ARC Magazine’s Holly Bynoe shares Chapter 2 of her time spent in São Paulo for the 18th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil: 30 Years + Southern Panoramas. Continuing to immerse herself in the city’s rich culture, Bynoe shares her thoughts on the retrospective exhibition of the festival’s evolution, and spoke with founding director of Videobrasil, Solange Farkas, about what it has taken to guide and sustain the organization over the past three decades to become one of the most critical platforms in the south for contemporary art, and an exemplary model for cultural agency and creative exchange.
A lesson learnt
Being on time in São Paulo is a struggle even if you know the city; its barrage of traffic works against you. I am heading to Phosphorus, an emerging experimental art initiative directed by Maria Montero, located on Rua Roberto Simonsen, the oldest street in São Paulo and the center of the historical district. Gentrification is now leaving the older parts of the city run-down and abandoned. However there is a new movement to fortify the core of the city and its cultural history. Phosphorus, established in partnership with Casa Juisi, a vintage clothing store and rental facility, is housed in a building from 1890 and is also used for collaborative projects with a convivial message at the core. The space hosts an open kitchen and library with a homely vibe, seeking to go against the institutionalization of art.
Maria is late because of the same traffic that I was stuck in on my way to the center, so I spent time with Simone, the director of Casa Juisi and her dog, telling her about my current focus and partnership with Videobrasil and our hopes of collaboration with the festival. Arriving late with Gustavo Ferro, current artist on view, Maria quickly brings me up to speed with the development of the project and the lack of support that various start ups receive, and the severe gap that exists between the commercial endeavors and independent artist-led initiatives, which oddly enough feels very familiar.
This gap is enormous and harkens back to the support structures that have been available to artists who want to enact change in their creative communities. Maria has a committed career linked to arts administration and worked for a long time in the blue chip paradigm, and then became sick of it. She started to feel dehumanized, and that is where the idea of PH (15) started to brew.
Works by Gustavo Ferro on view at Phosphorus. From the exhibition ‘Remains a remnant’.
Phosphorus housed ‘Remains a Remnant’ by Ferro, and it focuses on the urban space of the city and its relationship to danger, security, play and proximity. What I think is the most successful component of this exhibit is the artist’s take on the body and its relation to the space that the viewer must force through. His use of video and juxtaposing banal scenes of a city almost at a standstill gives pause to the ennui of everyday living in a city that is at times threatening. As an installation artist, the use of repurposed aluminum caps and geometric shapes on the wall references in a very discreet way Gustavo’s relationship to the history of Concretism in Brazil. The surfaces play with the room, bodies, and other works, and even in some way the eeriness of the sound of the city. All of these things flicker to the periphery of my sight where the danger is more evident and visceral, as the motion doesn’t stop due to the collapse and emergence of a new scene seemingly simultaneously out of each cap.
Phosphorus houses a care and a freedom that I hadn’t experienced, and feels informal, laid back and open. Most importantly it works in direct contradiction to the first gallery visits, and I feel at total ease within this arena, enough so that I share my experiences so far of the city and openly critique observations that are disquieting. I can easily compare the Phosphorus/Casa Juisi pairing to a space like Fresh Milk, Barbados and or the now deceased Roktowa, Kingston where the delineation of paths, spaces, galleries, kitchens, rooms and studios exist in a cacophony of other ideas linked to holistic artistic development.
Outdoor kitchen design at Casi Juisi and Phosphorus by Rodrigo Bueno
In 2012, the space developed its outdoor kitchen, which is nestled around an installation done by Rodrigo Bueno, an artist in their collective. Plants sprout out of chairs, rusted metal is in full collusion with concrete, soil and clay, makeshift sculptures, logs and mirrors fill the bare gaps in the wall and ferns threaten to take over the grey verticalness. This kitchen excites my senses as it brings relief and softness to the abundance of hard surfaces.
Before I leave, I choose two dresses from Casa Juisi, one a French 50s frock that echoes my overtly modest, Christian upbringing, and something a little more youthful and floral. Simone has packaged them in a flour bag with an 18th century compass wind rose as its signage. If São Paulo, its energy and inhabitants deliver another message of synchronicity, the officials might have to kick me out.
