Redux: The 29th São Paulo Biennial - part 2

There's more to look at. To view any one of the images below, please click on it.

One of the most interesting installation pieces I saw, of many that depict a room, or living space (most will be featured on another post), was the one created by Anna Maria Maiolino (Italy, 1942). Radicated in Brazil since the 60s, Maiolino's Arroz com Feijão (Rice and Beans) was first made during the dictatorship, and has been reassembled many times ever since democracy was reinstated.

Marcius Galan (USA, 1972)'s Ponto em escala real (Dot in real scale) presents a literal transposition of a point in the map of the city that uses a 1/130,000, reconstructed it in this new environment to its actual scale.

Tatiana Trouvé (Italy, 1968)'s work 350 Points toward Infinity comes with a warning. The magnetic field hidden in the floor of her installation space, which holds multiple pendulums as if they were in mid-swing, could potentially offset pace-makers. A secondary and less threatening warning is the slight plumber's crack on display by the Biennial staff that was cleaning the piece when I photographed it (it being the work, not the crack).

More than once I ran into the cleaning crew, who incessantly cleaned the place, no small feat given the spareness of the building the the shedding quality of some artworks, such as Cinthia Marcelle (Brazil, 1974)'s Sobre este mesmo mundo (This same world over). Her work made me think of how William Kentridge's studio might look like, but with charcoal dust instead of chalk.

A good segue-way to that Kentridge reference is  Qiu Anxiong (China, 1972)'s animated drawings titled The New Classic of Mountains and Seas Parts 1 and 2, which were shown as three projections, though this work possesses its own merits.









While some works were immersive in their subject and pace, some works actually required its audience to enter and navigate through its interior, such as Henrique Oliveira (Brazil, 1973)'s A origem do terceiro mundo (The origin of the third world). As one exited this piece (paging Courbet), the gathering of smiling faces on that end made one look back, join the group, and enjoy the impending surprise.

Fittingly placed near one another were artists Antonio Manuel (Portugal, 1947) and Gustav Metzger (Germany, 1926). Their work used concealment and audience participation as a means of unveiling to deal with  political topics, from different times and places.  Manuel's flans are concealed by cloths that can be moved from ceiling pulleys.

Of a larger scale, Metzger's To Crawl Into - Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938 was displayed in front of it on the floor, covered by a yellow fabric.

Towards the end of my second visit to the Biennial, a day before its closing date, I ran into Yoel Diaz Vázquez (Cuba, 1073)’s video installation La torre del ruído (The tower of noise), which was one of my favorites. Unfortunately I ran out of memory space in my card, so only this small snippet of video is available.

Rosangela Rennó (Brazil, 1962) uses the object-ness of the photograph, and related apparatus, in her installation Menos-valia (Worth-less). On the day between my viewings a live auction took place, so upon my return the majority of the artifact on display was gone.

Another manner in which multiple video screens were presented were via multiple projections in a darkened room (my least favorite mode, I’m a fan of television monitors). Two that come to mind that transcended my bias centered on the relationship of body and space, in and out of the image. Kutlug Ataman (Turkey, 1961) presented Beggars, perhaps a contemporary take on (or result of) Sam Taylor-Wood’s Third Party.

Amar Kanwar (India, 1964)’s The Lightning Testimonies also employ multi-screen projections, but  with the different pacing in the videos and intermixing of audio channels.

Last but not least, another favorite of mine (which did not make it to the well-known section of part 1), Cildo Meireles (Brazil, 1948) featured two different bodies of work.  The early Projeto Cédulas (Quem matou Herzog?) [Project Bills (Who killed Herzog?)], where real currency was changed and reintroduced into the world was almost lost in a small room filled with other three artists’ works (Hélio Oiticica, Artur Barrio, and Sandra Gamarra), a real disservice to everyone involved in that section on the third floor.  In a better spot, near the temporary home of MAC (Museo de Arte Contemporanea), a new installation simply titled Abajur (Lamp) invites viewers into a circular walk up enclosed environment, where a large photorealistic diorama of an ocean, with birds and clouds, slowly moves, lit from within. As one walks around the space a colonial imperial vessel appears. Upon close inspection, below deck so to speak, one sees three or four young men moving a mill, that activates the motion of the space.

