Page 114 - ARTE!Brasileiros #55

ENGLISH VERSION IN MOURNING I STRUGGLE

makes the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history BooKs | “presente” [pages 94 to 97] the memory invisible, and having some horizon
and culture mandatory in schools. for the future, “at least the possibility of collective
Thus, the entries about singular and collective A PUBLICATION THAT construction and of consequence for individual
characters that describe both individualized and actions”. Secondly, “present” is the interjection
community experiences present themselves as EMERGES FROM CARING enunciated by students when responding to
gateways to different philosophies, religiosities, the school’s call and issued by protesters in
bodily practices, technologies, activism, AND DIALOGUE an assembly. “And this seems important to me
mobilizations and entrepreneurships. They as a beginning of the conversation, assuming
also seek to describe the daily battles and daily that the magazine wants to expand the dialogue
life of each period, as well as its limitations, Conceived by Anna Maria Maiolino and beyond the sphere family or private. We are here,
complexities and contradictions. Soon, Chica Paulo Miyada in response to the reality thinking out loud about the situation”, says
da Silva, Madame Satã, Abdias do Nascimento, of social distancing, Presente brings Miyada. Finally, “present” refers to the gesture
Anastácia, Geraldo Filme and Heitor dos together exchanges of correspondence of giving something, the gift, an important
Prazeres share narratives alongside Claudia between curators, artists and researchers pillar of past and present societies. “It is an
Ferreira, Robson Cruz, Rosalina, Francisca Luiz such as Lisette Lagnado, Tania Rivera and exchange regime not based on money, nor on
and many other illustrious unknowns. the assumption of infinite accumulation, but
Dalton Paula based on expenditure and exchange. And I think
the exhibition Presente has a bit of that spirit.”
In this effort to change the imagination of By marCos grinspum ferraZ
Brazilians on the subject the realization of another time
the Enciclopédia Negra project includes the a hYbriD between magazine anD book, As well as distancing itself from academic or
assembly of the exhibition of the same title released in digital and free format, Presente is journalistic texts, the letter format also proposes
at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo a publication with very unique characteristics in a type of conversation that is not that of social
museum. The exhibition under the same title, the world of arts. It is not a publication of critical networks and applications - with the accelerated
opened to the public from May 1, 2021, features texts or reviews, nor a book focused on images, dynamics and ephemeral air that are usual for
103 works by 36 contemporary artists. Among whether photographs or reproductions of works. it. For Miyada, the physical distance between
the three exhibition rooms, visitors can see It is also not a collection of academic articles, nor people ended up being compensated, somehow,
mostly two-dimensional works, of small and even a journal of journalistic language. Presente, by the use of “certain technological channels
medium format, including paintings, drawings, a new publication conceived by curator Paulo that have virtues, but also have vices and tend
watercolors and objects authored by artists Miyada and artist Anna Maria Maiolino, focuses to emphasize only one type of communication”.
Amilton Santos, Antonio Obá, Andressa on correspondence - or we can call them letters And he adds: “Going back to the logic of
Monique, Arjan Martins, Ayrson Heráclito, Bruno - and “other formats of texts and productions correspondence, something that takes time
Baptistelli, Castiel Vitorino, Dalton Paula, Daniel made between two or more people”. to write, to be read, to be answered, is a way of
Lima, Desali, Elian Almeida, Hariel Revignet, Created in response to the difficult exercising another model, which is not in itself
Heloisa Hariadne, Igi Ayedun, Jackeline Romio, times of the pandemic - in which the need better or worse, but which ends up having a
Jaime Lauriano, Juliana dos Santos, Kerolayne for social distancing, at least physically contrasting pace with the means we have been
Kemblim, Kika Carvalho, Lidia Lisboa, Marcelo distanced people -, the magazine appears using to communicate”. Presente, in this way,
D’Salete, Mariana Rodrigues, Micaela Cyrino, as a proposition for dialogue and exchanges, gives space to what Miyada calls “procedural
Michel Cena, Moisés Patricio, Mônica Ventura, as a form of approximation and even care texts”, open, which appear as a way of sharing
Mulambö, Nadia Taquary, Nathalia Ferreira, Oga and zeal among the participants . Launched ideas and dealing with the moment without
Mendonça, Panmela Castro, Rebeca Carapiá, quarterly last April, Presente is the unfolding of definitively proposing reflections.
Renata Felinto, Rodrigo Bueno, Sonia Gomes the first correspondence exchanged between Along with Maiolino and Miyada, the critic
and Tiago Sant’Ana. Miyada and Maiolino in the first months of and curator Lisette Lagnado, teacher and
Although all the commissioned works are the Covid-19 pandemic. “In the first half of psychoanalyst Tania Rivera, artists Dalton
not included in the publication, as only one 2020, when we started to make isolation - at Paula and Paloma Durante and the artist and
work by each of the 36 artists is present in the least who could and despite the absence dancer Pat Bergantin. Interspersed between
image book of the Enciclopédia Negra, the of a State policy in this sense -, I imagined sets of correspondences, poetry by Edimilson
set stands out as a collective portrait of the that for artists the suspension of meetings de Almeida Pereira and visual works by Castiel
various propositions and attempts to compose between them, and also of their works with Vitorino Brasileiro, Fernanda Gomes, Pedro
an institutional presence of the black in the the audience, it would have been difficult”, Moraleida appear in the pages of the publication.
arts. Therefore, the donation of these works, says Miyada. “And I tried to think about how, There is also an unpublished translation of a
mostly figurative portraits of the biographed despite all the cancellations and suspensions, 1986 essay by the American writer Ursula K. Le
characters, constitutes an intervention in search it would be possible to maintain some level of Guin. The diversity of fields of activity of the
of representation. dialogue with these people.” authors of texts and works reflects, therefore,
Therefore, by recovering lives marked by That’s when the curator started writing a set in the multiplicity of themes and languages that