I race across town, very late to meet Paulo Miyada, curator at the Tomie Ohtake Institute. From our first meeting I could sense an ardent inquiry, and with a meeting so short it is hard to imagine that he transferred as much as he could. His status as a teacher is legendary, and after hearing about Katherine Kennedy’s visit earlier in 2013 I was determined to make time to sit and share.
Our timeline starts from slavery; he defines the ports of entry, crops, how Brazil was divided up, along with its political history. His words and drawings enter my notebook in scribble; the maps, outlines, diagrams and timelines give me a sense of the history of this space. We speak about the emergence of Modernism in the 20s and 30s and Concretism in the 50s and 60s. About the rise of the military regime, the birth of neo liberalism, the economic downturn in the 80s and finally the rise of the super economic powerhouse of Brazil, the BRICS country in the early 2000s.
I get a crash course in Bossa nova, Trotskyism, Le Corbursier, European migration during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd waves, and most importantly, Lévi- Strauss. French Anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss spent 4 years, 1935-1939 conducting research and teaching Sociology at the University of São Paulo, which factored heavily into his seminal book ‘Tristes Tropiques‘, now central to structuralist thought. He was able to conduct research on the natives of Brazil and other areas which yielded pertinent information that has affected and influenced a Western view of the South, the Tropics and Indigeneity; in effect the Caribbean, since he was also stationed in Puerto Rico and Martinique during the mass exile from Europe prior to World War II.
In chapter 4 of ‘Tristies Tropiques” ‘The Quest for Power’ Lévi-Strauss writes:
“Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield you their treasures untarnished. A proliferating and overexcited civilization has broken the silence of the seas once and for all. The perfumes of the tropics and the pristine freshness of human beings have been corrupted by a busyness with dubious implications, which mortifies our designers and dooms us to acquire only contaminated memories.”
Estação da Luz in São Paulo.
Miyada connected the growth of the metropolis of São Paulo to the way in which the city continues to erase itself through the development of its surface. This layering started at two rivers that converged at the point of a significant site the ‘Estação da Luz’. Its site, previously a river-cum-swamp, merged into a tea plantation in the 1890-1910s, then into a French garden, then into a road, then into what stands today, a transportation terminal. This layering and covering up of history renders the foundation of this cityscape barren. It excludes any hope of it fulfilling any other action but its erasure. Lévi-Strauss’ comment resonates even more clearly as I puzzle over the vision that has been created for this city, and the human scar of ambition has left very permanent marks in wake of concrete, money and glut.
The political history of Brazil is in fact even more involved and can only be available through prolonged study and numerous visits; its complexity as a federation/republic and its political traumas through the rise of the militarized regime in the 60’s through the mid 1980s crippled the growth of the country, scavenging and stifling the creativity of the city with its right wing militia.
I wanted to get some time with Solange in order to make the experience of Videobrasil more relatable to our audience. I crafted careful questions around the issue of the festival’s growth versus what it used to be 30 years ago, comparatively analyzing a trajectory of why the Southern Panoramas platform was important along with its collective curatorial support. I wondered about the founder’s experience with defining the South as a mercurial construct with a shifting geography and what her innermost revelations were so far. I also wondered about private sector support and VB’s visibility on an international level, and about keeping VB relevant and what this would mean for artists within our networks to see the potential of a show like this, and more so an idea like Videobrasil.
Videobrasil reinforced Southern Panoramas branding at SESC Pompeia
How would the Caribbean as a location factor into Southern Panoramas or other types of exhibitions? São Paulo has one of the more renowned biennales on earth, the second oldest to Venice. Why then are we mostly exempt from it? Why is the Caribbean such a blind spot, and why are we only ever defined and supported through Cuba? Olivia McGilchrist was the only artist from the Caribbean showcased in this year’s exhibition, and blindly I could list another 20 who can be as competitive and relevant. Are Caribbean artists only looking to the North or Europe for career validation? If so, we/they need to stop. For me, one of the most substantial realizations is the fact that we have to increase our competency, professionalism and circulatory points so that we can identify ways to have channels remain open, ensuring that we can be considered in this conversation and secure our positions there.
