Octavio Zaya: Politics and 'The Political': the 29 Sao Paulo Bienal 28/10/10 5.10

CENTRE FOR THE AESTHETIC REVOLUTION: OCTAVIO ZAYA: POLITICS AND 'THE POLITICAL': THE 29 SAO PAULO BIENAL 28/10/10 5.10 Del Rapporter misbrug Næste blog» C E N T R E F O R T H E A E S T H E T I C R E V O L U T I O N TUESDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2010 PAGES OCTAVIO ZAYA: POLITICS AND 'THE POLITICAL': THE 29 Home SAO PAULO BIENAL SOME RECENT PROJECTS, SOME NOT SO RECENT ABOUT ME PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA [email protected], LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM "At the end of the fifteenth of his 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind' Schiller states a paradox and makes a promise. He declares that ‘Man is only completely human when he plays’, and assures us that this paradox is capable ‘of bearing the whole edifice of the art of the beautiful and of the The 29 Sao Paulo Bienal curatorial team. From left to right: Fernando Alvim, Agnaldo Farias, Rina Carvajal, Chus Martínez, Yuko Hasegawa, Sarat Maharaj still more difficult art of living’. We could and Moacir dos Anjos. reformulate this thought as follows: there Politics and "The Political" at the 29th São Paulo Biennial exists a specific sensory experience—the Sep 25 – Dec 12, 2010 aesthetic—that holds the promise of both a by Octavio Zaya new world of Art and a new life for How do you follow, and what do you do after "The Void," the so-dubbed 28th individuals and the community. There are edition of the São Paulo Biennial (2008)? Its Artistic Director, the internationally different ways of coming to terms with this known and experienced curator Ivo Mesquita, left the huge second floor of the Oscar Niemeyer building entirely empty as a comment on the intricate bureaucratic statement and this promise. You can say politics of the event, and on biennials in general. His budget had been reduced as that they virtually define the ‘aesthetic well, from the $12 million of the previous 27th Biennial to a mere $3.5 million, and he left a debt of some $2 million. He selected just over 40 artists to convey a illusion’ as a device which merely serves to radical curatorial statement, while trying to place the 28th Biennial "in living mask the reality that aesthetic judgement is contact" with the art of the world. structured by class domination. In my view In contrast, this year's 29th edition, said to be anchored by the notion that "it is that is not the most productive approach..." impossible to separate art from politics," has benefited from major advantages: the Jacques Rancier, 'The Aesthetic Revolution commitment and resolve of the new president of the Foundation (elected last year), the well-respected consulting executive Heitor Martins, who presided over a and its Outcomes', New Left Review 14, spectacular turn in the finances of the SP Biennial; as well as a new Biennial April-March 2002 Council, directly linked with the arts. On top of all that, this edition had at its disposal a very healthy and generous budget of $17.5 million and 159 artists to VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE boot. In July 2009, Moacir dos Anjos was appointed Chief Curator of the 29th edition of SOME RECENT PROJECTS, SOME NOT http://centrefortheaestheticrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/10/octavio-zaya-politics-and-political-29.html Page 1 of 19 CENTRE FOR THE AESTHETIC REVOLUTION: OCTAVIO ZAYA: POLITICS AND 'THE POLITICAL': THE 29 SAO PAULO BIENAL 28/10/10 5.10 the SP Biennial. He served as Director of the Museum of Modern Art of Recife, SOME RECENT PROJECTS, SOME NOT Brazil, between 2001 and 2006; and as co-curator of the Brazil participation as SO RECENT guest country at ARCO'08 in Madrid. A specialist in Nelson Leirner, Cildo Meireles, and Rosângela Rennó, dos Anjos immediately revealed his intention of Mies Cruising Pavilion Montjuic, an "reasserting the relevance of the São Paulo Biennial" after its rather serious unauthorised exhibition in the Barcelona institutional crisis, and of vindicating what he called the "experimentalism" of Pavilion biennials as the fundamental principle of his platform. He conceived an ambitious project, inspired by the Brazilian poet Jorge de Lima's major work, Invenção de Orfeu (1952), from which dos Anjos took the title of the 29th edition: "Há sempre Incidents of Travel in Central America, um copo de mar para um homem navegar" (There's always a cup of sea to sail in). Chiapas, Yucatan and Elsewhere... at CCE, By mid-November 2009, at the same time that dos Anjos disclosed the composition Guatemala of the international team of curators who were to assist him in developing his project, it was announced that he was about to share the directorship of the Cerith Wyn Evans at Casa Barragan, Biennial with Agnaldo Farias, better known for his involvement and work in the two worst biennials in the history of São Paulo, those directed by