Page 100 - ARTE!Brasileiros #59

ENGLISH VERSION REACTIVATING ATTENTION

had called an external curator to accompany necessary, but not sufficient. It has my identity So you, by identifying with these artists,
him in the development of his collection. Luiz in it. I am not criticizing artistic production discovered a form of militancy.
Augusto was super generous, he told me that does not have an academic background. For me, it has to do with the way I was brought
absolutely everything, we exchanged ideas, Everything is art. But this path brings me a up. My father is a teacher. Everyone at home
“look, this is what I did wrong and I wouldn’t dialogue with which I have more affinity. has a PhD. I’m the only one who doesn’t. So
do it again; I would put more emphasis on I’ve always had a fascination with this sort of
that.” It was a nine-year experience he had Give an example of where this is evident in thing. Many people in the family are linked to
been through and copied his model, with your collection. university.
my nuances. It was he who introduced me to Our next exhibition, with Leslie Thornton, For example, at the 2010 Biennial I saw a
Stanley Brouwn’s work, for example. professor at Brown. A forerunner of video work based on the literacy methods of Paulo
Then I saw that I needed someone in Brazil art in the USA. We are going to show you five Freire, a guy I had heard about at home all my
with training and knowledge to teach me about works that have never been seen in Brazil. And life, and who is now despised by people who
international contemporary art and its trends. they’ve just been shown at MIT [Massachusetts don’t even know him!
There was only one guy, and that was Jacopo Institute of Technology]. If you look at the classes he has at Harvard,
[Crivelli Visconti, curator]. I proposed to him to MIT, Caltech, the ones I’ve seen, they are
work with me in the development of this project, But not always an academic is able to build a nothing more than variants of a method
initially thought to last ten years, but which was good work… developed by this Brazilian.
finished in 2019, when Jacopo was called to Of course. However, in the case of conceptual Education for Adults, by Jonathas Andrade,
be the curator of the 34 Bienal de São Paulo. art, which is the focus of my collection, the is a work in which he formalized something
th
In a month there would be Art Basel, transit of artists between classrooms and political in a super-conceptual way. And I was
Switzerland, and Jacopo made a list of 100 studios creates reflections that materialize one of the first to buy his work.
contemporary artists, many of them well known in artistic production. And as they didn’t sell I travel a lot, I’m everywhere. I have access
in the current art circuit. We reduced the list to works, it was inevitable that they had the to galleries and independent spaces, I have
40, and of them there are only 15 or 20 left. At the academy as a source of income. Either they dialogue with these people who develop
same time, we continue to look at the Brazilian taught, or they died. An ‘idea’ by Robert Barry experimental projects. That was the way.
scene. We were putting together a project that or a ‘conversation’ by Ian Wilson, were hardly Here, for example, there is a complete
involved publications, residencies in Brazil and bought. Whereas a beautiful figurative painting collection with more than 300 brochures
others in London, in partnership with the Delfina is more likely to be commercialized. from the CAyC [Centro de Arte y
Foundation. Currently, I have a collection with Comunicación, an international center for
a certain prominence, and Jacopo was finally Do you think that’s why León Ferrari, for pop culture and art, created in Argentina
recognized when he was invited to do the Bienal. example, took so long to be understood? in the 1970s]. We bought this stuff. This is
There was high demand for him, who is a sweet But I think he did more material works. He did the place where there are more items about
person, very professional, dedicated and ethical. painting, many works on paper and sculptures. CAyC in Brazil. As well as the 1966 edition of
I lived with him for seven years, every day. I’m talking about the group that started in Diagonal Cero [a magazine directed by the
the mid-1960s with the gallery owner Seth Argentinian artist born in La Plata, Edgardo
Your collection has a very particular trait. How Siegelaub, like Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt and Antonio Vigo, dedicated to experimental,
did you build this collection line? Douglas Hubler, among others. conceptual art and visual poetry. In an avant-
Jacopo did a doctoral thesis based on wandering garde gesture, the editor skipped issue 25
artists, who make land art, walking art. So there In this sense, do you think it is more difficult in and dedicated it “to nothing”].