Sitting with Solange isn’t an easy thing; her reputation precedes her and I am a little shaken. It is clear on a too-hot evening that concentration spans are haywire, and we retired to the boardwalk flanked by almost nude figures and shaded from the evening sun by an umbrella. Moving between translation, rapid-fire note taking and wondering why I didn’t have a recording device, I see the emergence of the sharp, genial thinker and mentor. The figurehead who has been running this festival for three decades and the stalwart nurturer, leading a team of 30 odd young men and women through the foundational years of their careers, surfaced.
My first question is returned with pages and pages of notes, and out of it all I gather the following:
What is always clear about Videobrasil is the fact that it was and still is a political act – a social incident in the world securing visibility for those who previously had no platform. It is a space to provide transformation while highlighting sociopolitical issues in Brazil. During the 1980s at the end of the military regime, Video Art and Media Arts found a way into the social and political spheres of Brazil. Local productions and locally owned stations started showcasing content that directly fed into artists’ psyches, unleashing the medium to them.
Click here to view the embedded video.
This automatically impacted on artists like Cildo Meireles and reinforced the political change and landscape, spawning experimentation with language and innovations in the medium, changing aesthetic values. This led to new ways or unconsidered possibilities of using a specified language to encapsulate a theoretical moment which essentially took Videobrasil out of its first phase of development into a more globalized field of actions.
The second phase legitimized the language of Video and Media Arts, supporting different poetics and didactic relationships to the construction of the visual, breaking barriers and putting the medium of Video into a field of scholarship and exchange; maturing into something with cultural value.
The development of Videobrasil’s archive becomes another substantial addition to this dialogue; along with the assemblage of collectors; and the development of dynamic public programming kept and increased steady support within a local context, thereby retaining its social relevance across Brazil.
At the end, Solange remains generous, strong and adamant about the development of a platform founded on a holistic sensibility within the context of the cultural atmosphere. Videobrasil today is putting artists in different realities by offering various residency programs to those who participate in the festival. This acts as a stimulant to the artists, strengthening their capacity to improve their practices, livelihoods, skills and professionalism, along with impacting on their institutions; personal and otherwise. These opportunities give the artist the time, tools, references and support to create, think, educate and share a wealth of knowledge with colleagues, communities and cultural institutions that further invest in creating the freedom that we must exist in as creators and cultural facilitators.
Solange is an advocate, a soldier and a mentor of agency. She represents an idea that has gained exponential value as time passed, and the networks that Videobrasil are exploring through her joie de vivre, awareness and keen sensibilities culminate in one of the more profound experiences – the careful curation of a team of young, clear, vital and sharp professionals. This will surely work to bolster the future of this movement with clarity and vehemence.
The Grand Marquis
Isabella Lenzi, VB’s Public Programs Assistant, replaced Paula as our main tour guide on our institution tour, and joining us was Michel van Dartel, curator at V2: Institute for Unstable Media out of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Michel is on a working tour across South America, with São Paulo being the first of three stops. We met briefly the day prior at the panel, and started sharing our views on Media Arts and its changing field. The day was already off to a positive start as Isabella mentioned that we may in fact be able to see a little more than what was on the agenda.
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First up was the Centro Maria Antônia, which has been operational since 1999 and is an extension of the programming of the University Center of Maria Antonia, which attempts to provide different poetic ways for artists to showcase techniques of how they are reevaluating their current conditions. Another core objective of these spaces is to have an exhibition program, which factors in research and mediation, meaning the programming developed includes conversations and visits with curators, critics, theorists and artists. There are also free workshops where you can learn about the history of the city and its relationship to Visual Arts, Architecture, Design, Literature, and Philosophy.