Nelson Aguilar Mexico City (1996) and Alfons Hug (2002). When the Biennial opened to the public on September 25th, the Brazilian press covering the Biennial devoted its attention to The Next Documenta Should be in Brasilia Farias, often without mentioning dos Anjos, who had already disappeared from the public eye. Farias had become the de facto Chief Curator of the 29th edition of the Biennial. Tristes Tropiques at The Barber Shop in Lisboa What happened in between I cannot say. It will most likely remain a subject of speculation and dispute, among the secrets that always surround events of this kind. The story is very telling, however, not only about the dynamics that may have Novo Museo Tropical in Madrid doomed this promising edition, but also the shortsightedness of those in a position to prevent it. For this Biennial not only has a spectacular team of curators—Rina Carvajal, Sarat Maharaj, Chus Martínez, Yuko Hasegawa, and Fernando Alvim Somewhere Over the Rainbow, CircaLabs, (who nevertheless ended up fighting among themselves for lack of proper San Juan, Puerto Rico direction)—but it also has the support and enthusiasm of a whole art community, a public ready to turn the corner from oblivion and irrelevance, the means to get there, and a multitude of artists with impressive works to make it happen. Selfportraits at Airports The result, instead, is boring, to say the least. Forget the utopian dimension that Abstract Reality, Cooperativa Internacional dos Anjos envisioned from the verses of Jorge de Lima, whose Invention of Orpheus sings of "the power to sail on, even without ships, / even without waves Tropical in Bogota and sand". Forget experimentation and forget risk. But please don't get it wrong: when Rina Carvajal announced in November 2009 that the Biennial was going to MuseuTropicals, Somewhere without walls take up the relations of art and politics, I'm sure she could not have foreseen the dispersal and misplacement of artists and their works—works that, in context, could have offered a compelling, even revisionary understanding of the complex This Is Not America, San Juan, Puerto Rico ideas and influences that preceded what today passes as "political art." And I'm almost convinced that the contributions of Chus Martínez would have made clear the direction of those routes and openings that talented artists such as Jonathas El Noa Noa, Bogota, Colombia de Andrade, Tobias Putrih, Mário Garcia Torres, Tamar Guimarães or Antonio Vega Macotela could only manage to insinuate, individually, in this general Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Pablo confusion. Leon de la Barra, conversation at Tate In truth, there was enough to have "an extraordinary Biennial," as Carvajal had Modern dreamed of, but not enough to make sense of it. A purpose, a direction, or a clear idea of how to relate artists, artworks, times, and places to one another was missing. And the 29th SP Biennial really has it all: from wonderful terreiros Rotterdam Dialogues: The Curators at Witte (meeting places) with a variety of functions to art-fair-style, monumentally ugly- de With tacky sculptures; from political manifestos to social documentaries; from opportunist trivialities to philosophical conundrums; from porno-misery to graffiti; from anthropological entertainment to psycho-poetry; from light shows to poetic Lessons on Psicotronica Tropical, Rio de pedagogy. It was all there together, leveled, as if in an art fair, without purpose and Janeiro without sense; loosely framed, instead, between Flávio de Carvalho's revelation ("All of the ideas here exposed, all of the conclusions reached, are attempts to attain a supposed truth… an illusory phenomenon imperceptible to the naked eye") Case Study Houses: Pablo Magazine and Anri Sala's predicament via The Clash (Should I Stay or Should I Go?). Special Issue There are also "political scandals," some more entertaining than others. The one instigated by Roberto Jacoby's work, a sort of electoral office managed by an Sueño de Casa Propia, Mexico City Argentine Brigade for Dilma Rousseff, the Workers' Party candidate to the Sueño de Casa Propia, Cordoba, Spain Brazilian presidency, threatens to be milked until the end of the Biennial. Sueño de Casa Propia, Madrid According to the Biennial Foundation, a report by the Electoral Attorney General's office considered the work to be "an electoral offense," breaking the law that Sueño de Casa Propia, Geneva prohibits "the transmission of propaganda of any nature" in places run by public authorities. Agnaldo Farias declared to the press: "We can not contest the court Guia do Copan/CopaCopan Day, Sao Paulo ruling because we even run the risk of going to jail. If we had known in advance that the work dealt with Dilma, we would have warned the artist, because we'd have known there would be problems." Consequently, the work was covered from Jogging Tour, Mexico City view, literally censored from the exhibition.

Load more