31st Bienal

How to
recognise
things
that don’t
exist
 31st Bienal

How to
fight for
things
that don’t
exist
 31st Bienal

How to
read about
things
that don’t
exist
 31st Bienal

How to
use
things
that don’t
exist
 31st Bienal

How to
imagine
things
that don’t
exist
 Bienal and Itaú present

31st
Bienal
de
São Paulo
• At first sight, How to (…) things that don’t exist might seem like an
abstract question. But perhaps we should think of the title of the 31st
Bienal de São Paulo as a contemporary dilemma: how do we live in a
world that is in a permanent state of transformation, in which the old
forms – of work, of behaviour, of art – no longer fit and the new forms
have yet to be clearly outlined?
By choosing this curatorial project, the Bienal makes room for
a fresh view of its building and its history, with a proposal that leaves the
modernist heritage on the sidelines in favour of new approaches and con-
siderations. The guide you now hold in your hands is another piece of evi-
dence of the vigorous work realised by the curators and the foundation’s
permanent staff.
Working in one of the biggest cities in the world, we are responsi-
ble for an event that attracts more than 500,000 people and is increasingly
more committed to the cultural and social circles that surround us. For the
past five years, the Education Department has been developing an unpar-
alleled project in teachers’ training – which, by the end of 2014, will have
reached 25,000 educators – and with the participation of new sectors of
the public, involving communities and partners all over Brazil. At the same
time, the Bienal’s touring programme has brought recent editions of the
exhibition to different Brazilian cities, drawing larger and larger crowds.
This year, it has the potential to double the number of spectators, so that
the 31st Bienal be seen by a total of one million people.
Beyond the spectrum of instruction and the spread of culture,
we also operate with increasing focus in the area of research. Since 2013,
a series of resources has been applied to revitalising the Bienal Archive,
consolidating its place as a centre of reference and memory in modern
and contemporary art. This process has already begun to bear fruit,
which should become more visible in the coming years.
Thus, transcending the exhibitions that it stages, the Bienal
Foundation is today an institution dedicated to the production of content,
the professional training of its personnel and the implementation of a
consistent management model. Still, its activities would not be possible
without the crucial support provided by the Ministry of Culture, the State
Secretary of Culture, the Municipal Secretary of Culture, its partner in the
event, Itaú, its sponsors and a valuable cultural partnership with SESC São
Paulo. It is this network of support that allows us to strengthen the bonds
between art, the avant-garde and education in order to merit and maintain
our place of prestige on the national and international scene.

Luis Terepins
President of the Bienal de São Paulo Foundation
• Itaú Unibanco believes that access to culture, in addition to bringing
people closer to art, is a fundamental complement to education, deve-
loping critical thinking and transforming individuals, society and
the country.
This is why we invest in and support one of Brazil’s most impor-
tant cultural manifestations. We are the official sponsor of the 31st Bienal
de São Paulo: an event which transforms with each edition, welcoming
more people, new ideas and variations of artistic expression which expand
the horizons of those who participate in and visit the exhibition.
With more access to art and broader horizons, knowledge grows
and a variety of opportunities emerge to change the world for the better.
After all, people’s worlds change when they have more culture. And the
world of culture changes with more people.
Investing in changes that make the world a better place
is what it means to be a bank made for you. Investing in culture.
#thischangestheworld

Itaú. Made for you.

• Art and the senses of the world
In our contemporary context, rife with symbols and
interpretations that blend and clash, questions remain about the pos-
sibilities of individuals finding their way. Each of us may feel, to a
greater or lesser extent, the urgency of attributing meaning, under
the penalty of being overwhelmed by images, texts and sounds that
construct reality.
Art participates in this symbolic circulation as a protagonist,
with its often disturbing presence and commentaries regarding other
presences. In this way, the approximation of contemporary visual art
production can signify the expansion of its possibilities for reading the
things of the world to various audiences.
From the perception of this potential comes the partnership
between SESC – the Social Service of Commerce and the Bienal de São
Paulo Foundation, born out of the compatibility of their missions for
spreading and fomenting contemporary art and which has been mani-
fested in joint actions since 2010. The 31st Bienal consolidates this
partnership with the development of educational efforts, such as open
meetings and curatorial workshops, as well as the co-production of
artworks with selected pieces travelling to SESC locations throughout
the state.
This shared effort reaffirms the conviction that the fields of
culture and art are geared for educational intervention – a real vector
of collaboration and the transformation of individuals and society.

Danilo Santos de Miranda

Regional Director of SESC São Paulo
 Contents

17 How to (…) things that don’t exist

21 Turn
23 Conflict, colectivity, imagination, transformation
25 Process
27 Journey

30 “… - OHPERA – MUET - ...”  Alejandra Riera with UEINZZ

32 10.000 års nordisk folkekunst  Asger Jorn
34 AfroUFO Tiago Borges and Yonamine
36 Agoramaquia (el caso exacto de la estatua)  Asier
Mendizabal
38 Aguaespejo granadino / Fuego en Castilla  Val del Omar
40 Apelo Clara Ianni and Débora Maria da Silva
42 Archéologie marine  El Hadji Sy
44 Bajo presión  Lázaro Saavedra
46 Balayer – A Map of Sweeping  Imogen Stidworthy
48 Black Series / TrabZONE and other works  Nilbar Güreş
50 Breakfast Leigh Orpaz
52 Capital Wilhelm Sasnal
54 Casa de caboclo  Arthur Scovino
56 Céu / El Dorado  Danica Dakić
58 Cities by the River  Anna Boghiguian
60 Counting the Stars  Nurit Sharett
62 Dark Clouds of the Future  Prabhakar Pachpute
64 Dios es marica Nahum Zenil / Ocaña / Sergio Zevallos /
Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Organised by Miguel A. López)
68 Errar de Dios  Etcétera… and León Ferrari
70 La Escuela Moderna  Archivo F.X. / Pedro G. Romero
72 Espacio para abortar  Mujeres Creando
74 The Excluded. In a moment of danger  Chto Delat
 76 A família do Capitão Gervásio  Kasper Akhøj and
Tamar Guimarães
78 A fortaleza / Nada é  Yuri Firmeza
80 Handira / Bert Flint / Granada  Teresa Lanceta
82 Histórias de aprendizagem  Voluspa Jarpa
84 Imponderables / Perímetros  Johanna Calle
86 In the Land of the Giants and other works  Jo Baer
88 The Incidental Insurgents Part 1 & Part 2
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
90 Los incontados: un tríptico
Mapa Teatro – Laboratorio de artistas
92 Inferno Yael Bartana
94 Invention Mark Lewis
96 It’s Just the Spin of Inner Life  Agnieszka Piksa
98 Landversation Otobong Nkanga
100 Letra morta  Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa
102 Letters to the Reader (1864, 1877, 1916, 1923)  Walid Raad
104 Línea de vida / Museo Travesti del Perú
Giuseppe Campuzano
106 Loomshuttles, Warpaths  Ines Doujak and John Barker
108 Map  Qiu Zhijie
110 Martírio  Thiago Martins de Melo
112 Meeting Point and other works  Bruno Pacheco
114 Muhacir  Gülsün Karamustafa
116 Mujawara  Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Grupo Contrafilé
118 The Name Giver  Michael Kessus Gedalyovich
120 Não é sobre sapatos  Gabriel Mascaro
122 Não-ideias  Marta Neves
124 Nosso Lar, Brasília  Jonas Staal
126 O que caminha ao lado  Erick Beltrán
128 Of Other Worlds That Are in This One /
One Hundred Thousand Solitudes  Tony Chakar
130 Ônibus Tarifa Zero  Graziela Kunsch
132 Open Phone Booth  Nilbar Güreş
134 The Placebo Scroll  Michael Kessus Gedalyovich
 136 A Research  Lia Perjovschi
138 Resimli Tarih  Gülsün Karamustafa
140 Revista Urbânia 5  Graziela Kunsch and Lilian L’Abbate Kelian
142 The Revolution Must Be a School of Unfettered Thought
Jakob Jakobsen and María Berríos
144 RURU  ruangrupa
146 Sem título  Éder Oliveira
148 Sergio e Simone  Virginia de Medeiros
150 El shabono abandonado  Juan Downey
152 Small World  Yochai Avrahami
154 Spear and other works  Edward Krasiński
156 Those of Whom  Sheela Gowda
158 Turning a Blind Eye  Bik Van der Pol
160 A última aventura  Romy Pocztaruk
162 A última palavra é a penúltima – 2  Teatro da Vertigem
164 Untitled  Vivian Suter
166 Video Trans Americas  Juan Downey
168 Vila Maria  Danica Dakić
170 Violencia  Juan Carlos Romero
172 Voto!  Ana Lira
174 Wall, Work, Workshop. The São Paulo Drawing
Dan Perjovschi
176 Wonderland  Halil Altındere
178 Ymá Nhandehetama  Armando Queiroz
with Almires Martins and Marcelo Rodrigues
180 Zona de tensão  Hudinilson Jr.

182 Architecture
185 Education
188 Visual identity
190 Programme in time

192 Image captions

204 Credits
220 Index of participants
How to (…) things
that don’t exist
The title of the 31st Bienal de São Paulo, How to (…) things
that don’t exist, is a poetic invocation of art’s capacities,
of its ability to reflect and act upon on life, power and
belief. The sentence, neither a question nor a proposition,
entangles, through art, the mystical and spiritual side of
life with political and social ideals – all this in a constantly
changing world. It intends to communicate optimism about
the possibilities of art today – an optimism that echoes that
of the Bienal and the projects within it. The range of pos-
sibilities for action and intervention is open – an openness
that is the reason for the first of the two verbs in the title
to change constantly, anticipating the actions that might
make present these things that don’t exist. We started by
talking about them, later to move onto living with them.
This was followed by using, struggling against and learning
from those same things, in a list that has no end.

The existence of things that don’t exist can be grasped if we

recognise that human understanding and action are partial,
limited by expectations and beliefs. Some things, then, fall
outside the commonly accepted frames of thinking and
doing at any given time. When people find themselves in
discord with existing explanations of life and their experi-
ence of it, the things that don’t exist become most tangible
in their absence. They are often experienced as confronta-
tions with limitations or injustices that we feel we cannot
surpass, because we do not posses the means to do so.

Today, these limitations might be found in a number of

long-lasting conditions, many of which seem to have
become extreme. In an age when exchanges of information
are increasing exponentially, there is also a reduction in
the diversity of thinking frames. The dominant economic
model, with its cold logic of efficiency, often ignores the
history and culture of places, in favour of simplistic profit-
and-loss analyses. The complexity of human desire is left
aside, yet the old discourses of opposition to capital also
fail to account for fundamental aspects of contemporary
life. Established Left and Right perspectives on politics,
economics or social structures are not in touch with this
life and the way that it is lived, and this inability must open
the way to other social and political approaches. Equally,
the abuses made in the name of religion are visible, yet the
spiritual is a fundamental presence in many people’s lives,
finding expression in a wide range of modes and manners.
Political representation – as the recent protest movements
in many regions worldwide reflect – is in deep crisis, yet no
clear alternative has emerged. But such situation is neither
necessary nor permanent…
Turn

The encounter between the political, social,

religious, economic or ecological crises we are
experiencing, the increasingly uneven distribu-
tion of power and resources and the feeling
that we lack the means to make real change
real seem to have led to a stage of turn. ‘Turn’
is a word sometimes used to refer to religious
conversion, or to define a point where a certain
construction of common sense gives way to a
different set of shared values. In this moment
of turning we are living, change is occurring
without its exact mechanisms, direction and
consequences being clear.

Turn – our turn – is not modern, oriented

towards the future, progressive. It is, instead,
disorderly, sometimes deceitful, definitely
inconstant. It appears to be trying to find a way
out of established parameters, in order to give
space to complexity and flexibility – not shy of
conflict and confrontation. This state of turn is
our contemporary condition and, therefore, the
condition of this 31st Bienal.
Conflict, collectivity,
imagination, transformation
The crisis of representation also extends to art, which has
perhaps been in the past a primary form of representing
the world. Many artists in this Bienal are concerned with
being present in situations and allowing their impressions
to accumulate slowly so that viewers of their final works
can feel part of the process of discovery and learning.