On view in the three modest sized galleries is work by Restiffe Mauro, Gregori Warchavchik, and the highlight of my morning, Cildo Meireles’ 4/4. At first it seems to be nothing, an empty room with polished wooden floors. There is anticipation as one expects something profound given the name on the door, and as you float around and get to the first corner, you experience your first taste of vertigo. The dimensionality of the room has been altered, and in a state of giddiness I have a flash back to a memory of seeing Vito Acconci’s 1972 action ‘Seedbed’ and wondered if anything strange and perverted is lying beneath these floorboards. Floorboards – Poe surfaces with his ‘Tell-Tale Heart’, the eye, the heartbeat, the pounding, the incessant motion that my body has been shoved in as I view the piece. I walk from corner to corner, adding, subtracting and finding divisions in the math and principle of this space.
Four quarters 4/4 by Cildo Meireles.
4/4 does what any good conceptual project should, it invites you to participate, it challenges you and it doesn’t discredit your experience. Curator John Flag comments on the illusion of the experience of this work: ‘A room is perceived from the inside. Not only by the eye. Not only because it surrounds us. Inside our bodies as well. Its existence turns into being as long as we feel ours in it. If it’s any kind of empty room, in principle, not much can be done. But if it’s the case of a space of exhibitions, in which one expects to find art, then everything changes. And if it really looks like there’s nothing in there, it’s quite likely that our mind, in this very moment, shall deny it. But what if, while moving throughout this space, we find some strange alterations, in ourselves as in its architecture?’
We anticipated a longer stay at the first gallery, which meant that we had some time and made an unscheduled stop at Casa da Imagem/ Museu da Cidadde de São Paulo, which had several exhibitions on view by photographers exploring urban dwellings, remains and psychological spaces as surfaces to suspend or enter disbelief. Works by Flavio de Carvalho, Edu Marin, Cristiano Mascaro, Felipe Bertarelli were on display, as well as Wagner Malta Tavares’ stellar installation ‘Princess Perfume‘, a metal tube some 300 meters long which snakes through and along two buildings and a passageway that once connected the Sé and the Tamandutei Rivers; the rivers in the aforementioned cover-up. The artist has affixed several external fans, which emitted different smells at various points along this tubing. Dilluted aromas of roses, Angelica, lavender and at times even body scents were siphoned through these ducts and released into the city’s center. The project’s origin is one that mixes folklore and research into the life of the Marquesa de Santos. Another stand out segment of work was Felipe Bertarelli’s investigation into the urban typology of São Paulo through night photography. The cityscapes and tunnel spaces were transformed into large-scale pristine prints that were sharp, detailed, indexical and aesthetically challenging in their formalism.
Isabella Lenzi, VB’s Public Programs Assistant and Michel van Dartel, curator at V2: Institute for Unstable Media preview work at the Casa da Imagem/ Museu da Cidadde de São Paulo
There isn’t anything a neophyte can say that would give any real weight to the type of work that Oscar Niemeyer did in Brazil during the Modernist era, so when I got to Ibirapuera Park, at first I thought that time reversed a few decades and pitched me into this realm of stark urbanism.
It is impossible for me to translate the experience I had walking the length of the Grand Marquis, but this cultural park by sheer imagination and manifestation left me crippled and in awe of the vision of the creative minds that existed in this mecca during the 1920s-50s, the cultural hay day of São Paulo.
The Grande Marquise’s location dictates the beginning of the MAM, (Museu de Arte Moderna) and the supporting structures on the brim of this futuristic (even in the present) space include: The Cicillo Matarazzo Pavilion, home to the São Paulo Biennial, The Afro Brazil Museum, the Oca or hut which houses the Air Force Museum and the Folklore Museum, The Planetarium and Astrophysics School, The Japanese Pavilion, and the obelisk- yes, they even have an obelisk, which is a mausoleum containing 713 members of the Constitutionalist Revolution of the 1930s. Today the park is filled with children, teens and young men skateboarding, biking and roller blading, performing tricks and grating the concrete.
