THE ART NEWSPAPER ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH DAILY EDITION Friday 5 December 2014

Q I U Z H I J I E C

L A I R E R I G B Y S A N T A N D E R C U L T U R A L F

Aacute B I O D E L R E

C A R L O S S T E I N 983087 V I V A F O T O

D O W N E Y

H A R R Y S H U N K

C O U R T E S Y O F M A R I L Y N B E L T D O W N E Y

T H E J U A N D O W N E Y E S T A T E

EXHIBITIONS

6

Biennials move to a Latin beatafter decades of controversy Surge in new and revived South American exhibitions reflects global demand for contemporary art

TRENDS

Satildeo Paulo Two new Latin American

biennials launched in 2014 a biennialin Cartagena Colombia and a trien-nial in Sorocaba an affluent city justover 100km west of Satildeo Paulo Brazil Another biennial is due to launch inOctober 2015 in Asuncioacuten ParaguayThey join a network of biennials

reaching from Montevideo Uruguayinto Brazil with its four biennialsalong the Andes to Cuenca Ecuadorand up into the Caribbean where the11th Bienal de la Habanamdashactually atriennialmdashtook place in 2012

The shadows of defunct ordormant biennials hover in themarginsmdashUshuaia Santiago LimaMedelliacutenmdashwhile in Salvador thecapital of the Brazilian state of Bahiaa third biennial was staged this yearafter a 46-year hiatus The Bienal

da Bahia began in 1966 only to beabruptly halted in 1968 when themilitary government closed the show

on its second day confiscating 19ldquosubversiverdquo or ldquomorally offensiverdquo works and imprisoning the curators

Juarez Paraiacuteso and Riolan CoutinhoThis yearrsquos Bahia biennial which

ran from May to September featuredsome of the works from the first andsecond events as well as works byartists from more than 20 countries

breaking with the 1968 biennialrsquosfocus on Bahian artistsmdasha controver-sial choice that created a schism atthe time contributing to the deathof the nascent event

ldquoI think internationalism is impor-tant for a biennialrdquo says Alfons Hug

the founding curator of the Bienalde Montevideo (its second editionclosed on 22 November) ldquoIt needsto have a global reach When a bien-nial is fixated purely on the local itrsquosmore like a national salonrdquo Hug whoorganised the Bienal de Satildeo Paulo in

2002 and 2004 has organised a longlist of other biennials and pavilionsincluding Latin American and Bra-zilian pavilions at the Venice Bien-nale and the 2009 Bienal del Fin del

B u s t o f A l e x a n d e r t h e G r e a t R o m a n

E a r l y

I m p e r i a

l c o u r t e s y o

f P h o e n

i x A n c

i e n

t A r t

Park Avenue ArmoryMay 8 - 12 2015

A Fair of Art amp D esign from Antiqui ty

COLLECTING ACROSS CENTURIES

JUXTAPOSITIONS

Held in Satildeo Paulo from 26 to 30November the second WorldBiennial Forum took place inparallel with the cityrsquos art biennial

which closes on Sunday Followingon from the 1047297rst World BiennialForum ldquoShifting Gravityrdquo whichwas held in Gwangju South Koreain 2012 this yearrsquos gathering wascalled ldquoHow to Make Biennials inContemporary Timesrdquo

With a programme developedby the 31st Satildeo Paulo biennialrsquoscuratorial teammdashCharles Esche GalitEilat Nuria Enguita Mayo PabloLafuente Oren Sagiv Luiza Proenccedilaand Benjamin Seroussimdashthe forumldquoquestioned and provokedrdquo the

concept of the biennial focusing onthe ldquoGlobal Southrdquo and in particularon biennials in Dakar IstanbulJakarta and Satildeo Paulo

ldquoWe asked people to take acritical analytical look at biennial

subjects rather than present theirown workrdquo the London-basedcurator Pablo Lafuente says

The forum arose from aconference held in Bergen in 2009to discuss whether or not a biennialshould be created for the Norwegian

city A triennial the Bergen Assemblywas 1047297rst held in 2013

ldquoWe think itrsquos important that thepeople who make biennials thinkabout the history behind themrdquoLafuente says ldquoItrsquos essential to be

rigorous We want to talk aboutthe effects of biennials and whatmakes them possible in terms ofmoney politics and so onmdashwho paysour salariesrdquo