We wanted to look into ways of generating conflict,

through projects that have at their core an unresolved
relationship between groups, between different versions
of history or between incompatible ideas; but also to think
and act collectively, in order to prove it is a much more
effective and enriching way to work than the individual
logic often proposed to us. In imagination we see a tool to
move beyond our current situations and to transform them.
Art at its best is a disruptive force. It can create situations
where the disallowed is recognised and valued through the
act of imagining things otherwise. Lastly, transformation
can be understood through artworks that can present the
potential for change in many ways – taking advantage of
transgression, translation, transexuality and other transi-
tional notions or actions that, like the turn, go against the
imposition of a single, absolute truth. Indeed it seems that
these ‘trans-’ words are ways to touch on things that can-
not be fully expressed with written language, but instead
rely on other forms of communication.
Process

The 31st Bienal understands itself as eminently contempo-

rary, in dialogue with our present times: with the situation
today, in the city of São Paulo, where it is located; with
Brazil, the country that is the city’s immediate context;
South America beyond it; and the world at large. Both pre-
modern and modern history appears within it, but the value
of this history is not in itself, rather it appears as a set of
relevant fictions, narratives and information out of which
new possibilities may emerge for the future. The emphasis
on contemporaneity also translates into a desire to do
away with formal hierarchies between artists, curators,
communities, students and publics.

This is not a Bienal built on art and objects, but on people

working with people on projects, on collaborations
between individuals and groups, on relationships that
should continue and develop throughout and, perhaps,
even after the 31st Bienal is over. While a small group of
people might be the initiators, the stress of the 31st Bienal
is on all those who will be in contact with the project and
make use of it, and on what the encounters with the proj-
ects and the event as a whole will create. The openness of
the process needs to be understood in terms of a process
of learning: an educational exchange that is established
throughout and on each level and therefore unresolved
and exploratory.
Journey

Hopefully, everyone who establishes contact

with the Bienal will agree to accompany us
for a journey, short or long, and explore these
possibilities before branching off on their own
individual and collective paths and take some-
thing new with them. Hopefully, this shared
moment can be transformative for all involved.
And for this to occur, the artworks, the words
and ideas that emerge in discussions, events
and situations that have taken place or will take
place throughout the duration of the exhibition,
all these need to be confronted, appropriated,
used and misused by those who come across
them. Through all these encounters within
and around this 31st Bienal, through what are
fundamentally artistic acts of will, those things
that don’t exist might be conjured into exis-
tence, and this way contribute to a different
view of the world. Probably this is, after all, the
fundamental capacity of art itself.
28
29
 “… - OHPERA – MUET - ...” 2014
Alejandra Riera with Ueinzz

[on the date of 3 September 2014]

– Abandoned cinema.

– Partial view. The removal of the Christopher Columbus statue,

Parque Colón, Buenos Aires, February 2014.

— Visitor: Look, in the distance, the waves of ........., a flock, it’s

‘...........’.
— Guide: It’s impossible! They........ don’t, they no longer exist, in
these parts.
— Visitor: And yet, look closely, over there, on the hills! It stinks!
And if everything could be said and criticised, nothing would
happen any more… Take off your glasses if you can’t see with
them! Perhaps you will see through something else!
— Guide: Ah – the non-dupes wander again! Stop! Without glasses I
can’t read, nor can I see clearly...
— Visitor: And yet you can feel the weight of things around you.
Sense them. The finiteness and the relation among the things
close by. You don’t like that I’m digressing, but you, you’re
taking us for a ride to nowhere! You want the structure, the mea-
sures! You want to be reassured that what you see, what’s there,
is yours because you say it is!

30
 And what about ‘free association’!
The expression that allows everything that comes to mind
to flow out and doesn’t resist the slightest criticism … to let
out ... this ‘.........’; which cannot be said without?
Why not let the birds come, even if they’ll hit the window
with their beaks? If the window........., a puff of wind........,
airy ........ AND........
— Guide: You’re pushing me TOO FAR! I give up!
— Visitor/Guide (together): Well then, let’s see! (laughter)

– UEINZZ/AR

Meetings in front of the CECCO (Centro de Convivência e Cooperativa),

an abandoned warehouse that temporarily housed the Cinemateca
Brasileira – including a film club – after a major fire in 1957. Gate 5,
Ibirapuera Park. First meeting on 3 September and subsequently every
other Wednesday.
31
 10.000 års nordisk folkekunst 1961-1965
Asger Jorn Photographs by Gérard Franceschi

Recuperating what we, as a culture, have lost or forgotten, and

proposing it as a way to construct our future. This is perhaps how
we might understand Asger Jorn’s 10.000 års nordisk folkekunst
[10,000 Years of Nordic Folk Art] – a project he undertook between
1961 to 1965, together with photographer Gérard Franceschi – in
pursuit of the visual language of pre-Christian northern Europe and
its remains in Romanic and Gothic art and architecture.

The project resulted in over 20,000 photographs of stone, wood and

iron objects, as well as architectural details that reveal a strong belief in
language – visual language – as a source of poetry, as a tool to connect
the shapes and movements of nature and the world with those of art and
society, and as a strategy to offer new images and structures for under-
standing and constructing life and what is beyond it.
32
 The collection of photographs, many of them still in negative form
or unpublished, offer an image of a world that is not fragmented,
not divided into areas of specialisation; a world in which a belief
in the equality between people and things rules, and where the
ability of things to transform is celebrated.
In this collection of images, art is not to be found in the photographs
themselves, but in what they articulate: a transformation that cannot be
felt or understood through the individual pictures or the items pictured
in them, but in the associations established between one and another.
Together, they speak about a universe in constant change, in which
everything is of equal value, and in which the thing that really matters is
the search for, the creation of connections. – PL

33
 AfroUFO 2014
Tiago Borges and Yonamine

A UFO is a thing that comes from the future – a future that we might never
arrive at, that doesn’t belong to us, but that might show us some place
where we could be, some instruments we could make use of, some time
when everything will be different. An object we didn’t design but perhaps
dreamt of, it makes present a time and a place that is not quite ours, and a
set of items, informations and tools we don’t fully recognise. It might work,
however, as an image that reflects on the world that we consider ours, and
make apparent its size, its limitations and its possibilities. It expands it, and
may even save it from (self-)destruction.

Yonamine and Borges’s AfroUFO comes from a black future, a future we

don’t know much about. Black, ‘as the colour of my true love’s hair’, are
its engines, which leave a track of pollution where it passes by. Black are
the people within it, in different shades of it. This blackness is the black-
ness of a shared colonial history, that of Angola, where Yonamine and
Borges come from – a colonial history shared by the place where it has
landed, Brazil. It is also the blackness of the electricity shortages that
still affect Luanda more than a decade after the end of a 26-year-long
civil war.
34
But the AfroUFO is also a source of light. Its walls frame a mythical
vessel where all that Africa has ever produced is symbolically housed:
still and moving images, music, sounds, words… The vessel with its
contents is a time-bomb that, after landing, might explode and infect our
world with what has been suppressed during 500 years of oblivion and
exploitation. Once that happens, we might become a new type of crea-
ture and find a new way of inhabiting an earth that will no longer be the
one we know. – PL

35
 Agoramaquia
(el caso exacto de la estatua) 2014
Asier Mendizabal

Arriving on the back of recent sculptural works like Hard Edge

(2010), which comprises wood beams all marked through a gesture
of subtraction, Asier Mendizabal has made Agoramaquia (el caso
exacto de la estatua) [Agoramaquia (The Exact Case of the Statue)]
for the 31st Bienal, which critically re-inscribes within a contempo-
rary art context the sculptural praxis of the artist Jorge Oteiza (1908-
2003), whose involvement with Latin America between the 1930s and
1960s was hugely influential yet is largely overlooked today.

Mendizabal’s project consists of a number of sculptures installed

in the Bienal pavilion, all of them based on the monument to the
Peruvian poet César Vallejo that Oteiza made in Lima in 1960.
These sculptures are ‘finalised’ or ‘incomplete’ versions of a sculp-
tural form and, like the original monument, they are all abstract
compositions. By entering into relation with other works and
other spaces within the exhibition, these abstract forms take on
meanings and functions that might, at first sight, seem distanced
36
 from their composition. What Mendizabal does with them is to
explore and update a core problem both for the work of Oteiza
and for his own: the irresolvable contradiction between the formal
language and implied transcendence of abstraction and the conceit
of assigning to this language precise meanings, by relating it to
specific historical predicaments.

Previous works by Mendizabal – as diverse as the documentary

video Goierri Konpeti (2003, with Iñaki Garmendia) or the textual
and graphic form A Letter Arrives at its Destination (2010) – share an
exploration of the relationship between signs and political situations,
between individual and collective expression. In every case, the task
for Mendizabal is to give an account of the construction of a narra-
tive that at once brings together and confronts the parties involved
with the signs that they construct or manipulate in order to express
themselves. – SGN

37
 Aguaespejo granadino 1953-1955 /
Fuego en Castilla 1958-1960
Val del Omar

Aguaespejo granadino [Water-mirror of Granada] and Fuego en Castilla

[Fire in Castile] are the outcome of technical obsession and grammati-
cal delirium. Reminiscent of autos sacramentales – allegorical religious
plays – composed like a musical score, both films contain multiple lev-
els of meaning. They bring together mystical themes and narrations,
articulated in pairs: water and fire, the aesthetics of Antonio Ruiz’s
flamenco dance and Vicente Escudero’s, the African in Andalucia and
the European in Castile, horizontal and vertical, ear and eye, plain and
striped, invisible and hidden, and so on.

Val del Omar’s work – or ‘cinegraphy’ as he liked to call it – drew

from the prolific generation of the rich context of the Spanish
Republic and authors such as Federico García Lorca, Manuel de
Falla, Luis Buñuel and Josep Renau, some of his earliest interlocu-
tors. However, it was the dramatic quality of Miguel de Unamuno’s
philosophy that had the most decisive influence on the troubled
identity of his figurations, halfway between phenomenology and
expressionism, with a strong mystical imprint.

38
During the Republic Val del Omar was actively involved in the propa-
ganda films of the Pedagogical Missions, and started work on a film about
the Holy Week festivities in the region of Murcia, and on the unfinished
Vibración de Granada [Granada’s Vibration], where he left evidence of his
own cinematographic grammar. But it was during Franco’s dictatorship
that he made his most important films, Aguaespejo granadino and Fuego
en Castilla: two definitive examples of his work. Acariño galaico [Galician
Caress] was to be the third in his Tríptico elemental de España [Elemental
Tryptich of Spain], but he never managed to finish it.

Val del Omar was obsessed with control over the technical aspect
of his films, and in this sense his mysticism is strongly materialist.
He passionately claimed that whoever controlled the negative, the
sound system and the camera lens would be the true owner of
the image – the master of the spectacle of our time. To a certain
extent, his work is an endeavour to reach such mastery in order
to offer a schizoid, liberating and mystical response to the atmo-
sphere of repression and National-Catholic autarchy that he was
forced to live with. – PGR
39
 Apelo 2014
Clara Ianni and Débora Maria da Silva

Apelo [Plea] emerges from the urgent need to address the institutionali-
sation of violence in Brazil – something that has developed throughout
the country’s history, beginning with the European invasion in the early
sixteenth century – and the country’s difficulty to relate to its legacy.
Filmed in Dom Bosco Cemetery in the neighbourhood of Perus, in
São Paulo’s outer limits, where urban and country landscapes come
together – Apelo connects present-day acts of violence with those of
the past through a speech. The cemetery was founded in 1971 by the
lastest military government (1964-1985) as a graveyard for victims of
the regime, most of whom had disappeared and were later buried in a
mass grave. The speaker and co-author of this work is Débora Maria
da Silva, whose son was murdered in 2006, a victim of the death squads
of the São Paulo military police – one of the most lethal police forces in

40
 the world – in response to the attacks orchestrated by the pri-
sioner’s organisation Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC. Da
Silva currently leads the Mães de Maio movement, comprised
of mothers who have lost sons or daughters to police violence
and who demand investigation and justice.

As a plea to the living to remember the dead, the speech cries for
the right to mourn and for collective memory, confronting the forced
amnesia systematically promoted by the state along with other sec-
tors of society. It strives to revive these erased stories, which have
disappeared as violently as those who were murdered. Because the
absence of memory and the subsequent impossibility of coping with
social trauma dooms us to repeating the same acts of violence in the
present, threatened by the ghosts of our history. – LP

41
 Archéologie marine 2014
El Hadji Sy

From Gorée Island, right off the coast of Dakar, to Recife in Brazil’s
northeastern coast, there are just over 3,170 kilometres: a distance that
by today’s standards is arguably small. This, however, does not translate
in ease of travel, meaningful cultural proximity or substantial economic
exchange – in painful contrast to what happened throughout the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, when men and women passed through
the island as they crossed the Atlantic, involuntary, as slaves. These
were just a few of those who embarked on such journey – a journey that
only some of them would complete alive.

This forced travel not only shaped a great part of Brazil’s cultural and
political history and that of other Latin American countries; it also
resulted in an ocean that is literally filled with bodies – bodies that, if we
pay enough attention, we might be able to see and feel. Such an image

42
provides the basis of Archéologie marine [Marine Archaeology], El Hadji
Sy’s contribution to the 31st Bienal, which comprises a corridor delim-
ited on the one side by an oceanic path, suspended from the ceiling and
made up of these bodies, lying parallel to an enormous baobab that,
like a giant octopus with large, tentacle-branches, gathers those bodies
around itself and retains the memory of their histories.

