I CURATING PUBLICS in BRAZIL: EXPERIMENT, CONSTRUCT, CARE
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CURATING PUBLICS IN BRAZIL: EXPERIMENT, CONSTRUCT, CARE by Jessica Gogan BA. in French and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin, 1989 MPhil. in Textual and Visual Studies, Trinity College Dublin, 1991 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Jessica Gogan It was defended on April 13th, 2016 and approved by John Beverley, Distinguished Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literatures Jennifer Josten, Assistant Professor, Art History Barbara McCloskey, Department Chair and Professor, Art History Kirk Savage, Professor, Art History Dissertation Advisor: Terence Smith, Andrew W.Mellon Professor, Art History ii Copyright © by Jessica Gogan 2016 iii CURATING PUBLICS IN BRAZIL: EXPERIMENT, CONSTRUCT, CARE Jessica Gogan, MPhil/PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 Grounded in case studies at the nexus of socially engaged art, curatorship and education, each anchored in a Brazilian art institution and framework/practice pairing – lab/experiment, school/construct, clinic/care – this dissertation explores the artist-work-public relation as a complex and generative site requiring multifaceted and complicit curatorial approaches. Lab/experiment explores the mythic participatory happenings Domingos da Criação (Creation Sundays) organized by Frederico Morais at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro in 1971 at the height of the military dictatorship and their legacy via the minor work of the Experimental Nucleus of Education and Art (2010 – 2013). School/construct examines modalities of social learning via the 8th Mercosul Biennial Ensaios de Geopoetica (Geopoetic Essays), 2011. Led by chief curator José Roca and Pablo Helguera as pedagogic curator, the 8th edition’s regional artist residencies, neighborhood cultural center, and mediator team brought an expanded pedagogy to the center of the curatorial project. Clinic/care explores transdisciplinary practices in art and health via the Farmácia Baldia de Boa Viagem (Baldia Pharmacy of Boa Viagem) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Niterói, focusing on the use and study of medicinal plants featured as part of Carlos Vergara’s exhibition Sudário (Shroud) in 2013-2014. Amidst the complexities of each situation a set of contingent, relational and contextual “lessons” emerge as a possible fount for imagining a socially engaged curatorship grounded in a praxis of experiment, construct, care. One shaped by the legacies of post Neoconcrete art practices, decolonial pedagogies, Joaquin Torres García’s famous upturned map of the Americas as a gesture of radical locality, and the vital anti- colonial tradition of Oswald de Andrade’s anthropophagy. Drawing on its etymological roots of curare – to care – here curating affects a network of molecular learning and activism derived from a poetic and political contagion of encounters – of ideas, practices, people and contexts – and an ethical commitment to place. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. VIII 1.0 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 RECONFIGURING THE PUBLIC/IN PUBLIC ............................................................. 5 1.2 CONSTITUTIVE FRAGILITY:THE POLITICS OF ACCESS ................................. 11 1.3 READING THE WORLD BEFORE THE WORD: ..................................................... 23 POST NEOCONCRETE LEGACIES AND DECOLONIAL PEDAGOGIES ................. 23 1.4 ANTHROPOPHAGY: THE FOREST AND THE SCHOOL ....................................... 27 1.5 A PRAXIS APPROACH: LABS, SCHOOLS, CLINICS .............................................. 32 1.6 A CRITICAL BESIDE...................................................................................................... 38 2.0 PAST AS BLUEPRINT: PARALABORATORIES AND CONDUCTIVE THREADS OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION AND ART AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, RIO DE JANEIRO: DOMINGOS DE CRIAÇÃO (1971) AND NÚCLEO EXPERIMENTAL DE EDUCAÇÃO E ARTE (2010 – 2013)................................................. 43 2.1 “TRANSFORMING THE OLD CONCEPT OF MUSEUMS:” ................................... 45 2.2 MADNESS, GEOMETRY AND EDUCATION ............................................................ 46 2.3 LABORATORIES AND PARALABORATORIES ...................................................... 49 2.4 DOMINGOS DA CRIAÇÃO:“THE MUSEUM & THE RE-EDUCATION OF MAN” ................................................................................................................................................... 