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artist, dora-longo-bahia, square, plan-of-readings.

BIOGRAPHY

Dora Longo Bahia was born in São Paulo, Brazil, 1961. Lives in São Paulo 2006 AcordaLice, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo; Escalpo carioca e outras canções, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro 2005 in_Site05, Tijuana, México & San Diego, USA 2003 Marcelo do Campo 1969 –1975, Centro Universitário MariAntonia, São Paulo 2001 Sulsouth – Voyages Into Mutant Technologies, Instituto Camões – Centro Cultural Português, Maputo, Mozambique 1997 6ta Bienal de la Habana Selected Bibliography BAHIA, Dora Longo, Escalpo Carioca e outras canções, Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2006; BAHIA, Dora Longo, Marcelo do Campo 1969-1975, São Paulo, Itaú Cultural, 2006.

INTERVIEW

José Roca: Can you speak about your project of a radio at the 28th Bienal de São Paulo?

Dora Longo Bahia: I want to make seven 30-minute programs, if possible in the am band, with “musical interviews” carried out by my band OsMacaco and some of the participants of the Bienal. Macaco Radio would be a session of improvisation, experimentation, deviations, as takes place behind the scenes at a rock rehearsal. We presented the proposal to Rádio Eldorado AM, which has one of the largest broadcasting ranges in Brazil, but the artistic director refused saying that both am and fm Eldorado “are for an adult, socioeconomic class A and B audience.” I was disappointed not only for having been called retarded, but mainly due to the prejudice and elitist attitude of the artistic director of Eldorado. How is it possible that today, in a country as Brazil, a big radio is not embarrassed to target, exclusively, at A and B classes?

José Roca: Indeed – especially radio, which is the most democratic media, at least in terms of broadcasting, with the highest potential degree of penetration. What is interesting about radio is that it forces you to make a mental picture of things, to imagine, in its etymological sense. In your paintings, you take images anchored in the collective memory, I mean, present although in a not very precise way. They are materialized in your work but still retain a certain degree of imprecision and ambiguity. Would you like to refer to the process of doing your “scalps”?

Dora Longo Bahia: The scalps are a series of “fleshless paintings.” I remove the layer of paint from the original support and I apply it somewhere else: a wall, a newspaper page, a wood structure, a cement plaque, a piece of cardboard, or, as in the case of the Bienal, on the floor. I choose paradigmatic images of controversial places taken from postcards, newspapers and books that are crumpled and mutilated in the process of being torn and applied on other body. I want the painting to reveal the perversity embedded in the fascination for the image, the appearance, the show.

José Roca: What happened with Eldorado is a signal that, in fact, there is a clear social stratification even in the cultural environment, which is supposedly more open and tolerant. Is there any chance for art to change this situation, at least a little, or the most it can aspire to is merely point it out? Which is the margin for the political agency of art?

Dora Longo Bahia: Right, the world is unfortunately full of prejudice and ignorance. I don’t know if art can put an end to this situation, since it has always had a friendly relationship with the establishment… But I believe that every kind of art is a political expression (considering politics as the art of dealing with the city, the word itself deriving from the Greek politikê, in turn a compound of polis, “city,” and tékhné, “art,” acting on society, questioning paradigms, pointing out new ways of organization, foreseeing changes). I consider art as being political even when the artist who produces it takes an apolitical stand, given the fact that his / her piece of work is spread in the public space, interfering with the actions, behavior and beliefs of the community, connecting memory to the future, the subject to the object, the situation and existence. I think that – just like a person in government, a scientist, a professor or a religious person – an artist is responsible not only for the piece of work but also for its public implications, and needs to be aware of its articulation with the institutions of power, whether the State, the media or the private economic sector, represented by collectors and investors. An artist who takes a position of political silence is, at least, naïve, and, in the cases of voluntary ignorance, dangerous or even a criminal.

José Roca: You have said that you are interested in mistakes. Could you elaborate on this idea?

Dora Longo Bahia: A mistake is like a crack. It opens new possibilities, new ways to look at things.


José Roca is a colombian curator, Artistic Director of the Philagrafika 2010. He lives and works in Bogotá and Philadelphia.

PROJECTS - 28TH SAO PAULO BIENAL

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