Que coisa é? A conversation
As a part of the Annual Plan of Activities for 2014, in September, Pivô will present the project Que Coisa é? [What is It?] which arose out of a series of conversations between Alexandra Garcia Waldman, Fernanda Brenner, Yael Bartana, Mario Garcia Torres, Moacir dos Anjos and Cildo Meireles.
An explanation of the project is an explanation of its process. At some point last year, editor Alexandra Garcia Waldman and Pivô’s director Fernanda Brenner started a conversation about a possible collaboration, without a set schedule or base concept. For months, the two of them traded references, sending each other songs and videos, and mainly listed the people that they love. Alexandra also maintained a dialogue with Israeli artist Yael Bartana and, in one way or another, the subjects often converged on the work of German political scientist and critical theorist Hannah Arendt.
The conversation between them regarding the maintenance of this free territory for experimentation and thought touched on the work of Mexican artist Mario Garcia Torres, who recently presented the project “Um cabo lá, um porto cá” at the 9th Mercosul Biennial. Alexandra and Fernanda traveled to Mexico City, extending the conversation which began months earlier to Garcia Torres. Alexandra and Mario had already talked about the possibility of making a music video for one of the songs from the project realized in Porto Alegre. At this point, the project proposed by the editor was merely an outline for a collective exhibition of artists who base the development of their work on thought, using Arendt’s book as reference material.
The dynamic of the conversations that started in São Paulo continued in Mexico City. Alexandra, Fernanda and now Mario debated Pivô’s mission, decided to shoot a music video for the song “Que Coisa é?” while also talking about São Paulo, Arendt and love, or rather the people they love, and in this context, Cildo Meireles’s name came up. The three of them had never met the artist personally and thus they set the objective of scheduling a meeting with Meireles in his studio in Rio de Janeiro. Alexandra resumed another conversation – this time with curator Moacir dos Anjos, who provided the link to the artist. Moacir brought up some fundamental issues regarding Cildo, especially his reputation as a great “storyteller.” Mario came to Brazil, visited Pivô and met Cildo Meireles. The same conversation was extended to Cildo and, for nearly four hours, it centered on rivers, Brazil, music and vinyl albums. Meireles spoke at length about his projects Rio Oír, Sal sem Corpo and Pietro Bo, all of which were recorded on vinyl.
Thus far, the project is comprised of Arendt’s ideas, Moacir dos Anjos and Yael Bartana’s words, vinyl records and a new music video by Mario Garcia Torres and featuring Cildo Meireles in the Pivô exhibition space, which will display the result of months of conversations between the six people mentioned above, edited by Alexandra Garcia Waldman.