Redux: The 29th São Paulo Biennial - part 1

My time in Brazil at the end of the year 2010 has been extremely inspiring in a variety of ways. The works of art I have seen have inspired me to write a series of posts, which I will begin now and probably end in early 2011. To start, I thought it would be interesting to showcase a variety of works I do not plan on addressing in future posts. In many ways this will probably be the most visual (and least textual, as far as language is concerned) post from this blog's series. Take this as a visual collection of what I saw on the last week of the "Bienal."

The 29th São Paulo Biennial, the second oldest of its kind in the world (followed by the Venice Biennale), took place at the Parque do Ibirapuera's Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavillion from September 25 till December 12, 2010. Curated by Agnaldo Farias, Moacir dos Anjos, with guest curators Chus Martinez, Ferndando Alvim, Rina Carvajal, Sarat Maharaj, and Yuko Hasegawa and financially supported by many corporations (national, international, multi-national, the list is immense) , this edition's title was Á SEMPRE UM COPO DE MAR PARA UM HOMEM NAVEGAR, which translates as "there is always a cup of sea to sail in," a quotation from the poem Orpheus' Invention by Jorge de Lima [its title bespeaks of Orpheus being invented, rather than him inventing something]. The logo-image for the Biennial is depicted below (a cup with a wine cork pierced by a needle, floating in water, of varied colors.

It is always fun to run into "old friends" in events such as these. In fact, some of my favorite artists were represented here.  159 artists from all over the world participated in this edition, which was divided into six different thematic areas: FAR AWAY, RIGHT HERE; I AM THE STREET; REMEMBRANCE AND OBLIVION; SAID, UNSAID, NOT TO BE SAID; THE OTHER, THE SAME; and THE SKIN OF THE INVISIBLE.

I will begin with three artists that I actually know (as in have met, hug, had a meal, a drink, a conversation, etc).

At first I could not find where her work was, but upon reading the catalogue and actually consulting the map I realized that Adrian Piper (USA, 1948)'s work, titled Bach Whistled, was actually an audio piece installed in the stairway between the second and third floors. Much like the artist herself, this piece possesses a beautiful softness/lightness, laced with whimsy, while simultaneously critical of socio-ethno-cultural and in this case even architectural structures. Below is a short clip of it (my camera battery died while I was taping). This work was a lovely encounter amidst the cacophany of sounds all over. I imagine it would have also been a great juxtaposition to the vultures piece title Bandeira Branca (White Flag, based on an old samba song but perhaps a reference to violence and piece) by Nuno Ramos (Brazil, 1960), before the birds were take away (future blog post).

If I had one task when going to the Biennial, it was to find and document the works of Karina Skvirsky Aguilera (USA, 1967), whom I have known since 2006 while curating the TERGLOBA exhibition. My Pictures from Ecuador, as presented here, consisted of 12 photographic prints of old album pages from a family trip abroad in the 70s. Like most photography these days (and perhaps always), Karina's work meddles that tension of the real and the imaginary that sits in the tenuous line of (digital) manipulation, believability, and compression, while addressing concerns of history, identity, and memory - also fluid. Unfortunately my documentation was not as good as it could have been, a recurring theme in  a building with extremely high ceilings and tons of windows.

Last but not least, I sort of ran into Nan Goldin (USA, 1953) 's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency almost by mistake, as I thought she had something else in the show. I first saw this piece when I met Nan, back in the mid/late 90s, when she performed it live in São Paulo at a cultural center nearby my house. The work, shown as digital projections with synched audio, was surprisingly fresh, but slightly different what I remembered (I believe there is more than one configuration). For me it felt like looking at an old family album, with faces and songs from a time that I did not really live as an adult, but that I understood, in part because of this work. Because of its groupings, the walking in and out of its room by the audience was intense, specially during the naked male part, but a few of us stayed for the entire duration, enjoying the darkness and coolness and emptyness, that felt like an oasis in the crowded urban Brazilian summer weather.

Now, some well-known, but never-met, artists.


Douglas Gordon (Scotland, 1966)'s Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work From About 1992 Until Now To Be Seen on Monitors, Some with Headphones, Others Run Silently, and all Simultaneously, a beautiful installation that incorporated some local elements (such as Brazilian crates, which are different from American ones).