First up for the evening is the ‘140 characters’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM). This exhibition brought together 140 works from MAM’s collection that commented on the theme of political mobilization. In June 2013 there were numerous public demonstrations across Brazil that targeted public mobility and transportation. What started as a very simple issue grew into comments and attacks on the rise of government corruption and police brutality. Being in the dark about these demonstrations, the works displayed didn’t really give me the context of the uprising or didn’t have any instructive language, so often I was left wondering and moving into the works of photographers that used the body and the archive to engage with broader social issues. Lia Chaia’s Folíngua series and Rosângela Rennó’s Bibliotheca, while both simple projects, extended a poetic language linking to feminism, censorship and repurposing the archive into a manner that allows for reflection and political engagement with self, knowledge and cultural awareness.
Lia Chaia. FOLÍNGUA. Photograph. 60 x 60 cm. 20o3
As Isabella, Michel and I walked briskly under the Marquis, we arrive at the Afrobrasil Museum and our guide gives us a swift tour of the permanent collection which includes numerous objects linking Brazil’s history, populace, agriculture and everyday syncretism to Africa. There are thousands of objects, and clearly it is difficult to see through to a solid curatorial structure.
One thing is very visible and pronounced: the rituals that have remained via religion and the way that people who live outside of São Paulo are less Westernized, and driven by strong vestigial connections to Africa. The Northern and Northeast regions of Bahia and Salvador have been repeated throughout my trip as important in being better equipped to grasp this Afro Brazil sensibility and idea of a space that is less homogenous culturally than the components of the metropolis. Simple things like having a formidable connection to the land and sea can revamp perspectives and dynamisms in very minute ways, and the work that I have seen from Northern artists or artists studying the North like de Medeiros and Heraclito cement my interest in the use of ethnography, fiction, sociology and religion as new lenses that we need to occupy in a proactive way to engage with fraught and traumatic histories.
Aryson Heraclito‘s work shows up again within another medium, this time in large-scale photography. Several large, richly coloured photographs inspired by the practice of offering food to the twelve major deities of Candomblé are presented, and they immediately assume a godlike figuration as the heads and the offerings take up the entire vista of the print. Beans, corn, yams, okra, peanuts and various mixtures of food have a sheath of faces, and these subjects are molded into peaceful worshipers who have given over their bodies and heads, again, as sacrifice.
Ossain. Photographic works by Ayrson Heraclito.
Nana. Photographic works by Ayrson Heraclito.
The sweltering heat gave us resignation, and we left feeling that there should be a more thoughtful edit of the permanent collection or a way to view the work that made thematic sense. It may be unfair to criticize this type of exhibit as their mandate and mission is so very dense. However, I am certain that if we had more time, beyond the 90 minutes of speaking about slavery, crop production (mainly sugar), the eroded landscape of Brazil, its entry into industrialism, Carnival, the pantheon of Orishas, Yoruba, the richness of Candomblé and the current structures of neo colonization, then it would have been so much more. And perhaps the objects were just a part of a larger conversation that I have had with many people, and it was nice to find some strong parallels here. It was the first time since being here that I forgot about the market and its implications; it felt familiar, chaotic and frantic to come to terms with its resolve.
We walked across the Marquis and took a turn across a field littered with trees to the amphitheater to see the Oca or the hut. They were in the process of installing ‘The Cartography of Power to Know Itineraries’ and we were able to wiggle our way in due to the charm of Isabella, and were allowed to walk leisurely through to see the installation of an upcoming show by a famed choreographer. The current installation, which will remain on view through April, reflects on Portuguese scientific knowledge and its relationship to former overseas territories like Brazil and Angola.
São Paulo Ibirapuera Park – Auditorium by Oscar Niemeyer
The beginning is the end is the beginning
The agenda for the next day was considerably uneventful when stacked up against the last seven days of seeing the inner workings of the visual culture of São Paulo. But it didn’t pull any fewer punches, and being the official last day of programming it meant that a collision of minds was before us. Videobrasil’s editorial coordinator Teté Martin moderated the final panel ’30 years of Memories and Updates’ which featured journalist Gabriel Priolli Netto, Solange Farkas, co-curator of Southern Panoramas Eduardo de Jesus and esteemed educator, critic, cultural facilitator and curator Moacir dos Anjos.