Inside the corridor, the bodies of those visiting are both swallowed
by the space and partly visible to those approaching – their legs
and arms stretched below and over the oceanic path. As in El Sy’s
previous work, painting is just part of the story here – an element
that builds on materials (sacks, nets, pigments, etc.) that have
their own history; and on performative and collaborative setups
that give his works an evolving life of their own. In Archéologie
marine, the engagement of people with this double vision will
allow them to live, in their own bodies, the memory of history – a
history that is not intended as an homage or lamentation, but as
the starting point for the narration of a possible future in which old
relations are reconstructed and others are created anew. – PL

43
 Bajo presión 2014
Lázaro Saavedra

At the third Bienal de La Habana in 1989, Lázaro Saavedra, along with

other Cuban artists from his generation, was included in the section
‘The Tradition of Humour’, in a curatorial move that has been read as an
attempt to smother the critical potential of his work through a category,
that of humour, which has an uneasy relationship with politics.

Perhaps the title of this exhibition was imposed by the Castro

regime, concerned with attacks coming from the outside and possi-
ble internal criticism. But the identification of humour as a strategy
in Saavedra’s work was not a mistake – it is there as a way of defining
a complex, critical position and intervening from within. This posi-
tion, maintained by Saavedra during a career that has lasted over
thirty years, presents a model for how artistic practice is able to
respond to context without fleeing, proposing analysis, re-readings
and detours.
44
For Saavedra, the formation of opinion and construction of social imagi-
nation have always been objects of study and problematisation, as seen
in a piece from 1987 in which he rips part of a portrait of Karl Marx
to show that the author of the ‘Communist Manifesto’ was made of
flesh and blood, making his veins and muscles visible, as if the shred-
ded paper were skin. Or in Detector de ideologías [Ideology Detector]
(1989‑2010), a small device that detects ideological deviation in works of
art: no problems, problematic, counter-revolutionary, subversive. More
recently, the artist created Software cubano [Cuban Software] (2012), a
game of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ which demonstrates the consequences of the polit-
ical-ideological choices that rule over contemporary Cuban life, drawing
tensions from the relationships between will and reality.

For the 31st Bienal, Saavedra has been invited to realise a wall
intervention, Bajo presión [Under Pressure], which draws from
some of these previous works, articulating them in a new con-
text and reflecting, through his own history as an artist, on the
critical possibilities of art today. – LP/PL

45
 Balayer – A Map of Sweeping 2014
Imogen Stidworthy in collaboration with Gisèle Durand-Ruiz and Jacques Lin
and with the participation of Christoph Berton, Gilou Toche and Malika Bolainseur

Imogen Stidworthy’s project for the 31st Bienal revolves around a net-
work of temporary homes for autistic children set up by the French
writer and pedagogue Fernand Deligny in 1967, around the village of
Monoblet in the Cévennes, southern France. Rather than psychiatric
care, it was an experience of communal living that was on offer in these
farmhouses: therapists were replaced by untrained social workers, and
isolation by life out in the open. In this way, Deligny sought to create an
environment that responded to the children’s way of being-in-the-world,
notably their withdrawal from language. Verbal communication was
therefore dispensed with and visual tools such as map-making, photo-
graphs and films were used to interpret their gestures and wanderings.

Although the network ceased to operate in the early 1980s, Deligny’s

collaborators Jacques Lin and Gisèle Durand continue to live with
autistic adults in one of the farmhouses – two of these adults arrived
as children in the late 1960s. Building upon her ongoing enquiry
into the borders of language, Stidworthy has worked with them to
consider the legacy of Deligny’s project and reflect upon what being
46
 without language might indicate about the ways in which lan-
guage constructs our sense of self and thus structures – as well as
restricts – our engagement with the world.

Each component of Stidworthy’s installation focusses on a particular

cultural practice devised by Deligny in his attempt to take account of
the relation with the autistic persons, and of their worldview – namely
tracing, ‘camering’ and writing. Attentive to their heightened perception
of the material world, Stidworthy has filmed them as they work with
Gisèle Durand in a project that she initiates from time to time, involving
tracing on paper – an activity that Deligny distinguished from drawing
to emphasise its unintentional basis. A similar lack of purpose underpins
Deligny’s notion of ‘camering’: an aimless filming that we can recognise
in the installation in images made from a ‘detached’ and, to a degree,
un-authored camera position. We also see unedited video recordings
taken by Lin over years, raw material for a future film captured through
an embedded, insider’s eye. Finally, Deligny’s unusual style of writing
– here translated live from the French – reveals his attempt to defy lan-
guage within language. His struggle to counter the rules of the written
word thus dovetails with Stidworthy’s own efforts to question the neu-
trality of language. – HV
47
 Black Series 2011-2012 / TrabZONE 2010
and other works 2014
Nilbar Güreş

Appliances and technologies, habits and beliefs, and the ways in which
theses elements create and empower forms of behaviour and action
provide the common threads running through the work of Nilbar Güreş
included in the 31st Bienal. The series of photographs TrabZONE, of
which only a part is shown, depicts slightly comic situations that the
artist recreates, partly from her childhood memories and partly from
her own imagination. The photographs bring to the surface repressive
codes still in force in the city of Trabzon, in Turkish Kurdistan (East
Anatolia), where some of the artist’s extended family live. At the same
time, by exposing these codes, Güreş enables an exercise in question-
ing expectations, and this is true both for the subjects depicted and for
those looking on – for whom the content of the staged situations is, for
the most part, more opaque (outlandish or improbable) than legible.
48
 This work is accompanied by a new set of sculptures, some of
them made from the collages in her Black Series. Here, bringing
in to play the ‘feminine delicateness’ of embroidery and covering
cloth with a kind of dreamlike iconography, Güreş proposes a
game of concealment and revelation where the infinite variety
and vitality of eroticism is shown as the most useful critical
tool to fight the prejudices and crimes perpetrated against
sexual freedom. Similarly to TrabZONE and Open Phone Booth

[see pp. 132-133], the result of this gaze on mechanisms of control

and suppression is cathartic, resulting in images and configurations
that show surprising and, therefore, also liberating ways of seeing,
thinking and doing. – SGN

49
 Breakfast 2014
Leigh Orpaz

Far from the ecstatic images that we might associate with a night out,
the depersonalised, black-and-white figures that form the dancing crowd
in Leigh Orpaz’s video Breakfast resemble the living dead: eyes glowing,
faces flattened and heads nodding zombie-like, their movements dis-
jointed from the unsettling electronic music that fills the exhibition
space. Pulsating drones and reverberating bass tones create a sense
of suspense, accentuated by the mechanical panning of the camera,
resulting in images reminiscent of surveillance footage. Indifferent to
the gaze that scrutinises each of their movements, however, the dancers
appear unperturbed by their exposure and vulnerability to the technolo-
gies of control that surround them – the images were in fact filmed
using an infrared camera, a recording device sensitive to temperature
rather than light and often used for military purposes. By turning this
observational tool towards a familiar scene at the Tel Aviv nightclub
after which the video is titled, Orpaz imbues these images with a sense
of threat that never quite materialises.

50
 A similarly eerie atmosphere inflects other of Orpaz’s photographs
and videos. Her carefully staged portraits of young women riff on
clichés that border on kitsch: a girl watching the snow fall, a teen-
ager standing under a spotlight, a lone dancer embracing a bear.
And yet through subtle alterations of lighting and sound, Orpaz
lends these stereotypical depictions of adolescence a sense of
unease, reflecting upon the paradoxical exhaustion of images at a
time of surfeit visual production.

Other videos undo the symbolism of the road as a site of adventure,

often capturing the viewer in a phantasmatic limbo of sorts, much
like the cavernous dance floor in Breakfast. The narrative suspended,
what remains in Orpaz’s work is a lingering impression of latent
hostility, and the daunting uncertainty of not quite knowing whether
affects produce images or vice versa. – HV

51
 Capital 2004-2014
Wilhelm Sasnal

Rendered in a dark palette of greys, blues and greens, Wilhelm Sasnal’s

paintings at the 31st Bienal reflect upon the sombre legacy of colonialism.
Copernicus (2004) and Christopher Columbus Tomb (2009) both depict
public monuments celebrating the discoveries that shaped the modern
world and fuelled the West’s unquenchable thirst for conquest. Although
apparently suspended in mid-air, the armillary sphere in Copernicus is
hardly ethereal: like the compass barely discernible to its left, it is part
of a nineteenth-century bronze sculpture of the astronomer, whose body
Sasnal has concealed behind a cloud of white paint.

His painting of Columbus’s burial memorial in Seville’s cathe-

dral similarly subverts the sculpture’s original meaning:
detached from its sacred setting and stripped of all ornamen-
tation, this tribute to the man who ‘discovered’ the Americas
becomes an elegy for the millions who died during the brutal
colonisation that followed.
52
That the prejudiced views of the other used to legitimate such a massa-
cre are not yet dead and buried becomes apparent in Untitled (2010) and
Untitled (Mine) (2009), each depicting two anonymous, dark-skinned
men cutting trees or digging in mines. Inspired by black-and-white
illustrations from a 1970s geography book for children, the paintings
are scarce in their details, with characters reduced to mere types and
any reference to time or place suppressed. If they appear out of time, it
is perhaps because they speak to the protracted exploitation of natural
resources and human labour that links today’s economic colonialism to
the illustrious discoveries of the modern era.

Decidedly iconoclastic, Untitled (2013) and Capitol (2009) can be

seen to react against these overtly archetypical representations.
Rather than reigning over the dubious achievements of missionary
Catholicism, the mitre-crowned bust of a Polish archbishop is here
impaled on a pike and turned into a trophy of war. The gleaming
US Capitol building, on the other hand, sits uncomfortably in the
eerie landscape over which it presides, the rest of Washington’s
neoclassical architecture having been redacted with black paint
– perhaps an allusion to the racial inequality that runs deep in
today’s wavering imperial centre. – HV

53
 Casa de caboclo 2014
Arthur Scovino

Simplicity and strength – those are the main qualities of the

caboclo, one of the fundamental entities of Afro-Brazilian religions
umbanda and candomblé.

Simplicity of articulation, address and means characterises Arthur

Scovino’s Casa de caboclo [House of Caboclo]: a constantly changing
environment which could be a domestic space as well as a place of cere-
mony, in which a set of images (drawings, photographs, writings) and
tools (books, gases and liquids) are gathered in order to serve as aids
for an encounter that will take place within the environment itself.

54
 Strength of determination and conviction are also essential to the
work, and translate into a permanent occupation of that space
by Scovino, the artist-as-caboclo, who, with confidence but also
modesty, sets up a situation in which the unexpected can (and
will) happen in intimate relation with the visitor.

The caboclo and his house act both as a metaphor for what the space of
art can be and do, and as an overcoming of its assumptions and limita-
tions. Together, they make us realise that certain objects, in specific
conditions, can affect us, that we can engage in a meaningful exchange
with them and the space they inhabit.

This artist’s house also shows us that a communion, a transformation, can

actually take place if we let ourselves be touched – an intimate transforma-
tion, inside our homes or inside ourselves. But also, the courage of the
caboclo can teach us to be warriors, like the spirit of the Indians, fighting
for what is fair and good. Seeing the caboclo acting, incorporated, inside the
place of ceremony – in the exhibition itself – allows us to choose innocence,
as the caboclo does, a wisdom that can help us leave this space and con-
tinue their tasks, which are now ours, in life. – PL
55
 Céu 2014 / El Dorado 2006-2007
Danica Dakić in collaboration with the children and staff of the Colégio de Santa
Inês, with the photographer Egbert Trogemann (Céu)

In dialogue with visual anthropology and performance theory, Danica

Dakić films and photographs in liminal spaces that define both a state of
aesthetic openness and a working method.

For Céu [Heaven], her starting point is the delicate Art Nouveau build-
ing of a traditional Italian school in the immigrant neighbourhood
of Bom Retiro. The European-like architecture in a modern South
American metropolis impressed Dakić in two opposite directions: as
a place that carries a memory that can no longer be deciphered; and,
as she herself puts it, ‘the continuity of non-destruction’ caused by
European wars – in reference to the Balkans, her region of origin. The
name of the film is the same of the last square in the hopscotch game.
The narrative alternates between shots of children in old-fashioned
uniforms, an elderly nun sat in front of a piano and a little girl running
around the building, playing music and hopscotch. The work was
56
realised in an open process so that the children could use the film set
as a productive and fictional space to create a journey through paral-
lel worlds and times in which ‘heaven’ is not only a square painted
on the floor, nor the place of afterlife concept, but a place of action,
between dream and trauma.

