.
perspective is that of private experience. In save capitalism. Precisely because there is Let’s go back to Cidade Matarazzo: the
addition, the security problem of the venue will nothing more neoliberal than the premise of business is foreign, but the “values” are Brazilian.
be solved with the incarceration of activities, as “creativity”. In the case of Cidade Matarazzo, The hotel, signed by Jean Nouvel (his first work
opposed to investing in the relationship of the one of the roles of art is to produce a sense of in Latin America), consists of a “Torre Mata
stadium with its surroundings. inclusion and representativeness that is far from Atlântica”, which structure is formed by a series
When I read a little about this public-private reflecting the structural logic of the enterprise. of leafy green plans and terraces with local
partnership, I wondered what was the role of the Once again, the equation is simple: the presence trees that should simulate an invasion of the
collective exhibition there, in addition to makeup, of artistic practice is an advertising resource forest on architecture, a kind of triumph of
to sophisticate and to provide a cool facade that to value and justify the business, “immunize” nature [6]. The project is also committed to
justifies interests that are far from favoring the it, perhaps. using only national materials and suppliers
city. But despite the fact that the Pacaembu case I used to think that there was an abyss and not to save on planting trees common to
provides us with enough discussion material, between believing that art could turn our the threatened Atlantic Forest at the site. In
I would like to focus this text around another ways of being in the world more complex and addition, as is characteristic of the architect,
recent project, still under construction: Cidade simply reducing it to a problem of taste, but high tech solutions will be combined with light,
Matarazzo - the first six-star hotel in Brazil. these speeches are more than meets the eye. transparency and weightlessness, making the
In 2011, the French group Allard bought the It was Pierre Bourdieu who identified that, solid structure translucent and evanescent. A
old and listed Hospital Umberto I, the “Hospital from the perspective of the dominant classes, conciliation between spectacle and engineering;
Matarazzo”, built in 1904 and located in a region the “legitimate” way of understanding a work image and structure. But here, without a doubt,
of real estate dispute near Avenida Paulista, in is to understand it as an end in itself. It must the infamous vision of the tropical paradise, the
the city of São Paulo. The businessman at the not serve political and economic ends, but desire for monumentality so accustomed to
helm, Alexandre Allard, is known for creating only the problem of language itself. However, contemporary logic and the desire to produce an
the company Consodata, which was already such a “legitimate” way, as the sociologist instant icon, a temple of itself. There is nothing
a leader in the consumer data market, and put it, has as its (class) assumptions the very different from what is seen abroad as the
94