was this affinity with a more immaterial art that a place like Brazil to build a language like this? I entered this seductive game, which is
fascinated me. He combined hunger with the Much more difficult because art schools a Babel or a Borgesian labyrinth, in which
desire to eat. I wanted to move into concept art, are minimal. Here they think that those you enter and which you never leave. The
so it was a perfect marriage. I would find some who frequent them are communists and associations are endless.
things, he would suggest others, and we would vagabonds, exactly the opposite of what is
exchange ideas, building everything together. seen in Germany, where one of the pillars The fascination is in the almost unachieved.
Among these contemporary artists who came of Reunification, for example, was art. The Desire moves towards lack, as Lacan says…
from Jacopo’s research is the Cypriot Haris USA made an aesthetic conquest, saw the It’s over there. I won’t be able to master the
Epaminenda, from whom we bought some geopolitical importance in art after the thing. I’m always behind. It’s very nice to live
works in 2012, and who won the Silver Lion at Second World War. Here, unfortunately, in a relationship that is eternally challenging.
the Venice Biennale in 2019. during the Lula government, we had an
But right in the second year, I started to opportunity to make an aesthetic conquest It seems to me that, deep down, it would be a bit
bring some extremely contemporary things that in Latin America, but… Today this doesn’t the opposite of what we see in collectors seen
were not to Jacopo’s taste, because they have even cross the minds of these guys. So it is only as a commodity, in which the fascination
nothing to do with his aesthetics, for example necessary to have a higher educational level. lies in acquiring a piece to have it, waiting for it
the work of Jacolby Satterwhite. Last year I to appreciate in value and then selling it. Here
was at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, in the So we concluded that creating a more radical the pleasure is in you continuing to research,
main hall there was a gigantic installation by conceptualism is not a question of generational finding links and associations from the work.
Jacolby. I was one of the first buyers of it in or trends, but has to do with the possibility or And that’s infinite. It challenges much more
history, which was represented only by a lost not of acquiring certain knowledge. In other intellectually. I have nothing against those who
gallery in Palma de Mallorca. words, a kind of culture… do this commercially, but my commercial part
But that was me walking my path, A less material and commercial type of culture. is another side of my life. In this game here, I’m
although accompanied by Jacopo, it was a Antonio Dias, for example, when he was in eternally chasing what I don’t know. And then,
very productive exchange of experience with Italy, was able to communicate fully with I don’t just need material. I need extremely
extensive conversations. We ended up looking European artists and conceptualists. Among intelligent people to live with. Then, again, you
at different things together, like Ken Okiish and the great artists of conceptual art, it is worth can’t take the human part out of this circuit,
Nick Mauss. They were foreign artists who were mentioning two great names: the Brazilian because those who do it here are these brilliant
already producing before the early 2010s, but Cildo Meireles and the German Hans Haacke. minds. And I chose a path that refers to my life
I caught them at an inflection point, of being They are two masters who manage to combine story, my father a professor, my sister a scientist,
found by museums. the excellence of conceptualism and politics in my brother also a professor, cousins at USP
an extremely harmonious way. The brilliance and so on. I achieved financial independence
There is a difference that brings you closer to of Antonio Dias was already expressed in the and I am in a privileged position that allows
them. What is it about in your opinion? 1960s, when he created the NAC (Nucleo de me to do that.
I can perhaps make an extremely prejudiced Arte Contemporânea) at the Federal University
and dangerous comment, but it so happens of Paraíba. And Haacke was, for decades, a You comment that in this collection there are
that in the US and Europe these artists have an professor at Cooper Union in New York. And two different worlds. But this other one, which
academic background. And, for this collecting Cildo has a solid academic background at the brings you financial independence, does he
that I followed, I think that this type of training is University of Brasília (UnB). become schizophrenic or can you keep your

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