DESCRIPTION
Art curator and critic
Fernando Cocchiarale vividly remembers the US video representation at the 13th Bienal de São Paulo in 1975. He also sees the 1980s, and the Bienal exhibitions curated by Walter Zanini (16th and 17th editions) and by Sheila Leirner (18th and 19th editions), as a turning point in the BSP’s history. Cocchiarale makes a digression to identify a link between the Brazilian elites and the Bienal at its inception in the 1950s, when there was a continuing quest for modernity in Brazil. In his words, the BSP has played a key role in strengthening Brazilian art production over the last 57 years, especially towards educating the public and the players in the art world. During the 1950s, the BSP offered local audiences the opportunity to view the latest trends in art worldwide. This contributed to the ebbing of the trend in Brazilian art led by artists such as Di Cavalcanti and Portinari, giving rise to a new, fresh art production which absorbed influences from abroad and remade them in its own way. Cocchiarale states that the Bienal should rethink and create new connections with today’s art production, and points out that the last edition of the Bienal in 2006 had an experimental edge to it that could be described as a turn away from the spectacular. He believes this is the path to follow and that the BSP’s future depends, partly, on the outcome of the debates proposed by this cycle of talks.
The editions of the Bienal that most linger in
Solange Farkas’s memory are those that sought to break paradigms, such as the 16th (1981), the 24th (1998) and the 27th (2006), which were curated by Walter Zanini, Paulo Herkenhoff, and Lisette Lagnado, respectively. Farkas takes the standpoint of curator and manager of a permanent action-oriented institution, the Associação Vídeo Brasil. Using her experience, Farkas stresses the importance of constantly reconsidering and thinking over an art institution’s model, adapting it to the present time. According to her, the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo should strive to come up with a process that would keep the Bienal alive during the two-year interval between exhibitions by seeking examples outside its scope as a source of inspiration. For Farkas, the first step towards this would be the reformulation of the Bienal model through a closer look into current Brazilian art production as a means to design new models based on its demands. Farkas highlights how important it is for the Fundação Bienal to be attuned to the dynamics of the present time, and for this she cites the Bienal’s backwardness in using the Internet as a tool, pointing out that a better-designed, more comprehensive website could be used by the general public as a research database. Farkas concludes by saying that this should be one of the BSP’s goals in regard to the present and the future.