Joseph Kosuth (USA, 1945)'s Art as Idea as Idea : East, North, South, West. Best served shaken, not stirred.

Fiona Tan (Indonesia, 1966)'s incredible looped single-channel video A Lapse of Memory.

Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1930)'s Je vous salue, Sarajevo.

Lygia Pape (Brazil, 1927)'s carnivalesque video of a collective ensemble performance Divisor (Divider).

Chantal Akerman (Belgium, 1950)'s multi-room video installation D'est (From the East), which is pretty engaging, even when seen backwards, as I did on my first go (three rooms, two entries). I think, not sure. There are two youtube embeds given my taping fiasco, but I believe that a) they are one piece, and b) should be seen in the order below. Maybe.

















Alfredo Jaar (Chile, 1956)'s The Eyes of Gutete Emerita reminded me of the slide library at work, the one in graduate school, and the monumentality of a technology so quickly surpassed. The Bodily presence of this piece, given the repetition and scale, also reminded me of all bodies that have gone missing, buried in unmarked graves, every where in the world, throughout history. And for some reason I did not steal one.

And now some of the works that persisted in my memory (and that will not be featured in future blog posts).


Rodrigo Andrade (Brazil, 1962)'s beautiful, relief-like large scale painting series titled Matéria Noturna (Night Matter), shown here in background of picture (for context with exhibition space and other works), with viewer (for scale), and sideways (to attempt to depict surface indentations) of  Rua deserta com cerca (deserted street with fence) from series.

Pedro Barateiro (Portugal, 1979)'s Plateia (Audience). Pieces like this makes one understand the reason why the budget was so high for this edition of the Biennial, though I believe this was made in situ, and not shipped. 

Wilfredo Prieto (Cuba, 1978)'s stunning installation on the flag colunnade, of grisaille flags, outside the Pavillion titled Apolítico (Apolitical). Here shown as seen from interior and exterior of building.

Kimathi Donkor (England, 1965)'s oil painting series titled Scenes from the Life of Njinga Mbandi, which seemed small in scale and somewhat rarefied in an environment filled with video and installation, though they had a beautiful luminosity to them.

At this point it seems to me that it will be best to break this post into two parts, as I still have over 10 artists to go through. While my selection may seem extensive, given the number of artists and the quality of the work, I am not surprise. But keep in mind there were quite a few unremarkable presences there. And that two other posts about the Biennial (one exclusively about it, and another partially) are still forthcoming. So I'll end with the beautiful painting above.

virtual protest

These past few days my inbox has been flooded with a series of email threads about something that should have made the national, if not international, news, but has really not caught on. Of course I am talking about the Hide/Seek exhibition in Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. If you do not know what I am talking about, I rest my case. Most people I have talked to in person had no idea what I was talking about, or had just heard about it.

It is ironic that this particular news-worthy current event (because it threatens or at least pulls at the fabric of what is essential in our society - freedom) gets put aside to more immediate and inconsequent happenings (did you hear that the Royal wedding might be shot in 3D?). Yet, the consequences of what is being played out (but not properly broadcast) right now might potentially affect an entire generation of artists and citizens alike. As the first decade of the "future" comes to a close, I wonder if the clock is not actually ticking backwards.

The complexities of the issues surrounding the aforementioned exhibition have created a wave of responses from extremely well-informed, intelligent, inspiring people, as well as (finally now) by pertinent institutions and organizations. There are many email threads to be read, e-petitions to be signed, blogs to voice one's opinion and as many replies, articles online, articles on articles, protest via consumerism (purchase the catalogue on Amazon.com) and so forth.

I've always thought that the postmodern condition is one of constant paradox, with the individual at its center, either unable to make a choice, or choosing all the options at once. What I mean by this is that we know what afflicts us and the ones around us, and yet we manage to do very little about it, or reinforce what creates the struggle in the first place, or simultaneously both. This goes along the lines that stupidity is repeatedly doing the exact same thing and expecting a different outcome. Or a more concrete example, being familiar with with Photoshop tricks and yet measuring oneself up to retouched images. But perhaps I am describing more on how I thread this world? Is anybody else out there?