In El Dorado, Dakić gathers youngsters from a refugee home to

perform in front of the nineteenth-century panoramic wallpaper of
the same name at Kassel’s Wallpaper Museum. In the museum’s
gallery two historical times are brought together: the colonial past
of European countries collecting images of a conquered world,
and, as a consequence of the former, the present forced mobility
of these young refugees. Dakić invited the film’s protagonists to
performatively think about and modify their own particular exis-
tence in this unusual environment. Dancing, running and rapping,
the bodies of the refugees are no longer solely sites of inscription
of absolute power, but on the contrary become bearers and pro-
ducers of ideas and utopias, and thus of options for action. – BS/GE

57
 Cities by the River 2014
Anna Boghiguian

Questions about the quality of existence and the inequality

of access to resources are among the main concerns of Anna
Boghiguian’s work today. Boghiguian is a nomadic observer of
the world whose work results in poetic reports of its condition.
For Cities by the River, her new installation for the 31st Bienal,
she made small drawings and paintings in her studio in Cairo
and on her travels through India, Europe and Brazil. Boghiguian

worked in small cafes in the centre of cities and along the Nile, Ganges
and Amazon rivers, recording her impressions of the environment.
Alongside these works she installs beehives and honeycombs to repre-
sent the forms of human social relations that she contemplated en route.
Bees have a social structure that is both monarchical and democratic, in
58
that the worker bees themselves collaborate to serve the queen. The
bees reflect on the changes Egypt has gone through in the past years
– before, during and after the revolution from monarchy to a dressed
up form of democracy that still remains authoritarian. The inequality
between the rulers and subjects and the exploitation of a country’s
natural treasures are hinted at in the combination of the drawing and
the honeycombs.

Over the years, Anna Boghiguian has made drawings, collages,

images mixed with text and found objects or sculptures, as a way
of recording her travels. Her work can be read partly as visual
reports or a visual diary reflecting our confused times. She often
interweaves literature and religious texts, mythology and poetry,
as well as political analysis of her surroundings. Boghiguian
continues to have a conflicted relationship with contemporary
megacities, and captures the complex essence of the traffic on the
streets, the people in the market or Indian trains, and signs of con-
flict and collapse. – GE

59
 Counting the Stars 2014
Nurit Sharett

On a journey that led her from Natal to São Paulo, stopping in Campina
Grande, Recife and Belo Horizonte along the way, Nurit Sharett assumed
a foreign viewpoint in her documentation of Brazil. Still, the search for a
different culture wasn’t the motive behind her trip.

An Israeli of Jewish origin, Nurit is interested in identity-themed

constructions. In her films, which are documentary in nature, the
artist always provides the central thread in the investigation, deli-
cately measuring her proximity or distance to the subjects of her
work. In Brazil, she travelled to meet self-proclaimed descendents of
the New Christians – or anussim – Jews who were forced to convert
to Catholicism during the Portuguese Inquisition of the fifteenth cen-
tury and who took refuge in Brazil.

Five centuries later, heirs to this hidden memory ask to return to

Judaism. ‘Since we are a people of miscegenation, of mixed races, we
can be anything inside of this mix’ – something which, for one of the
60
anussim interviewed by Sharett, is a condition of his hybrid identity.
This, to another of the film’s characters, an orthodox rabbi, sounds
like the weakening of this identity: ‘It has been over five hundred
years since the Inquisition. Five hundred years is a long time: many
things have happened, many influences, lots of miscegenation, lots of
alienation, lots of assimilation.’

Preserving the specificity of each discourse and not flattening any

of them, the artist edits the gathered interviews in Counting the
Stars, a three-channel video, as if they were part of a long, single
conversation, giving equal weight to the rabbi, the anthropologist,
the recent convert, the psychoanalyst, the poet and the young man
whose mother always told him he was Jewish and who wishes to
be recognised as such. Distanced from the discourses of the insti-
tutions that legitimise them as real or denounce them as fictional,
each story becomes plausible as history and each interview sub-
ject becomes the protagonist of his or her own identity. – BS

61
 Dark Clouds of the Future 2014
Prabhakar Pachpute

The drawing which appears on the poster for the 31st Bienal, made by
Prabhakar Pachpute, is a fragile structure shaped like the Tower of
Babel or a shell containing a group of human bodies only visible by their
bare feet and calves. This image might make us think about the rela-
tionships between the visible and invisible, collectivity and conflict, the
traumatic and the sublime or the strong and the weak, as it equates the
poetic resistance of art to the adversity of the world.

The same motifs recur in Dark Clouds of the Future, the work
Pachpute has made for the exhibition. Wall drawings reach out
into the space around them, incorporating with a light, nonchalant
humour its characteristics and particularities. A rusty nail, damp
walls, an electric socket – all evolve within his drawings into intense,
unforgettable metaphors. The use in other works of three-dimen-
sional sculptures made of clay and paper pulp and stop-motion anima-
tion film, which owe much to artisan set devices, add conceptual and
formal dimensions to Pachpute’s drawings.

62
 The adoption of charcoal as a medium is intentional, and relates
to the activities of coal miners. Still, the medium acts not only as a
bridge between the physical, the literal and the political; it is also a
platform for thought.

Pachpute’s work seems to exist on the border between immo-

bility and movement, which places the concrete nature of the
charcoal strokes in confrontation with the intangible and the
dreamlike world in which people live ‘faraway and below’.

The coal mines depicted by him hark back to the city of his birth,
Chandrapur (Maharashtra, India), also known as the City of Black Gold,
and seem to negotiate the personal and political conflicts revealed in the
artist’s cautionary warning titles, such as Canary in a Coalmine (2012),
The Land Eaters (2013) and Save Us From Tomorrow (2013). With each
work, Pachpute searches new ground, new ways out, new ways of collec-
tive being, which he discovers, often, within the intellectual life of the min-
ers themselves. – MM

63
 Dios es marica 1973-2002
Nahum Zenil / Ocaña / Sergio Zevallos /
Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Organised by Miguel A. López)

Dios es marica [God is Queer] brings together four artists or collectives

whose work is based on the theatricalisation of gender, transvestism and
a parody of images associated with religion and with cultural and politi-
cal history. The work of Sergio Zevallos (Grupo Chaclacayo) in Peru,
Nahum Zenil in Mexico, the duo Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Pedro Lemebel
and Francisco Casas) in Chile and Ocaña in Catalonia emerged from
the end of the 1970s to the end of the 1980s in contexts that were then
undergoing intense economic crises, social violence, dictatorships and/
or processes of democratic transition. Their practices employ painting,
photography and performance in public spaces to appropriate, subvert
and trade codes handed down from the Catholic tradition, responding
to historical processes of exclusion and marginalisation of non-norma-
tive bodies, desires and sexualities peddled by national, religious and
military discourses.

Sergio Zevallos, at the time a member of the Grupo Chaclacayo (1982-

1994), deployed a sarcastic transvestism using waste material and pre-
carious elements in actions performed in marginal spaces that pointed
at the structural bases of violence. Zevallos made his images in Lima,
64
 against the backdrop of the armed conflict between the Maoist
Shining Path and the military forces of the Peruvian state. His
photographs recorded a ritual choreography of two androgy-
nous bodies in some of the city’s abandoned spaces, mining
Christian iconography, popular culture and porn magazines
through mise en scène, acting out episodes of torture, crucifix-
ion and death, as well as pleasure, eroticism and ecstasy.

The Yeguas del Apocalipsis started working together towards the end of
Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile. One of their most striking
actions is Casa Particular [Private House] (1990), held in a brothel in Calle
San Camilo, in Santiago de Chile, where they re-enacted the Last Supper. In
this action, one of the prostitutes, sitting at the centre of the table, plays the
double role of Christ and Pinochet, saying: ‘This is the last supper of San
Camilo, the last supper of this government.’ After offering bread and wine,
she continues: ‘this is my body, this is my blood’, uncovering the hidden
bonds between military authoritarianism and religious discourses.
65
 In the final years of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, Ocaña made a series
of transvestite appearances in the streets of Barcelona, staging sponta-
neous happenings and colourful parades. At the same time he recreated
processions with papier-mâché Virgins he had made, disrupting the
hegemonic codes of gender normativity and the control of public space
dictated by the National-Catholic discourse. Ocaña inverts the conserva-
tive quality of the religious symbolic universe and transforms it into a
joyful carnival of libertarian sexualities.

66
In the late 1970s, Nahum Zenil made a series of homoerotic images
that re-signified local popular iconography, national religious devo-
tion and the image of the Mexican indigenous population. Zenil
multiplied himself through self-portraits, taking on the roles of the
Virgin, a bride, an apostle or a martyr. The artist imagines a playful,
humoristic and utopian space where religious fervour is capable of
accommodating open forms of understanding sexuality, pleasure and
desire. The appropriation of Christian iconography and the language
of liturgy transmute the vocabulary of subjugation into a ritual form
of affirmation and resistance. – MAL
67
 Errar de Dios 2014
Etcétera… and León Ferrari

Palabras ajenas [Words of Others]: God’s Convesations with Some

Men and of Some Men with Some Men and with God (1967) is a
work by León Ferrari (1920-2013) that serves as the starting point
for Etcétera…’s contribution to the 31st Bienal. ‘Written’ exclu-
sively using fragments from the Bible and from statements by
leading world figures from politics, religion, economics and culture
culled from the mass media of the time, Ferrari’s text discloses the
responsibility of the Catholic church, US imperialism and Nazism in
twentieth-century wars.

Errar de Dios [Erring from God], Etcétera…’s participative instal-

lation, and the script written by Loreto Garín Guzmán and Federico
Zukerfeld together with the philosopher and activist Franco ‘Bifo’
Berardi, is an essay on the new global balance following the finan-
cial crisis of 2008. The text gets Pope Francis, Angela Merkel, God,
Monsanto, St Paul and Goldman Sachs, among others, ‘to speak’.
The mise en scène is structured around two courts facing one
another, from which ‘spect-actors’ can make spontaneous speeches,
superimposing their voices over the recorded text.

68
 This connection between Etcétera… and Ferrari is grounded in fif-
teen years of exchange between the two. Since it was first set up in
Buenos Aires in 1997, the Etcétera… collective has been working on
the interface between theatre, literature, art practice and activism. It
began with grotesque performances in the escraches (a form of direct
protest in which activists demonstrate outside the homes or work-
places of persons being denounced) carried out by human rights
organisations against the genocide of the last military dictatorship
in Argentina (1976-1983), and took an active part in the social move-
ments that arose with the crisis in the country in 2001.

As part of the expansion of a network of ‘artivists’ in which they acted, in

2005 they founded the Movimiento Internacional Errorista. With the col-
lective’s signature surrealist-based, humoristic-critical spirit, they extol
error as a pivotal experience and call for a massive departure from the
rationalist and speculative paradigm of contemporary capitalism. A kin-
dred spirit also drives a large part of Ferrari’s work, and reveals a simi-
lar refusal to accept the dominant conditions of enunciation and cultural
and political participation. – SGN
69
 La Escuela Moderna 2014
Archivo F.X. / Pedro G. Romero

Archivo F.X. is an institution working with a vast archive of images of

anti-sacramental political iconoclasm in Spain between 1845 and 1945.
These images are classified according to a critical index of terms com-
ing from the visual constructions of the broad field of the radical mod-
ernist project. For instance, a psychotechnic cell, or cheka, from the
Santa Úrsula convent in Valencia is called Barracão, after the work by
Hélio Oiticica.

The presentation centred on La Escuela Moderna [The Modern School] for

the 31st Bienal works in several different ways. On one hand, it is a parodi-
cal portrait – in the classic sense of parody – of art’s archaeological and
genealogical drives today, and reveals the existence of a secret movement
that connects the rationalist pedagogy introduced by the Catalan educator
and anarchist Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, which spread throughout Spain
and other European countries, USA, the Philippines and Latin America,
with some of the radical manifestations of art in our day. On the other, the
display is also a commentary on the excesses of the so-called pedagogic
shift that seems to have found in the field of the visual arts a practical
70
purpose and a comfortable political design for the overflow that comes
from working with the unknown. Additionally, it addresses the failure of
the radical modern project with paradoxical joy, accepting it as its own
failure, in the knowledge that the rubble from its ruins makes the best
material for the architecture of our present.