The Galpao was scorching; it turns out that today was the hottest day of all, a stagnant temperatures nearing 40 degrees celsius. The oppression of the heat, coupled with our translator making a near flawless attempt at keeping up, my brain could only hold bits and pieces, and they went like this:
- Gabrielle spoke widely about the rise and transformation of TV in the 1970s and early 80s that culminated in the birthing of Videobrasil. He focused on the political act of seeing self within the local arena, and the significance and it held in giving artists the power to appreciate the legitimacy of their voices.
- Eduardo de Jesus established the connection between video art and performance, and the support mechanisms that Videobrasil put in place to herald its emergence from the inception of its 15th festival.
- Moacir dos Anjos began with a very polemic and lyrical comparative study of the relationship between the North and the Geopolitical South. He spoke about the existing paradigms that tend to exclude work from the South as peripheral and as such marginalized. After this fracturing, the securing of support and frameworks for festivals like Videobrasil becomes important as they fight and rally against hegemonic systems that threaten to mute the South.
- Finally, Solange spoke towards the continuation and the evolving discourse around Videobrasil’s program. She reiterated that it was not an act of seclusion or favor, but the growth of the project to finally showcase the true rigors of exchange. Within the formative years of Videobrasil there was a national agenda, but that quickly deviated upon the realization that other Southern territories were facing the same problem and that structures and larger ideas of democratic support needed to react to enlist and encourage these limitations of thinking and doing.
Nearing the end of the discussion Eduardo took Michel and I through Southern Panoramas one last time to show us mentionable work, some of which I missed during my comprehensive view including Argentine Gabriela Golder‘s triptych ‘Conversation Piece’, which depicts two young girls reading Marx and Engles’ ‘The Communist Manifesto’ with their grandmother. The conversation is energetic, funny and the grandmother becomes a mediator, engaging with the youngsters who are precocious and inquisitive to interpret the text and the transmission of ideologies connected to freedom, labor, oppression and capitalism.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Another stand out piece Eduardo mentioned that informed the curatorial framework was Claudia Joskowicz‘s ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, a two channel video that reflects on the complexities of space, this time the internal relationship of two families and their surrounding living spaces, and the view before us of the hills of Illimani in the Bolivian Andes Mountain rage. The formalism of this diptych is rigorous and introduces us to two families both on the cusp of exile, one a Polish Jewish refugee who arrived in Bolivia during the Second World War, and former Nazi Klaus Barbie living in an affluent neighborhood. The infamous Rolling Stones song is the accompanying soundtrack, and the tension mounts as the tracking and slow motion increases in tenor and pitch while we wait for an encounter. This is staged as a paused moment in the elevator, where the two families meet, poignant as it showcases Latin America as a site for asylum to both victim and oppressor and the subsequent social and cultural ramifications.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Our site visit ended at SESC Pompeia’s open courtyard and Solange and I shared a few words that held the promise towards continuing our dialogue and partnership, and I hope these chapters are testament to that start.
There was mention of a party and we arrive to find it bustling with energy, youth and release. Ruy Luduvice and I speak about Louise Bourgeois, the constructs of Caribbean politics, the University of São Paulo and the contradictions of the city. Tonight, in the open air, with warm bodies, crossing Samba vibes and loud conversation, I finally get an epiphany as to why Videobrasil feels so different.
It is because it is.
With the constant circulation of young intellectual minds and advancing methodologies, there is little room for stagnation and newness is always in play. I think perhaps this is the secret weapon that Solange continues to deploy year after year to keep things challenging and to always look outwards and inwards to dictate the future and the progression of this project. In the end, it is not only a valiant attempt at keeping a creative community alive and rich; what it does is provide artists from the South with a platform to practice a solidarity that holds a firm hand out to everything around it. In this gesture, we find resonance and fundamental methods intertwined with the act of fostering individual freedom, and with this, anything’s possible.