The fact is that, as much as this news is absent, so are our responses. This morning I read, while still in bed, about 25 different threads I had been skipping since Dec. 01, when the whole thing started. While their space and length might be inconvenient, what makes us believe that congressmen, curators, director, presidents of institutions, etc, will actually read any of this? For all we know, they will hire an intern who wants a line in their resume and will work almost for free to delete or archive all these emails, all this uncountable data. This same intern, perhaps working from home, is probably wearing one of those $1 "feel good charity" bracelets as identity markers for their concern for the world. But are we any different from them? What good does it do to click away from home, and never leave the house? Do we just do this to make ourselves feel good, "we put our two cents", we make our Facebook friends aware that we care, and then we go our merry ways, with the rest of our lives?

That is the beauty of virtual communication, many can participate and reach others easily. The beast consists of the fact that is just as easy to delete all of them. As far as I know there has only been one protest/march, where a whooping 75 people silently walked, with signs, t-shirts, and masks. I read this at the comfort of my own home.

And here lies my inner conflict, the fact that I (mainly I, in my self-absorbed view of the world where I am responsible for all its ills) and perhaps many others, have not really done a thing to change this. We know what needs to happen, but perhaps we are not sure or willing to use the proper tools to make things happen. Do we actually have any agency (the subtitle for this blog was going to be "do you believe that we can change the future?")?

I have purposefully excluded any specifics of this situation on this blog because I want people to find out on their own what is happening as best as they can. Though I imagine most will just Google the title of the exhibition, my hope is that by hiding the info here, they/you will seek the answer elsewhere. Even if their/your participation/protest is only virtual (as I hope, even if remotely, that there is still some virtue to doing that), at least you will now be aware of the situation. You/we might be able to hide behind our keyboards and screens, but this story'd better not run away from us, from our minds. Because it will find us eventually, one way or another, just as history repeats itself. Because any one of our omissions is a permission for things to come (back). I provide no answers or solutions here, I am guilty as charged. But I will try to not forget. Will you remind me?

---

PS: there are many links and images I could include in this entry, usually this last part is where you go to find such resources. In addition to wanting you to seek your own solutions, I also want to belatedly mirror the spirit of World AIDS Day and Day Without Art (Dec.01 of every year since 1989). There are a few connections here. One I will point to you is that they too barely made the national news.

camera obscena

As 2010 comes to a close, many things surprise me. One is the fact that blogs exist and that I actually have one (or two), even though I do not write as often as I would like. Another is the fact that photography still has such a cultural and controversial presence in today's world. This last statement is problematic in many ways, I know. Some would argue that today, more than ever and unlike any other time, photography is simply unescapable.

Let me try to clarify a couple things here. For the purposes of this blog entry (and only this one) I will expand the meaning of the term and/or the technology, by defining photography as anything using a mechano-electro-digital device to produce images via refraction. I will further limit it to the acquiring or capturing of such images without the element of time and sequentiality added (meaning I will exclude video and cinema here), or the conjunction with other media (such as print and hyper media). My regained wonderment comes from the fact that photographic images are still loaded with the burden of truth or proof at the closing of the first decade of this new milenium. In the age when photoshop became a verb, I positively assumed this medium had lost that punch.

A couple recent news events brought those issues back to the public discourse, and though they seem disconnected, they somehow provide me with two sides of a(n American) coin, even though they seem to be doing the exact same thing. As the busiest traveling weekend in U.S. unfolds, much discussion on the merits and concerns over the scan machines at the TSA check points are and have taken place. Radiation and patting aside, many fear the exposure/capture of their naked bodies and the potential distribution/disclosure of said images (this in the age of Facebook and Twitter image uploads by the million, or better yet, "With this economy, what about the children?"). This fear connotes the (supposed) proof and truth of photography as privacy and modesty transgressions. Whether or not such leaks will happen remains to be seen (the ones that have shown up thus far are not clear, as far as image rendering, nor flattering and enticing in a mainstream pop sense). As fewer than 20% of all passenger will have to make a choice between a latex and a radiating space, I am not sure I will ever be put into that position, at least not in 2010, with only two flights left. This age-new discussion (to scan or not to scan, that is the question), works almost as a decoy to the underlying issue at hand, gloved or otherwise - more on this later.