The connections between the Escuela Moderna and modern art

are notable. Ferrer admired Ramón y Cajal’s scientific drawings
(the installation design for the 31st Bienal takes them as its model)
and Kupka’s social projections. Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite or Las
Hurdes: Tierra sin pan (both 1933), directed by Luis Buñuel and
produced by Ramón Acín, are heavily influenced by it (both are
screened in the installation). Man Ray began his artistic career
at the Ferrer Center in New York. José Oiticica, Hélio Oiticica’s
grandfather and most direct influence, started his political journey
by mentioning Ferrer, and he supported the introduction of the
Escuela Moderna in Brazil. In 1908 a school doctrinally linked
with the Escuela Moderna was opened in São Paulo. – PGR
71
 Espacio para abortar 2014
Mujeres Creando

The contribution of Mujeres Creando – a collective of urban activists,

feminists and anarchists based in La Paz and Santa Cruz de la Sierra in
Bolivia – to the 31st Bienal is Espacio para abortar [Space to Abort]. The
project consists of an urban intervention, which is a public and participative
procession-performance against the dictatorship of patriarchy exercised
over women’s bodies through a giant mobile uterus paraded and then tem-
porarily placed in the Bienal pavilion. Once it sits in the Bienal, the idea for
it is to open a space for debate and dialogue. In other words, the project
creates a platform for discussing the meaning of abortion, the colonisation
of the female body and what free choice, the right to decide and freedom of
conscience actually mean in contemporary democracies – especially those
in South American countries where abortion is illegal and penalised.

Throughout the duration of the Bienal, materials and voices from the
local context will be included in order to identify and mobilise the
‘collective uterus’ as a space of enunciation that incubates everybody.
Ultimately, if we can speak of a collective uterus in São Paulo, it should
be equally Bolivian, Italian and Japanese, Brazilian or Portuguese; it
72
 should have many colours and heterogeneous cultural bonds; it
should have a colonial past and integrate global migration flows
in an industrial reality, against the backdrop of one of the biggest
financial centres in the contemporary world.

Founded in La Paz in 1992, Mujeres Creando is an internationalist

movement of working women (prostitutes, poets, journalists, mar-
ket sellers, domestic workers, artists, dressmakers, teachers, etc.)
fighting against sexism and institutionalised patriarchy in Bolivia
and the rest of the world. With this goal, the members of Mujeres
Creando operate like guerrilla fighters, opening spaces of visibility
and uncovering others with their bodies, in the street, in the mass
media and in international contemporary art spaces, inserting iconic
slogans in its ideological circuits, for instance: ‘You can’t decolonise
without depatriarchising!’, or ‘There is nothing more similar to a
right-wing sexist than a left-wing sexist!’ – MJHC

73
 The Excluded.
In a moment of danger 2014
Chto Delat

The art collective Chto Delat (‘What is to be done’) have produced

a new film for the 31st Bienal in which the institution of the prison
links a number of tense historical moments of struggle, when com-
peting visions of the world were at stake. By playing with time and
using techniques of drama influenced by Bertolt Brecht, the film
focuses on the prison as a place of discipline and isolation from soci-
ety – both a punishment for wrongdoing and a dumping ground for
those who do not fit within a given social consensus.

Prison serves as a concrete symbol of social control and morality,

representing both the protective and repressive power of the state.
While prisons are sometimes safeguards of a shared order, they have
often been used to ensure the survival of forms of government that are
unpopular or under threat.
74
Chto Delat’s film follows the many possible readings of this institu-
tion, gathering together prisoners who have later been understood
by some as heroes or freedom fighters. Posing questions about the
general nature of resistance, repression and disagreement, the film
is the latest in a series of dramatic short moving-image works that
use song and movement to talk about contemporary dilemmas.

Based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Chto Delat partly respond

to current developments in the country, where the political
situation is tense and cultural actors are being silenced. Aside
from their films, Chto Delat produce an irregularly published
newspaper of the same name. – CE

75
 A família do Capitão Gervásio 2013
Kasper Akhøj and Tamar Guimarães

In the town of Palmelo in rural Goiás, Central Brazil, Tamar Guimarães

and Kasper Akhøj recorded images of a healing session at the spiritual
centre known as Luz da Verdade (literally, ‘The Light of Truth’) on 16
mm film. Founded in 1929 around a study group and a sanatorium,
Palmelo now has a population of roughly 2,200. The majority of its
inhabitants act as spiritual mediums who, in turn, operate as a collective
group of complementary forces. Holding hands and facing a magnetiser,
they practise a method which they call a ‘magnetic chain’ – a medical
treatment based on a unique understanding of disease and health which
contradicts our modern understanding and methods.
76
 The resulting film, A família do Capitão Gervásio [Captain
Gervásio’s Family], intersperses images of Palmelo with footage
of modern Brazilian architecture, shot in such cities as Rio de
Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília. Based on this construction, the
film relates our modern cities to the twenty astral cities, whose
coordinates were mapped inside Brazilian territory by one of
Palmelo’s mediums and which have been described as ‘just like
those that exist on Earth, but infinitely more perfect’. According
to the artists’ projection or view, both types of cities aspire to the
same ideals, like a kind of ectoplasm or projection of the future. In
this way, past, present and future converge in an elaborate notion
of existence, dream and reality.

A família do Capitão Gervásio is a continuation of the study that

Tamar Guimarães began in 2006 about Francisco Candido Xavier,
a celebrated Brazilian medium and psychographer, addressing the
complexity of his work and public life in a country governed by a
military dictatorship and with a turbulent past which continues to
haunt it to this day. – LP
77
 A fortaleza 2010 / Nada é 2014
Yuri Firmeza

In A fortaleza [The Fortress] Yuri Firmeza re-enacts, nearly twenty

years later, a childhood photograph in which he strikes the classic
bodybuilder’s pose, bending his elbows and flexing his muscles to
demonstrate strength. Between one image and the other, aside from
the growth of the boy into a man, our attention is called to the radical
change in the background landscape. In one image, we see houses,
a scattering of buildings and the horizon in the background. In the
other, taller buildings crowd the once-empty spaces. The eye can’t
see too far in Fortaleza, where the artist has lived since he was little:
the city has literally become a fortress and Firmeza presents himself
in front of it – joking around with his lean body while, at the same
time, assuming his responsibility as a resident of the city.

78
This reflection on memory and individual experiences, on the collective
and common good of a group of people or a society appears in Nada é
[Nothing Is] – his new work for the 31st Bienal – but the creative flux
gives way to the opposite. The film began with a study of the city of
Alcântara as a place for the manifestation of Brazil’s national projects in
different periods, and culminated in the search for personal, subjective
and current meaning for the place’s legacy. In the eighteenth century,
the city was the first capital of the state of Maranhão, the home of
wealthy sugar and cotton barons. When the colonial economy crumbled,
Alcântara fell into obscurity and only regained national attention in 1990,
when the Brazilian Air Force set up a launch centre for satellites.

The traditional celebration of the Divine Holy Spirit, held every

year forty days after Easter, is presented as a feature of the city’s
current vocation. In this limbo in which it exists between the
prosperous past and the promise of an interplanetary future, dis-
courses of science and religion are mixed together around the
same ideology of faith in what could be, but, for some time now,
still is not. – AMM
79
 Handira 1997 / Bert Flint 1997-1998 /
Granada 2002
Teresa Lanceta

To weave is to interlace the threads on a warp with those of the weft

following a specific pattern. It is a structural process that enables the simul-
taneous creation of object and language, of support and image, but, above all
else, the weave is the human revelation of the arcane. This perspective on
weaving is at the core of Teresa Lanceta’s practice. In suites like Granada,
Handira or Bert Flint she engages with textile-making communities in the
Middle Atlas in Morocco and in Granada, using their textile traditions to
mature a personal proposition that allows her to take part in a collective,
silent discovery that enables people to live, to communicate and to endure.

Lanceta conceives art as an open code that must be known in order to

read, transform and transmit it. The majority of her work, especially her
textiles, is predicated on the survival of the other, his or her memory.
Weaving gives Lanceta an understanding of a primal and universal code
that clearly expresses its own inner law, that steps beyond physical,
80
temporal and cultural boundaries and nourishes the creative imagina-
tion. Through the agency of textiles she establishes contact with the
art of the weavers who live in rural communities, a collective art gov-
erned by a set of rules, subject matters and ancestral customs which,
when mastered, gives them access to expressive freedom and creation.
Craft and creativity are fused to achieve those decisive moments that
transform the known and bring the concealed to the surface.

Lanceta’s work does not avoid an ecological engagement, and

advocates the utility of art and collective creation as opposed to the
idea of the individual genius. Collective art is presented here not
as a uniform magma or an all-powerful all-doing hand, but as the
outcome of the creativity of specific persons – although we don’t
know their names, they are not faceless interchangeable beings but
real individuals, unique and singular. In addition, collective work
takes place over a unitary, extended time span as opposed to mea-
sured time, hours snatched from personal lives and subordinate to
other, private interests. – TL/nem
81
 Histórias de aprendizagem 2014
Voluspa Jarpa

Voluspa Jarpa’s work questions the representations of history in various

regimes of the image, most notably in the mass media and in art.
Histórias de aprendizagem [Learning Histories] is a labyrinthine installa-
tion comprising, on the one hand, CIA documents on the last dictatorship
in Brazil (1964-1985) declassified a few years ago by the US government
and, on the other, documents from the Brazilian secret service produced
during the mandates of Getúlio Vargas (1951-1954) and João Goulart
(1961-1964). The display also includes documents on the latter’s exile in
Uruguay until he was allegedly assassinated in Argentina in 1976, within
the frame of Operation Condor, a coordinated plan hatched by the dicta-
torships in the Southern Cone of South America.

For Jarpa, it is symptomatic that in all these documents some parts

were erased before declassification. These erasures can be read as
a form of hysterical behaviour, which in Freudian psychoanalysis
stands for the inability to deal with trauma. In the terms of Sigmund
Freud, trauma is an archived and negated narrative while the
symptom is a coded archive. Jarpa incorporates the erasures from
the original documents into the very structure of the installation,
82
foreclosing the spectator’s access to the documents in front of
them and allowing them only partial glimpses of those in the
background. In this way, possibility is experienced as impossibil-
ity, in turn speaking to a promise of disclosure that is in fact mate-
rialised as repression.

Jarpa has created many works based on archives declassified by

the USA relating to Chile and other Latin American countries. In
all cases, she analyses what has been erased and draws atten-
tion to the final image of the intervened document, an image that
engages with the construction of visibilities and also the poetical
and political potential of the uses of the archive, casting a shadow
on the present. – SGN
83
 Imponderables 2009 / Perímetros 2012-2014
Johanna Calle

The suite of drawings Imponderables – one of the works by

Johanna Calle in the 31st Bienal – consists in disjointed or broken
grilles that bring to mind various everyday structures from our
surrounding environs, such as the layout of urban grids or the
railings or bars on a window. However, the starting point for these
drawings lies somewhere else: Calle reproduces the grid-like
structure of accountancy ledgers with wire and then transfers
them to cardboard. Thanks to this simple act of decontextualisa-
tion, the iconic and symbolic resonances of the broken grille are
multiplied, but the literal backdrop is maintained: once the accoun-
tancy grid is distorted, so too are the numbers it contains and,
by metaphoric extension, the economic order that both the small
shopkeeper and big multinationals strive to keep under control.

84
 Perímetros [Perimeters] the other suite of works on view in
the exhibition, mingles two orders at odds with each other. On
typing paper used for notarial records in Colombia through-
out the twentieth century, containing details of ownership of
rural parcels of land, Calle draws different species of trees that
cut across the dividing lines of the pages of these records –
negating their divisional purpose. In the breakdown of order
Calle instigates, nature lays claim to its rights over the land
undermined by the concentration of capital, which has led to
the majority of Colombians losing the small parcels of land on
which they have grown food to sustain themselves.

Calle’s work is grounded on drawing, not viewed strictly as a medium

but as a whole conceptual universe. When she takes it towards other
forms of writing – whether verbal or musical – it is to explore lan-
guage as a system and, more particularly, the underlying powers at
work in it. In the grid or mesh of semantics, morphology and syntax
proper to each language, Calle operates by short-circuiting the rules
and letting the signs silenced by power speak out. – SGN

85
 In the Land of the Giants
and other works 2009-2013
Jo Baer

The six paintings presented by Jo Baer at the 31st Bienal all relate
to a particular site in Ireland, where she lived in the early 1970s.
Near Baer’s home there was a mysterious stone with a hole through
its centre. Known as the Hurlstone, it was said by the locals to have
been thrown there by a giant. This foundational myth leads Baer to
gather and release on her canvases the twilit energies hidden in all
kinds of objects and symbols, drawn from different times and places.
Images are massed together, including self-portraits, Greek statues,
animals and ancient religious structures. In one painting, they create
a pictorial hole in time, in which old conflicts are reconciled, or at
least put on hold. Christian and pagan symbols join forces in some
paintings with skulls as well as Neolithic sculptures and carvings, in

86
 compositions that unsettle the gaze. Baer might refer to them
as occupying a liminal zone, hovering between contrasting
worlds and ideas.

