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By bringing together works from against power is, in its affirmative form, repair
different periods, such as these last three, historically new, a set of concepts that One should not exaggerate the supposedly
this Biennial chooses to be less explicit participate in the intention of surpassing liberal character of the institution that
in relation to the present time, as many chronicles that have been consolidated until provided the public with access to works
exhibitions of this genre tend to do, but now, thus allowing the gradual revision of of contestatory content; on the contrary,
talks about current debates from a broader programs considered paradigmatic. it was precisely the organized “pressure”
perspective, transforming the exhibition In the experiences born of facing the of groups oppressed by epistemicide and
into a more museographic context. necropolitics (Achille Mbembe’s definition) economic horror that has been demanding
This impression is reinforced by the it is not insignificant that the country’s circulation and access. to the artistic and
architecture of the exhibition itself. It is not peripheral sociocultural institutions intellectual representations present in this
easy to face Oscar Niemeyer’s modernist present themselves, to a greater or lesser Biennale. In fact, the rise of black people,
pavilion, which, with its amplitude and extent, and based on their vocations and people of origin and other marginalized
curved lines, tends to dominate the spaces. constitutional attributes, as erotic and groups is also due to the achievements
The group of architects Vão wisely used eroticizing territories, symbolically and of public policies that recently promoted
these curves to question the space itself, syncretically. Exu, the Afro-Atlantic god, affirmative and reparative actions, notably
reorganizing the route of the building – from and Eros – the Greek personification of aiming to create access to higher education.
the first floor we jump to the third to end the desire, who, like Exu, is a messenger of In the center of the ground floor pavilion
visit on the second floor, closing the central fertility – unite in opposition to Thanatos, that gives access to the exhibition, a
gap, in a radical but effective gesture. ruler of death and its drives. discreet white and cruciform structure
White walls, few rooms with more radical This option is made clear in organizations supports, on each of its bases, a television,
intervention, this is a Biennale with lots such as quilombos and villages, but also on which documentary films are shown
of breath and large spaces, but which in community and favela museums, which about the African-American dancer and
also takes the visitor to more intimate come in various shapes and forms, such as, choreographer Katherine Dunham (1909-
environments when necessary. It is with for example, the interesting Quilombaque 2006) . Legendary, Dunham had, and
great elegance that the ills of the world Cultural Community, created in 2005 in continues to have, an important role in her
are addressed in (im)possible gestures of the Perus neighborhood, in the region field and even outside of it, as she played
overcoming. Northwest of São Paulo. They and their a prominent role in the fight for civil rights
Elegance and criticism are present in counterparts not only survived the in her country. Dunham, through her
the works selected by Sidney Amaral (1973- necropolitics that guide our historical performance on stage, sought to erode
2017) for the exhibition. In your painting scenario, but, in addition, managed to and contest the dichotomy that opposes
The foreigner (2011), he portrays himself develop lexicons, technologies, discourses so-called “erudite” knowledge to that of
as a boatman who would be in the dark and practices of resistance and repellence “popular” extraction. Her dance updates
underground of the Biennale pavilion, to violence, symbolic and, at times, lethal, the importance of this language as it is a
without having the chance to belong to this to which they were and still are are exposed. manifestation that participates religiously
territory – hence the title of the work. Now The title that names the São Paulo and secularly at the center of cosmogonies
in 2023, who would have thought, he is no biennial exhibition, choreographies of the that were harshly repressed, precisely
longer a foreigner, but part of a large chorus impossible, suggests, of course, a varied because they participate in a constitutive
of black bodies, the largest this biennial has range of interpretations, among them one way in the symbolic and everyday universe of
ever seen. Finally, the impossible has now that, presumably, ponders the irruption the colonized and oppressed, who through
become possible. of a production that, contrary to a certain dance preserved (protected) ) their bodies
reactionary expectation, was not interrupted, in tune with their minds.
35 são paulo biennial review [pages 38 to 41] despite the enormous efforts that have been And it is emblematic that the work of the
th
made day in and day out against it. pioneering black artist and curator Emanoel
A DANÇA DO POSSÍVEL If institutions like the São Paulo Biennial, Araújo (1944-2022) is present on this same
and the great museums and similar first floor. Passed away exactly a year ago,
The expansion of the lexicon and the institutions in the city and the country, have he was also one of the creators of the paths
consolidation of divergent grammars the power to project the political, economic that brought us here and to some of the
by claudinei roberto da silva and symbolic power of the class, gender results present in this exhibition.
and race of those who, af er all, organize These choices suggest a curatorial project
the way we perceive the reality of life and sponsor events of this magnitude, this that refuses the epistemicide to which the
in society is dialectically affected by the does not happen by default and outside the populations to which, significantly, many of
experiences we develop in it, by the multiplicity will of other groups, but, on the contrary, it the artists present in the exhibition belong
of constructed relationships and hierarchies signals a process of disputes that will require are subjected.
produced and established in territories a review of practices (and collections) In the museum created by Araújo in 2004,
governed by capitalism in its peripheral concomitantly with the deepening of theses Afro Brasil, which recently incorporated the
version. If there is any consensus regarding that result in more democratic actions name of its creator into its name, there is
this 35th São Paulo Biennial – choreographies and, therefore, more inclusive. Therefore, a marked presence of works made with
of the impossible, it will probably confirm, the presence in the pavilions of social materials also recurring in this biennial,
or not, the rise of counter-hegemonic movements and their analogues, such as namely earth, clay, ceramics and wood, in
sensibilities, which repel and resist other Quilombo Cafundó, Cozinha Ocupação 9 de addition to artisanal weaving. Materials that,
vocations disciplined by exclusionary Julho, mtst (homeless workers movement), in addition to constituting works, give rise to
heteronormativity and, consequently, racist, which are not confused, but reiterate powers technologies such as that used by Denilson
xenophobic, of en misogynistic and infallibly that other strategies in the field of art, they Baniwa in the corn field he cultivates in one
homo and transphobic. were already demonstrating this, see Frente of the exhibition pavilions.
This lexicon prospected for the 3 de Fevereiro, which was also a participant Rommulo Vieira da Conceição, an
construction of narratives constituted in the Biennale. artist and professor from Bahia based
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