Meanwhile, in New York City, an Assistant Professor of Photography at NYU has surgically embedded a cam on the back of his head, as art. Each and every minute this eye-spy third-I device captures an image and sends it via the interwebs to the other side of the planet, to the new Mathab: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar as art, and to be displayed as art. A question, somewhat close to home for me although ancillary to most, is to what lengths must one go to ride the train on the tenure track ( or "to peer-review or not to peer-review..."). The current concern is also on the privacy issues surrounding this project. Will Prof. Wafaa Bilal have to wear a sign letting people know that they are under surveillance (will he also need to only play elevator music on his iPod)? Already discussed and decided by his department will be the use of a lens cap while on campus (paging academic freedom), to protect its students' privacy (their disclaimer)or pontentially shield any future lawsuits of varied natures (my suspicion).

A solution to the scanning problem in airports, provided by some folks in the conservative crowd, is the return of profiling, meaning that only Muslims/Arabs or anyone that does not look like me (not my "me", their "me") should have their bodies thoroughly searched, with either the digits of a hand, or digital imaging. While I do not provide a direct quote here, anyone can read tons of opinions openly expressed that mirror what I have conveyed, in many news media sites. I wonder what Prof. Bilal, who was born in Iraq, went/would have/has got/will have to go through at a TSA gate check. Will he have to bring a note from his doctor or his boss (a different type of doctor)?

The underlying issue for me is that we have gotten to the point where our sense of freedom and self have been captured, so swiftly, in the name of an image, and images. These images are as much of "them" as of "us" and they all seemed to be detached from much first hand experience(s). This sentiment, this paranoia, and unapologetic stereotyping has crossed over so many spheres of public interest, such as politics, mass media, and academia. What are we protecting ourselves from, if not from ourselves? What have we got to fear, but fear itself? (paging overused cliches).

Definitions for "obscena" I found online (search as research?) follow: inauspicious/unpropitious; ill-omened/boding ill; filthy| polluted| disgusting; obscene, vulgar; improper, indecent (especially of sexual indecency); profane; immodest, impure; dirty, filthy; indecent, obscene; scabrous, ribald; unclean. I find these words potentially more fitting to images we have not extensively seen much in the last 10 years, of illegal searches, the handling and destruction of bodies, of forgone privacy and pursue of clean water/shelter/life (let alone happiness), of the fracturing and fragmentation of families, towns, cultures, of unsung heroes, of misled youth with the promise of something that never existed, of debt and loss and loss of debt, of name calling and not being called out, most of which (but not all) have taken place elsewhere, in someone else's backyard, far away, on the other side of the planet.

Obscenity can be understood as that one caveat that pinches freedom of expression. But that may be a mute point at this point. Laws regarding obscenity (words, images, actions) in the land of the free (which exclude commercial pornography) have mostly to do with the immediate/local context of what offends a particular community - that is, they are the ones who decide. But at times we seem to expand this approach beyond our own realm, beyond the schoolyard.

A couple years ago, at the 2008 FILE exhibition in Sao Paulo, I came across a fascinating, even if very simple, piece of art. Amongst the many interactive pieces of art displayed in the darkened room was a large reflective surface which displayed both multiple human images and a vertically moving bar of light, left to right. I then noticed many children surrounding this piece (I was one of the oldest person there, visitors and staff alike); they ran and slammed their bodies onto the glass, like bugs in the windshield of a car, or players in a testosterone-drive sport bumping chests. Their images were simultaneously captured and displayed on that surface, which I then understood it to be a life-size scanner. In retrospect I found their fascination with their reproduced bodies refreshing, almost beautiful. Their proximity (imagine 5 or 6 tweens pressing themselves onto a 6 foot width of plexi) was not sexual nor self conscious, their sense of self seemed somewhat collective, sans hierarchy, sans distinctions, sans prejudice. They all smiled to the camera and celebrated their bodies, their images, their choice, their freedom.

PS: While writing this I also thought about ways to include some info on  x-ray research on lobster vision (they possess one of the most "unique vision system in the animal kingdom") that was funded by the department of homeland security , but decided to exclude because they are considering reflection instead of refraction... it is an interesting subject to say the least... file under "fun fact" or check out the link below:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/lobster-x-ray-technology.htm/printable