Often there is an empty space in the images that gives room for the eye.
This is possibly a reference to the artist’s own biography. Jo Baer was
born in the USA and was one of the few female artists to be recognised
within the Minimal art movement. In the 1970s, her canvases were often
reflective white fields with lines or blocks of colour on the edges. At one
point, she understood Minimalism to be a dead end, and turned to what
she termed ‘radical figuration’. In these recent works, there seems to be
a coming to terms with all aspects of her practice and indeed of her life
as a wanderer – she moved from New York to Ireland and has been set-
tled in Amsterdam for the last thirty years. Here, Baer paints apparently
timeless images that recognise many legacies, yet defiantly create their
own world out of many things that at first glance do not exist. – CE

87
 The Incidental Insurgents
Part 1 & Part 2 2012-ongoing
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s The Incidental Insurgents is a

two-part installation that offers a multi-layered narrative, engaging with
the crisis of contemporary politics and the potential for a new social
imaginary to emerge out of its collapse. The installation consists of
images, texts, objects, sounds and video materials that, together, con-
stitute an investigation into possibilities for the future based on literary
and factual texts.
The first part, in two chapters, combines four stories: the early anarchist
life of Victor Serge and his bandits in 1910s Paris; Abu Jilda and
Arameet and their bandit gang involved in a rebellion against the British
in 1930s Palestine; the artist as the quintessential bandit in Roberto
Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives (1998), set in 1970s Mexico; and
Abbas and Abou-Rahme themselves in present-day Palestine. This sec-
tion looks at the resonance between these inspiring and sometimes
tragic stories of outsider rebels often dismissed as mere criminals and
excluded from the roll call of revolutionary struggle.

88
The second part of the work looks at the metamorphosis of these
incidental figures (Serge, Bolaño or the artists themselves) or the
resonance of their final gestures years after they have been killed
(Serge’s Bonnot Gang, Abu Jilda) by following them, who are some-
how forgotten. In doing so, the work seeks to refuse the apparent
‘permanence’ of a capitalist-colonial present – and unfold a recurrent
impulse of refusal, one that, though defeated many times, continues
to resurge and return.
One recurring element in the second part of the narrative is a
Palestinian publishing house. Established by the father of one of
the artists, it served as an informal meeting point in Jerusalem for
several of the political factions at the time, from the Palestinian
Communist Party to Matzpen – a revolutionary organisation
founded in 1962, mostly by Israelis and some Palestinians, that
viewed Zionism as a colonising project. – GE

89
 Los incontados: un tríptico 2014
Mapa Teatro – Laboratorio de artistas

In painting, a triptych is a formal device comprising three

sections or panels hinged together. In the recent history of
Colombia, the agents of violence (guerrillas, drug traffickers,
paramilitaries) have co-opted festivities and the vulnerability
of bodies as a device for celebration, not only of life but also of
death. Los incontados: un tríptico [The Uncounted: A Triptych]
is an installation-archive conceived for the 31st Bienal which
deploys in three interconnected spaces, like a triptych, the
remains and traces of parties that have already finished and
which the public will attend as the final witness.

90
The first of the three festivities is a children’s party in the intimacy of a
family living room, whose only trace is a radio left playing from which
a voice keeps repeating ‘the revolution is a party’ (Los incontados [The
uncounted], 2014); the second is a public celebration held every year in a
remote village on the Pacific coast, of which all we see are a few fleeting
images that show us that ‘the enemy has infiltrated the party’ (Los santos
inocentes [The Innocent Saints], 2010); the third is a private party in which
the leader of one of the most notorious drug cartels gives a frenzied
speech on the legalisation of drugs, to the backdrop of music played by a
band (Discurso de un hombre decente [Speech from a Decent Man], 2012).

From a poetic and micro-political perspective, Mapa Teatro, an

interdisciplinary theatre and artists’ laboratory based in Bogotá,
explores the public, private and intimate sphere of different parties
and festivities in Colombia, those particular forms of appearance
and theatricalisation of violence, as well as its effects on subjectiv-
ity and bodies. Over four years, Mapa Teatro has created various
experimental artistic devices (performative, theatrical, audio-
visual) from materials, objects and individuals it uncovers during
its process of research and editing: visual and sound archives,
documents and testimonials, experts and witnesses that give rise
to images, actions, scores, mediaturgies and ethno-fictions. – MT

91
 Inferno 2013
Yael Bartana

In Inferno [Hell], Yael Bartana films the inauguration of a grand temple, its
destruction and the worship of its debris. The starting point is the construc-
tion of a replica of Solomon’s Temple in São Paulo, by the Universal Church
of the Kingdom of God, with stones imported from Israel. Inverting the tra-
ditional path taken by pilgrims, the church intends to literally bring part of
the ‘holy land’ to the city of São Paulo, as a way of recuperating faith in the
life of big cities characterised by their secularity.

The first Temple was built by Solomon in Jerusalem and destroyed in

584 BCE. The second Temple was erected on the same spot in 64 CE and
also later destroyed. What remains of it today is known as the Wailing
Wall. On a visit to the construction site of what would become the third
version of Solomon’s Temple – this time in São Paulo – Bartana could
envision no other possible future than the prophetic repetition of the
past – in other words, its destruction. In what she calls a ‘pre-enacting’,
the artist documents, between the forgetting and celebration of a fanta-
sised past, the way that history is written and religions are founded.

92
The growth of evangelical and neo-charismatic credos in Brazil has
unleashed hybrid religious manifestations in which references to
Judaism and Catholicism are combined, each church competing to
prove closer proximity to the original faith. The construction of a biblical
temple – in an attempt to go back to a biblical time – is one of the faith
industry’s strategies in the fight for symbolic capital.

Interested in registering the rituals that organise and orient

our day-to-day actions, Bartana has previously drawn on fiction
to create new rituals, founded political movements and com-
posed national narratives, suggesting that art can design pos-
sible futures. In Inferno it is the creation of a mythical past that
announces ruins to come. – BS
93
 Invention 2014
Mark Lewis Exhibition design in collaboration with Adam Bandler and Mark Wasiuta.
Director of photography Martin Testar

The large-scale installation Invention is based on a simple, yet hugely

provocative fictional assumption. The premise of the work is that a
parallel world developed in which the technologies of the moving
image were not invented until the early twenty-first century. From this
starting point, Invention speculates about how we would look at images
if cinema, television and online moving-image platforms did not exist, or
were just on the point of being introduced.

94
 What results is an environment in which there is no longer
an easy escape from our immediate surroundings, but rather
those surroundings become subject to the experience of
looking. Through the manipulation of reflection and light, as
well as the simple recording and displacement of images of
reality using the newly discovered video camera, this alter-
native 2014 offers a different kind of visual experience from
that of the screen and the narrative of film.

Walking around and through it, we might think about our usual
patterns of image consumption and what their limitations or con-
straints might be. By being confronted with an idea that never hap-
pened, we are given an opportunity to reflect on what our actual
world excludes. – CE
95
 It’s Just the Spin of Inner Life 2011-2014
Agnieszka Piksa

Pairing imagery sourced from a publication on Polish folk art with

illustrations from a 1970s popular science book on the origins
of the universe, the collage Justice for Aliens – one of the many
that will be published as part of a small fanzine freely distributed
during the 31st Bienal – suggests that modern scientific imagina-
tion may not be so distant from that of ancient animist rituals.
After all, both ceremonial icons and diagrams about faraway

galaxies can be seen as attempts to represent the unknown,

fuzzy black-and-white astronomical images offering no less
obscure clues than tribal patterns drawn on the pavement.
Underpinning this parody of science fiction comics, however,
is the sombre realisation that whereas pre-modern cultures
regarded otherness with awe, the vilification of aliens in popu-
lar science fiction both reflects and fuels the angst that modern
societies systematically project onto the colonial, ethnic or
sexual other – a fear often used to justify their subjugation.
Claiming ‘justice for aliens’ may indeed not be such an absurd
96
 demand when far less strange aliens are unlikely to be greeted ‘with
flowers and a glass of wine’, as one of the captions begs, at today’s
heavily policed borders.

Justice for Aliens is an episode from the graphic novel Gvozden (Serbian for
‘Ironman’, 2013), the result of a two-year collaboration between Polish artist
Agnieszka Piksa and Serbian scriptwriter Vladimir Palibrk. In spite of the
hyperbolic undertones of his name, Gvozden is presented as an anti-heroic
‘everyman’ whose enemies are not evil superheroes but equally corrupt
forms of representation: from advertising to corporate language and from
sexual stereotypes to violence in film.

At times expressionistic, at others quasi-abstract, Piksa’s mostly

black-and-white drawings refuse to abide by the rules of style. Like
her collages and conceptual word-diagrams, they are experiments
in the visual analysis of language, which seek to give a graphic
form to the associations, contradictions and assumptions implicit
in seemingly innocuous everyday communication. – HV

97
 Landversation 2014
Otobong Nkanga

In 2012, Otobong Nkanga presented at Tate Modern, in London,

Contained Measures of Shifting States, an installation composed of
tables, and at the same time a platform for interaction between the
artist and museum visitors. The piece also served as a study of
the Tate’s collection and the relationships that visitors of different
cultural origins are able to establish with it. Nkanga invited the
public to engage in a dialogue regarding the intangibility of iden-
tity, memory and perception, observing how these things change
when presented through specific arrangements and narrations.

Like in much of Nkanga’s work, the artist was the protagonist of the
action, ‘dynamising’ four circular tables that contained such elements as
liquid, ice, smoke and heat, which were seen or experienced in constant
movement and changing states. In the eyes of the public, the alteration
and changes took on a tangible character, addressing matters as elemen-
tary as they are often difficult to define and describe, for example iden-
tity in the contemporary world.
98
At the 31st Bienal, Nkanga follows up this previous work with
Landversation, an installation that changes focus from the institution’s
interior (the collection) to the exterior: the interconnections that Brazil
and Brazilians establish with the land. A series of tables forming a cir-
cular structure serve as the basis for an exchange between the artist,
visitors and a group of people who all have close – professional, caring,
vital – relationships with the earth. These people might include geolo-
gists, housing and land rights activists, miners, people who use the land
for farming, as well as others who transform the land itself into other
products. What is ordinarily constructed through their contact with land
now forms the foundation for new situations of exchange and transmis-
sion, and an exploration of the interpersonal networks established in the
exhibition context of the Bienal and beyond, in the world at large. – MM
99
 Letra morta 2014
Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa Director of photography José Mari Zabala

With Letra morta [Dead Letter], Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa has made a
film based on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew
from 1964, shot on the outskirts of São Paulo. Although the new film
maintains some of the original’s formal and aesthetic elements, the
script has been rewritten to shift the focus toward some biblical verses
that the Italian director had overlooked. These passages – for instance,
the parable in which the successful investor is rewarded and failure in
business is punished – are, to Pérez Agirregoikoa’s way of thinking,
key to the discursive undergirding of Western capitalism.

Over the last thirteen years, after abandoning abstraction, Juan Pérez
Agirregoikoa has been working with the subversion of discourses on
power and obedience. His interventions sometimes consist of minimum
changes introduced into more or less well-known sentences, such as
when he removes the word ‘no’ from some of the Judaeo-Christian
Ten Commandments.
100
At other times, and in contrast, he makes a replacement. For instance,
he hired a chamber choir to sing four popular Spanish and Basque
songs but with lyrics taken from texts by French materialist philoso-
phers. Thus, the original folkloric tracks are overlaid with issues per-
taining to matter, the use of libidinal energy by the economy, praxis as
the matrix of appearance and revolution.

That said, far from subscribing to a ‘correct’ way of thinking, Pérez

Agirregoikoa destabilises all references, including the common-
place in which a quasi-universal consensus might possibly exist.
To this end, on a large canvas we have a list of all the wars under-
taken by the USA in the twentieth century, while on another he
writes: ‘Capitalism is fabulous’. Instead of allegiance, what these
operations look for is to undermine worldviews that are crystal-
lised and, in consequence, foreclose any possibility of individual
and social transformation.

In Letra morta, the same operation is at play: a questioning of

the worldview imposed by a religion that, very often, prompts a
weakening of individual and community power. – SGN

101
 Letters to the Reader
(1864, 1877, 1916, 1923) 2014
Walid Raad

Letters to the Reader is part of the ongoing art project Scratching on

Things I Could Disavow, initiated in 2007, and which responds to the
recent emergence of large new infrastructures for ‘Islamic’ contem-
porary and modern ‘Arab’ art in the Arab world and elsewhere.
The artworks and stories presented in his project all emerge from
encounters on this ground with individuals, institutions, economies,
concepts and forms.

102
Letters to the Reader proposes a number of prefabricated wall samples
for a new Museum of Modern Arab Art in São Paulo – or Amman or
Doha or Abu Dhabi or Beirut or Marrakech or Hong Kong or New York.
The work is led by the conviction that many so-called ‘Modern Arab
artworks’ will lack shadows when displayed in the new museum. In
anticipation of this situation, the project is, on the one hand, forced
to engage some of the display elements or parameters (walls, floors,
paint, lights) that contribute to this shadow-less condition; and on the
other, to be attentive to its consequences by coming up with possible
material antidotes and/or dealing with the resulting (objective)
hallucinatory manifestations.

