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artist, erick-beltran, plan-of-readings, print, el-mundo-explicado, services, conference, residence, sao-paulo.

BIOGRAPHY

Erick Beltrán born in Mexico D.F., 1974. Lives in Barcelona 2008 Tolv/ Zeigarnik effect, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; Ours: Democracy in the age of branding, The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, New York; Scape Bienal Wandering Lines, Christchurch, New Zealand; Lucky number seven, Site Santa Fé, New Mexico; Sociéte Anonyme, Kadist Foundation, Paris 2007 Diagram,Tranzitdisplay, Prague, Czech Republic 2005 Punchdrunk, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst – SMAK, Gent, Belgium Selected Bibliography ERICK, Beltrán, Ergo Sum, Barcelona, Fundació Antoni Tapies, 2006; GARY, Carrión Murayari, "Production Anxiety", Domus Magazine, # 915, July, 2008, pp. 98-102; "Polemique autour", Tribune de Lyon, September, 2007.

INTERVIEW

Adriano Pedrosa: What work will you show at the 28th Bienal de São Paulo?

Erick Beltrán: A new piece called The World Explained, which is an encyclopedia of nonspecialized knowledge. It is a collection of maps, diagrams and descriptions of explanations of how the world functions according to the opinions of nonexperts. I believe there is a universal need to create links between ideas; our behavior depends on personal structures that ultimately explain the world, so when we are faced with lack of information to accomplish it, we force and distort this material to feel coherent. This archive will gather the answers and testimonies of everyday questions in which individuals have no precise data, only hunches and made-up theories. How is a war decided? Where does glue come from? How does the nasdaq index affect national economies? Where does the tomato in your salad come from? What is intuition? What is a nation? What is a strike? etc. During the Renaissance, scientific discoveries, strange findings and peculiar artifacts were gathered under a single label, “the Wonder,” and presented in the form of “Wunderkammern” or “Cabinets of Curiosities.” Since the 1960s, the idea of the historical archive and classification has been defied by microhistory, which approaches history from specific personal perspectives rather than all-encompassing views and totalitarian approaches. I want to use strategies coming from microhistory to create a panorama that juxtaposes and crosses over many different “personal theories” that collide in the social sphere, and that would constitute in the end a different kind of cabinet altogether.

Adriano Pedrosa: What are your thoughts on this particular context – São Paulo, Brazil, the Bienal, this edition’s concept “in living contact”?

Erick Beltrán: I have been interested in the relations between the individual and society for a long time. It is a very specific zone where language is defined, social gestures are generated, codes are created. It is a zone of negotiations, of frictions, of connections. My work for the Bienal will involve lots of interviews and inquiries that will be published live in an open printing shop as an attempt to widen up the traditional process of knowledge production. São Paulo with its contrasts and contradictions is one of the front lines where these kinds of questions are part of everyday life.

Adriano Pedrosa: How does this work relate to your previous works?

Erick Beltrán: My work is a long-term investigation, an attempt to define a territory, it’s like drawing a map. With each work I try to conquer terra incognita. This strategy forces me to move from one spot to another, using previous works as references. The World Explained comes from Ostwald ripening, an archive that tried to define the way ideas gathered together and how this gathering revealed itself as an action strategy. This time I would like to know how we may trick the discourse, how we can bend beliefs at our convenience and how different cosmologies fuse one into another.

Adriano Pedrosa: You’ve been in many biennials and triennials lately – Lyon, Santa Fe, Porto Alegre, Prague and San Juan, besides São Paulo. This exhibition format has been questioned recently, including by this Bienal. Do you think it is still able to produce interesting outcomes or encounters?

Erick Beltrán: It depends strongly on the context. We have to differentiate between two main models: an art biennial in a First World city that suspiciously approaches art fairs and markets is not the same thing as a biennial as a possible source of production and meeting point. There are still different agendas and projects to accomplish depending on the situation. The problem is how to activate which things where. The correct questions should be asked in the correct place and moment. To find the good balance between both is complicated and rare.


Adriano Pedrosa is a curator and lives in São Paulo.

PROJECTS - 28TH SAO PAULO BIENAL

Projects with updated content