As well as a series of morningworkshops for the representatives

of international biennials four majorsessions were open to the publiccovering the topics of archivesand biennial memory what comesafter national art competitions andthe promotion of cities as touristdestinations education ideology

and exchange and the role of art andartists The forum was co-organisedby Satildeo Paulorsquos Instituto de CulturaContemporacircnea CRy

Forum looks at how tomake a modern biennial

ldquo[Biennials are] a sign of the healthof an economyrdquo

Juan Downeyrsquos Mapa Mundi 1979 (detail)

The Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie workingon Map at this yearrsquos Satildeo Paulobiennial Left the Santander Culturalbuilding in Porto Alegre Brazil

Mundo held at the southernmost

tip of South America in Ushuaia thecapital city of the Argentine provinceTierra del Fuego According to Hug one of the

secret charms of biennials is theirability thanks to a combinationof scale and institutional clout to

occupy antique and historic spacesldquoThere is something about the patinaof old and ruined spaces that suitscontemporary art extremely wellrdquohe says In Latin America Hug saysa wealth of colonial architecture incities like Cuenca Havana Salvador

and Cartagena allows works particu-larly installations and videos to shineIn southern Brazil Curitibarsquos biennialmakes use of some of the ornatemansions once owned by the cityrsquos wealthy ldquomateacute baronsrdquo while in Porto

Alegre where the Bienal do Mercosulis held in odd-numbered years a col-lection of fine Neo-Classical buildingsin the city centre includes the lovelySantander Cultural a former bank

The Satildeo Paulo biennial on theother hand has occupied the vast

Modernist pavilion created by OscarNiemeyer since its fourth edition in1957 This year Oren Sagiv one of thebiennialrsquos curators split the spaceinto three discrete areas in a planthat won approval in the staunchly

conservative Brazilian city wheresome of the other aspects of theexhibition with its assertively polit-ical works have been the subjectof controversy

That innate conservatism hasalso arguably helped to secure the

longevity of the Satildeo Paulo biennial which is second only to Venice Fora biennial to last beyond one two or

three editions Hug says there needsto be a certain cohesion among thebourgeoisie ldquoYou need two or threepeople with some authorityrdquo he saysldquoThat works well in Satildeo Paulo and inPorto Alegre where the local businesscommunity is united and well organ-

ised behind the causerdquoFor Josueacute Mattos the curator of

ldquoFrestasrdquo the new Trienal de Artesin Sorocaba which runs until May2015 the benefits of a systematisedbiennial process can contribute to

a sense that the biennial model isbecoming ldquoexhaustedrdquo He saysldquoThere is a danger at a certain pointthat a long-running biennial canbecome a festival of art for better or worse rather than an event that isconstantly problematisedrdquo What is

required Mattos says is a commit-ment to mobilising groups of artists with whom it might be possible ldquoto

raise questions and to instigaterdquo At the 1981 Bienal de Medelliacuten in

a work that was censored the Colom-bian artist Beatriz Gonzaacutelez made abanner that read ldquoThis biennial is

a luxury that an underdevelopedcountry cannot affordrdquo

ldquoBiennials are synonyms for suc-cessful emerging countriesrdquo Hugsays ldquoYou donrsquot get them in bankruptcountries or in crises you get themin aspiring countries like Uruguay

Brazil and Colombia And in Asiain Singapore China and Korea Itrsquosusually a very good sign of the healthof an economy and of a societyrdquo

ldquoAspiringrdquo is not a term normallyassociated with Paraguay one of South Americarsquos poorest countries But for

Royce Smith the principal curatorand founder of Paraguayrsquos forthcom-ing biennial Asuncioacutenrsquos rawness andpotential make it the perfect host ldquoIthink there is a sense that establishedbiennials have set the goalposts for

the operations of mega-exhibitions what they are how many peopleshould come what lsquoqualityrsquo of artistsshould be includedrdquo Smith says Hecites a comment made to him by theChilean curator Paz Guevara about why the Biennial of the End of the

World existed in remote far-flung Ushuaia ldquoBecause everyone has theright to the contemporaryrdquoClaire Rigby

Tapestry by Josef Albers cour tesy of Vojtech Bl au

through the 21st Century

Tapestry by Josef Albers cour tesy of Vojtech Bl au

through the 21st Century