Page 102 - ARTE!Brasileiros #38

ART AS RESISTANCE ENGLISH VERSION

architecture of São Paulo in the 1980s. Another series shown EPISODES OF THE SOUTH JOHANNESBURG | PAGES 20 TO 24
is Através do Meu Fusca (Through My Volkswagen Beetle),
Born in Switzerland in 1931, Andujar went to Hungary and ALWAYS IN MOTION
with photos the artist took from the window of her car.
the USA, escaping from the persecution of Jews. When she
arrived in Brazil in 1955, she started shooting for different NEW FIELDS OF ACTIVITY OF MUSEUMS DRAW UP THE AGENDA OF A
national and foreign publications, such as the magazines PROJECT BY SÃO PAULO’S GOETHE INSTITUTE, IN A MEETING HELD IN
Claudia and Life. SOUTH AFRICA
In the 1970s, Andujar did a news piece in the Amazon, where
she had her first contact with the Ianomamis, an experience
that redefined her entire career. The artist went to live with BY FABIO CYPRIANO
the natives until she was classified under the National Security
Law by the military government and expelled from their lands “I’M VENEZUELAN, I live in Medellín, so I thought I understood
in 1978. Since then, the cause of the Ianomamis has become the complexity, but I can see that here the situation is much more
central in her life. complex,” says Nydia Gutierrez, chief-curator do Museum of
This is the first major show in Europe to dive deep in Antioquia, in Colombia. In late January, for four days, her and
the photographer’s oeuvre, who in 2015 was granted other 15 museum curators and directors took part in Episódio
her own pavilion on Instituto Inhotim. In addition to Museal (Museal Episode), an immersion in 13 cultural institutions
Andujar’s works, the show features a set of original in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in South Africa.
drawings produced by the Ianomamis. The exhibition The program was so intense that many debates were held on the
is curated by Carolin Kochling and will be held through July 25. bus that transported the group from place to place. It was there, in
fact, that Gutierrez came to the realization, to which possibly the
majority agreed. It was the third day into the trip and, at that same
NEW YORK morning, the group had visited two institutions in Pretoria – the
Voortrekker Monument (pioneers’) and, shortly after, the Freedom
THE MANGROVE SWAMPS Park. “I have no words, I’m dumbstruck,” observed in the debate,
FROM ALAGOAS GO TO USA with the bus in motion, the Brazilian curator Marcelo Rezende.
Everyone was indeed shocked. The so-called monument to the
pioneers, a forty-meter tall phallic construction of gray granite,
One of the most talked-about works of the 32nd Bienal de
São Paulo, O Peixe (The Fish), by Jonathas de Andrade, is which took 12 years to build (1937–1949), was designed to
exhibited on New York’s New Museum. The 36-minute film basically celebrate the victory of the white invader over the
follows a group of fishermen along the tides and mangrove Zulu empire. The narrative is clear along the frieze with 27
reliefs surrounding the monument on the inside, and was told
swamps from Alagoas. In a sort of ritual, the fishermen hold
the fishes in their arms until they die. by a white tour guide. “Before we arrived, there was nothing
here,” explained the man, in the most natural tone of voice, as
In an interview to ARTE!Brasileiros, the artist from Alagoas talks if the thousands of Africans from the Zulu tribe meant nothing.
about the video: “By embracing their prey, these fishermen “What do you mean?,” someone from the group promptly
show a sort of respect for the passing. It is also connected reacted. “I mean: someone who wasn’t a nomad,” he replied,
to a very strong scene concerning the idea of domination.” without giving the question much thought. From then on, he
This is the first time that an artist from Alagoas is featured on spoke non-stop for twenty minutes, explaining an entire version
a solo show in the United States. From the passage between of the history of South Africa filled with prejudices and
documentary and fiction, Andrade has works in collections of culminating on December 16, 1838 with the Battle of Blood
institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum, Tate Gallery, River, when 464 pioneers defeated over ten thousand Zulus.
Instituto Inhotim and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Because of this date, until 1994, December 16 was the celebration
Janeiro. His video will be on show at the New Museum through of the Day of the Vow – since the “pioneers” promised to God
September 4. they would build a church if they won the battle. With the end
the Apartheid (1948–1994), the holiday was renamed to Day of
Reconciliation.
NEW YORK The shock, however, hasn’t come only from the existence of a
NEW MUSEUM FOR ITALIAN ART “monument to the invader,” but from its contrast with the Freedom
Park, only a few hundred meters from there. “It was built precisely
to be a clear opposition to the pioneers’ monument,” explained,
A new museum will be inaugurated in the Hudson Valley in New still on the bus, the South African author Tracy Murinik, in charge
York focused on contemporary Italian art and post-war art. of the mediation of the group’s visit to her country, and also tasked
The opening is scheduled for June, with an exhibition with contextualizing and encouraging the directors and curators to
dedicated to the influence of Margherita Stein, a gallerist discuss what they had just seen.
often associated with important names of art povera. Inaugurated in 2004, ten years after the end of the Apartheid, the
Called Magazzino for Italian Art, the institution’s headquarters park stands in fact as an anti-narrative to the pioneers’ monument,
will occupy two buildings on an 18,000-square-meter property. featuring 85,200 dead leaderships on the Wall of Warriors – a
The idea of the project belongs to the collectors Nancy Olnick 697-meter-long wall with the names of those who fought for the

and Giorgio Spanu, who also focus on Italian art of the post-war. country’s freedom. However, even among those who fought for
In the opening exhibition, the public will see works by Alighiero freedom arises a differentiation, since only three dozen of them
Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Marisa have the right to be featured in the leaders’ gallery, with their own
Merz, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto portraits, and after approval by a committee.
and Jannis Kounellis. Such details did not go unnoticed by the directors and curators – they

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