death, the book Enciclopédia Negra aims to of letters to artists he admired and with whom run through the magazine, beyond the field of
extrapolate the view of blacks as synonymous he already had some kind of relationship. Among visual arts. But the tying of everything is, once
with enslaved, subaltern, where racism them was Anna Maria Maiolino, to whom the again, in the search for dialogue and in the zeal
constitutes a mechanism for refusing their curator addressed words about that pandemic between people, a kind of care that contrasts
humanity and legitimizing their exploitation context, so uncertain, revealing her fears and with the almost dystopian reality that presents
and extermination, both physical , political and insecurities, but also commenting on artistic itself on the globe.
symbolic. Philosopher and professor Achille dreams and daydreams. An affectionate dialogue “In the contemporary world, what has been
Mbembe informs us that the recognition followed with the artist’s response, and the exacerbated are very old kinds of violence.
and repair of this violence takes place as we conversation ended up being published on the From racism, the programmed genocide of
deconstruct colonial thinking and begin to blog Entretempos da Folha de S.Paulo. “Months indigenous populations, ecocide, environmental
identify black people in their universal, human later, at the end of 2020, Anna called me and attacks, the restriction of freedom of expression.
and multiple dimension, far from a categorical proposed that we do something, a publication Processes that span centuries, imbricated in
dimension, responsible for the yoke that keeps or a magazine, a conversation channel not the history of Brazil and the world”, says Miyada.
black bodies as commodities. So it must be only between us, but now expanded to other “Perhaps what is unique at this moment is what
said: Black Lives Matter! people who wanted to think about the present”. has been called necropolitics, which comes with
With the invitation came the title, as well as a perverse rationalization that delegitimizes the
the decision that it should be a predominantly right to life, which goes beyond the restriction of
correspondence publication. citizenship and rights and reaches a banalization
The name, therefore, refers to the three of life itself. And we’ve seen this exacerbated
meanings of the word “present”. First, the in the context of the pandemic, in an even
current time, the agora, “which means putting more obscene format.” And he concludes:
in the foreground the possibility of art debating “So inevitably critical thinking today needs to
its time, being part of a public sphere, in which be done in a way that doesn’t reproduce this
ethical problems are a fundamental parameter contempt for each person’s life – and I think
of aesthetic problems”, explains Miyada. This artists, researchers and thinkers are looking for
“present time” can only exist, he emphasizes, this vocabulary. This is one of the things that
when looking closely at the past, without making appear in the cards from Presente”.

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