Like in earlier work, time and history are present here in an enig-
matic manner: in the form of archives that approached history,
memory and remembrance with the aid of photography, film,
design, architecture and discourse. These presented something
akin to a ‘future in the past’, the staging of a dream reality without
a referent, or at least with an obscure (or obscured) referent. A
‘future in the past’ characterised by the constant sliding between
historical and fictitious narration that happens when memory is
activated – revealing how much these fields actually share. – WR

103
 Línea de vida /
Museo Travesti del Perú 2009-2013
Giuseppe Campuzano

More than a decade ago, the Peruvian philosopher and drag queen
Giuseppe Campuzano (Lima, 1969-2013) created the project Línea de
vida / Museo Travesti del Perú [Life’s Timeline / Transvestite Museum
of Peru]. This museum is an attempt to present a queer counter-
narrative: a promiscuous, intersectional thinking of history that collects
objects, images, texts and documents, press clippings and appropriated
artworks, and proposes actions, stagings and publications that fracture
the dominant models of production of images and bodies. The project,
halfway between performance and historical research, proposes a criti-
cal reviewing of the ‘History of Peru’ from the strategic perspective of a
fictional figure Campuzano calls the ‘androgynous indigenous/mixed-
race transvestite’. Here, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, intersex-
ual and androgynous figures are posited as the central actors and main
political subjects for any construction of history.

Unlike large institutional projects and their discourses of authority,

this nomadic museum does not attempt to ‘represent’ and integrate
minorities into the dominant discourses of progress and happiness.
It is, rather, a deliberately artificial device that dramatises official
104
 histories and fractures the privileged site of heterosexual sub-
jectivity – a subjectivity that turns all difference into an object of
study and renders invisible its own contingency and the social pro-
cesses that led to its constructions.

This mobile condition also refers to several other transits and

movements, such as the mass return-exodus from the provinces
to the capital and forms of migration through other invisible
subjects whose lives are permanently suspended (the HIV-positive,
the undocumented immigrant, those sexually undefined…). The
museum’s portable condition – its ability to function as a parasite to
any scenario, from public squares, street markets and neighbour-
hood fairs, to university conferences – has also allowed it to question
forms of orthodox activism, proposing instead an amorphous and
elusive political subject.

The Museo Travesti del Perú functions as an experimental

wager that vandalises classical theory and history through an
irreverent rewriting of transversal imaginaries, referents and
knowledges, for a subject unable and unwilling to fit in any
existing taxonomy. – MAL
105
 Loomshuttles, Warpaths 2009-ongoing
Ines Doujak and John Barker

The starting point of the ongoing artistic research project Loomshuttles,

Warpaths is a collection of textiles from the Andean region made over
a period of 35 years. It includes ancient and modern cloth and clothing,
hand-made and mass-produced, of both natural and synthetic fibres,
made using a variety of techniques. From this research, two ‘chapters’
have emerged.

One is a fashion line called Haute Couture / Not Dressed for Conquering
– a title that echoes the ‘casual’ response beggars in 1619 Lima gave to
the Spanish invaders’ demand that they should work instead of asking
for money. The line involves the design of themed printed fabric, and
also contains the patterns for specific items such as shirts and bags that
are themselves enriched by other media: songs, sculptures, texts, films
or performances. The line includes two fabrics that are presented in the
31st Bienal: Haute Couture 03 Carnival: Disruptive Pattern; A Mask is
Always Active and Haute Couture 04 Transport: Oiling the Wheels; Supply
Chains and Load Carriers.

106
The second chapter is an Eccentric Archive – eccentric in the literal
sense of being off-centre, both in composition and movement. The
chapter follows the trajectory created by the colonial invasion of
the Americas, thereby linking the items in the collection to the
globalised history and present-day realities of textile and clothing
production and consumption. The archive consists of poster collages
featuring descriptions of the items in the collection, and responses
to each from a number of invited artists and writers. The archive is
completed by two further sections on dates and the names of cloths
or colours, both of which are announced on the posters. While the
dates refer to the continuing struggles of workers in the textile and
clothing industries and to rebellion using style of dress over the last
600 years, the cloths and colours show how entangled within imperi-
alist history textiles and dyes have been, and still are. – ID / JB

107
 Map 2014
Qiu Zhijie

Map making is one of the fundamental ways that Western society has
come to terms with the world. Through maps, the unknown is made
visible and understandable. Yet maps have also been used to frighten
off potential visitors, as in the famous ‘here be monsters’ rubric on early
European maps of the continents of North and South America.

Qiu Zhijie uses these histories and techniques of map making, together
with a Chinese ancient tradition of mapping imaginary places, to
construct unexpected narratives, imaginary cities or strange utopian
locations, such as his Map of Utopia or Map of Total Art. He was
trained as a calligrapher, and uses these skills when rendering his free
hand-drawn maps.
108
For the 31st Bienal, Qiu Zhijie has drawn a large-scale map that
functions as a curious pathfinder for the journey ahead, through the
exhibition. The map is based on some of the curatorial and artistic
ideas behind the Bienal itself, merged with the artist’s own reflec-
tions while he was here preparing the image. It is drawn directly on
a wall that leads from the Park area into the Ramp area, and will dis-
appear once the Bienal closes on 7 December 2014. In this way, the
idea of the map as a permanent rendition of a geographic landscape
is rejected in favour of the temporary, subjective aspects of map mak-
ing – aspects that are always present no matter how neutral or scien-
tific the map claims to be. – CE

109
 Martírio 2014
Thiago Martins de Melo

‘Flesh is the reason oil painting was invented.’ This quote from Willem
De Kooning is presented by Thiago Martins de Melo as the key to
understanding his relationship with painting, made of visually elaborate
allegories that are always punctuated by opposing factors, like the femi-
nine and the masculine, the sacred and the profane, the intimate and
the public. Still, in his work, the coexistence of opposites – aside from
calling attention to the ambivalent nature of the human condition, such
as that of the seventeenth-century Baroque – addresses the religious
and cultural syncretism that characterises the history of Latin America’s
colonies and structures their contemporary societies, like in Brazil.
110
In Martírio [Martyrdom], oil paint is truly flesh, taking on mass and extrap-
olating the thickness of the canvas, as if the painting were violent, or vio-
lated. The piece combines sculptures, taking on the form of an installation,
a setting which can be entered. It also carries the logic of a painting, but
takes the form of a threshold, a space between the entrance and the inside,
neither here nor there: a purgatory. Martírio is an overview of the Amazon:
‘a landscape on the periphery of the international capital’, in the artist
words, referring to the role that the forest plays in an economy of exploita-
tion which, since the arrival of Portuguese colonists in 1500, has changed
in configuration, but never been overcome.

The piece pays homage to the martyrs of the Amazon, hundreds

of workers and community leaders who died anonymously in
the fight to defend the land. A virgin landscape and the image of
Carajás as a large desert: the result of extractive trends which,
to this day, remain hungry for its natural resources, framed by
a fence of columns imposed by the civilisation process. This is
the setting for the encounter between two caboclos who follow
Vodum, an African religion that draws followers to São Luís, the
artist’s hometown. Its presence is one of protection as well as
conflict, two sensations the installation aims to make spectators
feel in their own flesh. – AMM
111
 Meeting Point and other works 2011-2014
Bruno Pacheco

In the two sets of images presented at the 31st Bienal,

Bruno Pacheco furthers the exploration on the forma-
tion of collectives and their different modes of operation.
In these images, gatherings of people occupy the entire
canvas space, in what appears to be a protest – perhaps a
political protest, a social gathering or a coming together
with a different intention or motivation.

The images, by positioning us as onlookers on the outside of these

gatherings, cause us to consider the nature of collective action, ways
of participating in it and the visibility shaped within urban space. In
the context of the economic and socio-political instability that has
characterised the early twenty-first century, collective action shows
ways of mobilisation that are different from those of the ‘revolutions’
of past centuries. With little or no hierarchy – no command centre
organising the movement – people come together and dedicate some
112
of their time to achieving an objective. Still, we can’t tell if these groups
exist to be perceived by others or if they exist for themselves. Pacheco
transmits the fragmented and random nature of collective action
through a display that implicates the eyes of the public in the set-up.

Whether it be a result or a process, the organisation of the

work into series reveals an understanding of painting as a lin-
guistic system in constant development. In it, images do not
have an end in themselves, and sequences and repetitions are
conceived in order to be rethought as well as reinterpreted,
with the intention of engendering a public and social construc-
tion of meaning. The struggle is to create something singular
and profound out of the real movement of socialised abstrac-
tions, which tend towards the repetition of formulas.

With the borders between various artistic practices becoming per-

meable, one of the main characteristics of contemporary painting has
been a continual ‘re-mediatisation’, or in other words, the claiming of
properties that are attributed to other art forms. In Pacheco’s case, it is
photography, in its various printed or virtual incarnations, that consti-
tutes a base of reference for the construction of images. – MM
113
 Muhacir 2003
Gülsün Karamustafa

Gülsün Karamustafa’s work has often reflected upon the hardships

of forced migration as political, ethnic and economic borders are con-
tinuously redrawn. She first addressed this issue in a series of sculp-
tural installations from the early 1990s that use fabric to evoke the
vulnerability of displaced subjects. In Kuryeler [Courier] (1991), for
example, three plain, white children’s vests have scraps of paper and
film fragments sewn inside, which we can barely make out through
the semi-translucent fabric. Nearby an unattributed quote recalls how,
when crossing frontiers, exiles would give children their most precious
possessions for safekeeping, framing the work within a subjective but
unspecific lived experience.

Muhacir [The Settler] considers the impact of forced displacement upon

women’s lives in the context of the wars that tore apart the Western
Balkans in the 1990s. Dedicated to both of Karamustafa’s grandmoth-
ers, the double-screen film is loosely inspired by the ordeal that brought
their families to Istanbul (one from Crimea through Bulgaria, the other
from today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina). As in Kuryeler, however, these
biographical references are abstracted to represent a common history:
the recurring wars and migratory waves that have scarred the region
since the late nineteenth century, hence putting the recent conflict in
114
historical perspective. As if bringing two old postcards to life, the
film uses a symmetrical structure to counterpose the portraits of a
headscarf-clad and western-looking woman, set against the backdrop
of a Balkan village and a Western Turkish city. With the outbreak

of war, they are dispossessed of their belongings and made to

swap places, the interstice between both screens standing in for
the frontier between countries. Even if we might first think that
they have each now landed in the right context, their apparent
estrangement reminds us that identification processes and feel-
ings of belonging are far more complex than merely matching
figure and ground. – HV

115
 Mujawara 2014
Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Grupo Contrafilé

Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti have been recently working on

Campus in Camps, an educational platform that enables communities
of Palestinian refugees to produce new forms of representation of the
camps and of themselves, overcoming the static symbols of victimisa-
tion, passivity and poverty.

Meanwhile, the Contrafilé group has developed the project A rebelião

das crianças [The Children’s Uprising], which saw the creation of
Quintais [Backyards] as its most recent stage. In this project, the collec-
tive processes established through playing enable a territory of freedom
that activates in our bodies a potency-landscape, allowing us to create
the space in which we live our lives.

116
 Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti and Contrafilé were challenged
by the 31st Bienal’s curatorial team to come up with a joint project.
They soon noticed the similarities between their research – most
notably, both groups have been working on the ambivalence of
how one relates to the land, as an incontestable proof of common-
ality as well as a territory fertile with contradictions.

Contrafilé introduced TC Silva (the founder of Mocambos network and

active in the integration of the political struggles of indigenous people,
landless workers and communities of quilombolas) to Petti and Hilal, who
brought with them the experience of mujawara (the Arabic word for
‘neighbourhood’), an environment of libertarian, decolonising education.

As a central situation that encompasses all others, a mujawara was set up in

the south of Bahia between Palestinian refugees, quilombolas, researchers,
artists, indigenous people and members of the Landless Workers’
Movement (MST). Acting in a network, they organised talks and situations
that fostered the debate on displacement, exile and the construction of iden-
tities – concepts that are inherent to today’s definition of ‘collectivity’. As a
result of this work, a book has been published telling the story of the pro-
cess, and an installation has been built inside the pavilion’s Park area. – WS
117
 The Name Giver 2013
Michael Kessus Gedalyovich

As an artist and writer, Michael Kessus Gedalyovich’s work is always in

dialogue with Jewish mysticism. The Name Giver takes the biblical story of
the creation as its starting point. In the first book of Genesis, God’s creation
is completed when he populates it with mankind. The story of this part of
creation is unclear. At first, God is said to create both male and female in
parallel, or as female and male in one body. Later it is said that God creates
Adam first, who is then given the power to name all the other animals as he
wishes. Only afterwards is the female Eve created from Adam’s own rib, as
a means of overcoming man’s loneliness.