57 2.4.1 Domingo de papel (January 24th, 1971) ................................................................... 59 2.4.2 O domingo por um fio (March 7th, 1971) ................................................................. 60 2.4.3 O tecido de domingo (March 28th, 1971).................................................................. 61 2.4.4 Domingo terra a terra (April 25th, 1971) ................................................................. 62 2.4.5 O som de domingo (May 30th, 1971) ......................................................................... 64 2.4.6 Domingo corpo o corpo (August 29th, 1971) ............................................................ 65 2.4.7 The Series Ends.......................................................................................................... 65 v 2.4.8 Domingos and “The Experimental Exercise of Freedom” ..................................... 67 2.4.9 Domingos da Criação - Public Art, Education, Activism? ..................................... 69 2.5 THE EXPERIMENTAL NUCLEUS OF EDUCATION & ART (2010-2013) ........... 76 2.5.1 Experimental Education: An Incomplete Snapshot From Domingos to the Nucleus ................................................................................................................................. 78 2.5.2 The Experimental Nucleus of Education and Art: A Contemporary Paralaboratory ..................................................................................................................... 82 2.5.3 Public School of Art and a School of Public Art ..................................................... 84 2.5.4 DouAções (Gift Actions) ............................................................................................ 88 2.5.5 Reading Looking Up from Your Book: Passionate Insolence / Troubled Complicities .......................................................................................................................... 89 2.5.6 Poetic Collections and Multisensorial Repertoires ................................................. 92 2.5.7 Tactical Museology: The Museum Insideout .......................................................... 97 2.5.8 Critical Liminality: Post Neoconcrete Curatorship and Education ................... 100 3.0 A SENSE OF CONSTRUCTIVITY: FOREST SCHOOLS AND SOCIAL LEARNING AT THE 8TH MERCOSUL BIENNIAL, 2011....................................................................... 105 3.1 DETOURS: ORGANIC LINES, SOCIAL LEARNING AND FOREST SCHOOLS ................................................................................................................................................. 108 3.2 BIENNIALS, SCHOOLS AND THE EDUCATIONAL TURN ................................. 119 3.2.1 The Educational Turn: Para-education, Arte de Conducta and Manifesta 6 ..... 121 3.2.2 Turns, Doubts and Untold Stories… A School of the South Perspective ............ 127 3.3 A FOREST SCHOOL: THE 8TH MERCOSUL BIENNIAL ..................................... 129 3.3.1 The Mercosul Biennial: Context, Geographies and Histories .............................. 130 3.3.2 Transpedagogy and Geopoetic Essays .................................................................... 135 3.3.3 Travel Notebooks: Travel and Artisanal Conceptualism ..................................... 137 3.3.4 Casa M: Laboratory, Place, Encounter and Affect ............................................... 141 3.3.5 Mediators and Collective Spectatorship ................................................................. 145 3.4 CRITICAL CONSTRUCTIVITY AND SOCIALIZING RESEARCH ..................... 157 3.5 A FOREST SCHOOL ACTUALIZED: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ...................... 161 4.0 MEGAFONES, ANTS, ARCHIVES AND CLINICS: RADICAL LOCALITY AND COMPLICITIES OF CARE IN THE FARMÁCIA BALDIA DE BOAVIAGEM AT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, NITERÓI ............................................................ 164 4.1 GENEALOGIES OF (IM)POSSIBILITIES: MAC NITERÓI INSIDE & OUT ..... 169 vi 4.1.1 Arte Ação Ambiental: Education, Networks and Working in Community ....... 171 4.1.2 Niterói Family Doctor Program .............................................................................. 173 4.1.3 MACquinho and Comuniarte................................................................................. 175 4.1.4 Homes and Coalitions: Perseverance and Breathing a Little .............................. 180 4.1.5 World as Museum/Museum as World: MAC as Environment ........................... 185 4.2 COMPLICITIES OF CARE: ARCHIVES, CLINICS, ART, AND CURATORSHIP ................................................................................................................................................