Those born for adventure don’t stray from the path – Artworks from Videobrasil collection

This parallel show to the 19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil | Southern Panoramas presents a contemporary take on productions from the Videobrasil Collection, featuring 16 pieces created between 1978 and 2012 by artists from the global South. The show of the 19th Festival is curated by Diego Matos, archive and research coordinator for the Associação Cultural Videobrasil.

The title of the exhibition is a sentence uttered by Lygia Pape to art critic Mário Pedrosa during a 1981 interview for the newspaper O Pasquim. According to Matos, “in a moment of crisis, of a consolidated trauma experienced by Brazilian society and the end of hopes dashed by the military regime, Pedrosa renewed belief in the role of the artist and of the public intellectual, as well as in the inherent relationship between art and politics. The art of that historic moment, and also in the Brazilian context, seemed to rescue its resistance character in a more immediate matter – and video would then have this fundamental role”.

The exhibition is divided into three sections, inspired by the selected Brazilian artworks – “Affections, Times and Roads”; “Democracy, Document and Fiction”; and “Speech, Hearing and Dissent” – which converse with the universe outlined by the artworks featured in the Festival. The first set of works is the epicenter of the show and comprises videos by Brazilians Karim Aïnouz and Marcelo Gomes, Marcellvs L. , and Cao Guimarães, plus by Israeli Nurit Sharett, who present their personal perceptions of times and spaces of affection. The second core proposes an immersion in the politic-economic past of countries like Brazil (Geraldo Anhaia Mello), Chile (Cláudia Aravena) and Algeria (Malek Bensmail), as well as a glimpse of the terrible future imagined by the The Otolith Group (UK). The third section explores the impossibility of consensus and failure of communication seen in democratic societies. Subjects like racism (Carlos Nader) and homophobia (Rita Moreira, Clive van der Berg) are discussed, and, in the work of Sandra Kogut, the ability to talk is given back to those who have had their speech silenced. Four works integrate the spaces of the three sets: the creations by Brazilians Cristiano Lenhardt and João Moreira Salles, and Peruvian Gabriel Acevedo propose themes that overlap the exhibitions sectors.

The exhibition is fruit of a partnership that began in 2001, during the 13th Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, when works from the collection Videobrasil were exhibited for the first time at Paço das Artes.

Two thematic visits, mediated by curator Diego Matos will take place in the exhibition. Script 1: Brazil, São Paulo – a place for departure happens on November 14 (Saturday), at 4pm. Considering the city of São Paulo, where the exhibition takes place and Videobrasil began its activities, as a symbolic point of departure, the tour explores the narratives that permeate the exhibition, deconstructing the idea of place and twisting the space-time relationship. Script 2: The video at the political arena of art will happen on January 9, 2016 (Saturday), at 4pm. This mediated visit focus artistic practice as political action, not only via a pamphleteer bias, but mostly through conditions and relations like exclusion-inclusion, social and ethnic origins, and other socially defining categories, placing the subject inside the political arena. Inscriptions are free and via e-mail (educativo@pacodasartes.org.br) or telephone (+55 11 3814 4832).

Finally, during the exhibition period, Paço das Artes will host the ZONA DE REFLEXÃO, with computer that give access to Videobrasil’s digital platforms, like the Videoteca (with around 1300 works); the Canal VB, that gathers Videobrasil’s audio-visual original production; and PLATAFORMA:VB, composed of interviews with artists about their researches. Publications edited by the partnership between Videobrasil and Edições Sesc will also be available for consultation.