118
In the following chapters of the biblical narrative, it is Eve who takes
the dominant role, negotiating with the snake and feeding Adam
from the Tree of Knowledge. After their expulsion from Eden, Eve
takes upon herself the right to give names without consulting God,
and names her child Cain (in Hebrew the word ‫קיניין‬, Cainan, comes
from the root word for ‘possession’). Cain then continues the lineage
of defiance that results from Eve’s activism.

The Name Giver relates to the confusion, indecisiveness,

changing and turning in the Genesis story. It reminds us of
how there is a need to order the world. Here, just as in the
Bible, it is the woman who sees the big picture and takes
responsibility, even though traditionally patriarchal societies
would always see men in this role. – GE

119
 Não é sobre sapatos 2014
Gabriel Mascaro

For Não é sobre sapatos [It Is Not About Shoes] Gabriel Mascaro has
conducted a study of images filmed during the recent protests in several
Brazilian cities. As in other countries, in order to provide an alternative to
the official press, protestors created their own way of communicating their
actions in the public realm, announcing actions via social networks and reg-
istering the presence of their collective body on the streets with their own
cameras. This documentation on the internet, introduces a rupture in the
production of discourse and denounces the violence exerted by the police
against protestors.

But instead of using his own registers or those captured by protes-

tors, Mascaro focusses on the images recorded by the police, invert-
ing the narration of the protest and at the same time asking: ‘How
should we think about the aesthetic, political and authorial premise
of images produced by the state via its agents, filming with the goal
of policing, keeping public order and recording faces for prosecu-
tion?’ The interplay established by the two elements – state and
citizen – which confront one another with the same instrument or

120
weapon – the camera – reveals a different manner of seizing power and
domination, manifested in the realm of visibility and the exercise of rep-
resenting the other.

Included in the footage used by Gabriel Mascaro are many

images of shoes – new elements of legal evidence, being that
protestors are known to change their tops during their actions,
but not their shoes. The footage constitutes a curious tool for
considering the strong and weak points of anonymity (or the
anonymous) in current political protests, leading Mascaro to
another question: ‘In an age of anonymous faces, what shall we
do with our feet?’ – LP

121
 Não-ideias 2001-ongoing
Marta Neves

‘In 1974, Lucimar wanted to come up with an idea to make

some money and get her husband out of a jam. She couldn’t
think of anything and they remain poor.’ ‘All his life Babalu
wanted to be Jesus Christ, but since he had no idea how to
turn himself into the Saviour, he got a job at Banco do Brasil.’
‘C had no idea how to sexually approach his former economics
teacher and the current mayor, and, to this day, he leads a
bitter life as a solitary homosexual.’

These are just a few of the many sentences that make up Marta Neves’s
series Não-ideias [Non-Ideas]. All of them suggest inner desires or the
urge to change present conditions – from the most ordinary to the most
unusual and ambitious – which are made inviable due to a lack of ideas
for achieving them on the part of the protagonists. Imagination itself is
hampered by an absence of imagination. Still, in Marta Neves’s narra-
tive, the unresolved proposition – supposedly viewed as failure – returns
in a good-humoured manner when faced with the difficulty of taking
122
initiatives within our ordinary existence. This void of non-ideas is, curi-
ously, the most precious source of people’s imaginations – demonstrated
by a certain odd brilliance in their stories. Letting the ideas rest seems
to be the only way to maintain the ability to have new ones.

In the fast-paced grind of contemporary big cities, it seems impos-

sible to imagine the experience of disenchantment – from the
more private and intimate realms to collective, social circles, char-
acterised by an increasing distrust in our economic and political
systems – as capable of generating some sort of productivity. In
response, Não-ideias, like Marta Neves’s other artistic actions, are
an obligatory step for reconnecting with the world; an opening
for publicly sharing ‘non-ideas’, and therefore invent new ways of
imagining. – LP

123
 Nosso Lar, Brasília 2014
Jonas Staal

In the years 1944 and 1956, Brazil saw two cities emerge from two funda-
mental pilars of the country’s imagery, Spiritism and Modernism. The
latter was the new capital, Brasília, which, built in a vacant area in the
middle of the nation’s territory and inaugurated in 1960, has played an
important symbolic role in forming the country’s image as a modern
state. The first was Nosso Lar [Our Home]: a city which spiritists believe
to hover above the earth ‘on an extensive region in the state of Rio de
Janeiro (between the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Itaperuna and Campos
dos Goytacazes)’ – as described by the famous medium Chico Xavier.
According to Xavier, Nosso Lar is the place where the good spirits
‘de-incarnate’ after death, before preparing themselves for their re-incar-
nation on earth.

124
 Although the metaphysical project of Spiritism and the admin-
istrative enterprise of Modernist architecture seem to run in
opposition to one another, Jonas Staal’s project Nosso Lar, Brasília
posits that their comparable attempts at engineering social
structures and gatherings allow us to consider them as part of
a parallel project.

Rather than adopting a linear perspective, Staal approaches the fields

of art and architecture as spaces that allow us to engage with paral-
lel, interrelated and sometimes opposing histories. Nosso Lar, Brasília
therefore comprises a publication, maps, narrative video and a series of
models that explore the similarities, as well as the differences, between
the two cities and the historical movements they result from. Using
these various components, the artist develops an infrastructure that
engages with overlapping, conflicting or confronting understandings
of time and spatiality, attempting to redefine our place not within but
between multiple historical narratives. – NEM/PL

125
 O que caminha ao lado 2014
Erick Beltrán

Concerned with creating systems capable of organising large volumes

of wide-ranging information, as well as proposing non-conventional
forms of reading and putting these materials into circulation, Erick
Beltrán is taking part in the 31st Bienal with two projects that use the
book format as an experimental support structure.

The first project, O que caminha ao lado [Double Goer] consists of an

intervention in the library-auditorium designed by the curatorial team
for reading, concerts, colloquiums and other events. This space contains
duplicated volumes from the Bienal de São Paulo Foundation Archive,
which, once the exhibition is over, will be donated to União Popular
das Mulheres, a network of cultural producers in Campo Limpo, in the
periphery of São Paulo.

126
 However, as this production is eminently oral, to bring it together,
Beltrán, alongside members of the network, has created an
archive of loose pages that includes recipes, songs, poetry and
drawings among other things. On opening any of the books in the
library, the public will find not only these scattered documents,
but also pages related with the theme of the double in its manifold
expressions: the doppelgänger, the unconscious, and so on. As
such, the library breaks down the distinction between low and
high culture, with the book taking on the function of support for
non-learned production. The exchange will be completed at the
end of the Bienal, when the books move to UPM, and it, in turn,
donates its archive to the Bienal.

The second project consists of the co-editing of the Bienal’s publi-

cations with its curatorial team. Also in this case, Beltrán took
the architectural project into account, translating the idea of the
decentred and partial parcours conceived for the exhibition space
to the publications. As the main publication, Beltrán has devised
a multiple-access book that underscores the visualisation of the
exhibition’s core themes by structuring it in textual ‘zones’ alter-
nating with ‘zones’ of images, independently of the authorship of the
works. – SGN
127
 Of Other Worlds That Are in
This One 2014 / One Hundred
Thousand Solitudes 2012-2014
Tony Chakar

Tony Chakar belongs to a generation of Lebanese artists and intellectu-

als whose most pressing concerns are the Lebanese war and post-war,
and, in his particular case, how this past reappears in the present to
define a catastrophic space-time. Memory as a performative practice is
activated in his work by means of images and texts culled from varying
sources, ranging from personal narratives to literary, mythological and
biblical references. For him, text-images are the manifestation of the
ghosts of the past (‘memory’) in our world, in the same way that the
old Christian icons were the manifestation of the holy in the world of
the profane.

On Other Worlds That Are on This One is made up of images taken by

Chakar with his mobile phone. An architect by training, Chakar makes
photographs that do not usually contain people, although the odd one
sometimes makes their way into his images. When processing them
on his computer, a facial recognition programme is immediately acti-
vated, and sometimes it is not faces that the software identifies, but
other objects like car wheels or parts of a façade. It is this ‘technical
failure’ that Chakar is interested in. He is certain that whenever we try
to translate something from our physical world to a hyper-technological
128
 one, which is solely based on quantity, glitches like this are bound
to happen – caesuras in technology’s hyper-rational infinite and
homogeneous space-time continuum. In other times, mystics iden-
tified these moments as ‘moments of vision’, because they create a
tear in our own world, giving an insight into another.

Images found in a technological context are also at the core of

Chakar’s lecture-performance One Hundred Thousand Solitudes. This
work examines images that came out of the Arab revolutions and from
different Occupy movements around the world. The images are singu-
larities, singular moments, that lead to the declaration of the coming
of Messianic times – without a Messiah: the dead coming back to life,
rivers turning into blood, people speaking in tongues, the last becom-
ing first, the reversal of historical order, men turning into women and
vice versa. These images were not witnessed firsthand, but through
social media (mainly Facebook and YouTube). – NEM/tc

129
 Ônibus Tarifa Zero 2014
Graziela Kunsch

For this project, São Paulo’s municipality was approached with

the idea of having a free city bus, with no known destination,
that would circulate throughout the city during the months of
the 31st Bienal. The expression ‘tarifa zero’ (‘fare free’) would
be written where the bus’s destination would normally be
displayed. This bus would pick up and drop off commuters at
existing bus stops and would not stop at the Bienal building. It
may well stop at Ibirapuera Park, but this is beside the point.
More important is the suggestion of displacement itself as a
place, and the encouragement of other ways of getting around.

130
In his book Rebel Cities (2013), geographer David Harvey holds that
the right to the city must not be limited to the right to access to exist-
ing urban spaces. It is, above all, the right – and responsibility – to
remake the city; an active right to make the city different, based on
our desires. By adopting the image of a city bus with no turnstile
(or fare), this work contributes to the collective construction of a
different kind of imagery in the city, in dialogue with the struggle
of the activist organisation Movimento Passe Livre (‘Free Pass
Movement’), soon to complete its tenth year of activity.

There was no way of knowing, at the time this guide went to print,
whether the municipality would actually agree to the proposal, or
if adaptations would have to be made. But the Tarifa Zero bus can
exist, at least as a project – or as a horizon, a destination – in an
effort of collective, radical imagination. – GK

131
 Open Phone Booth 2011
Nilbar Güreş

The city of Bingöl, in Turkish Kurdistan, where some of Güreş’s

extended family live, is inhabited mainly by the Kurdish and Alevi
minority – brutally discriminated against by the policies of the
central state. One of the forms of discrimination is to deny people
access to the most basic infrastructure.

After attempts to provide practical solutions to the city’s isolation were

systemically turned down by the government, Güreş decided to record,
via video and photographs, the inventive solutions that the inhabitants
came up with. The resulting images, under the title Open Phone Booth,
of which a three-channel video is included in the 31st Bienal, constitute
a kind of social fresco. They give, for example, an account of the simple
practice of going to the highest part of the village in order to get a better
mobile phone signal, turning a contemporary technology into an instru-
ment for a quasi-mystical exercise.

132
Güreş also registered situations that, at first sight, might seem
ordinary and indeed marginal to the project’s central concerns.
Yet these images add extra information and open up the work to
other meanings. Through subtly ironic titles, Güreş manages for
a simple lamppost to be viewed as a sculpture, a number of metal
buckets to be seen as a still life, and a woman on a rocky outcrop
as a performer. Similarly to what happens with other works by
her, here the images straddle the line between comic and tragic,
between realism and the absurd, between the ‘testimony’ of the
document and the ‘semblance’ of the mise en scène. – SGN

133
 The Placebo Scroll 2014
Michael Kessus Gedalyovich

The Placebo Scroll follows a journey from the Eden Hills in Israel to
the Peruvian Amazon, by way of the Moroccan plains. Gedalyovich
embarked on this journey in order to meet healers, shamans, rab-
bis, priests and amulet-makers who might have knowledge unknown
or unrecognised outside their communities. The artist exchanges
experiences with them and records the process on an illustrated
scroll, which serves as a journal or captain’s log in a way similar to
disparate traditions ranging from China to the Torah, from the Dead
Sea Scrolls to the Middle East. Gedalyovich’s journey started on 15
March 2014, at the start of Purim – a holiday that originates on the
equinox, from which April Fool’s day also stems.

134
 The purpose of Gedalyovich’s journey is to search for cures for
diseases that have not yet been identified. Through this, he hopes
to find ways to recapture the mysterious and magical power of
art – a capacity that was put aside during modern times, mostly
replaced by conflicts over aesthetics, politics and money.

In addition to the scroll, the 31st Bienal includes a collection of

talisman pills in a small cabinet. The talismans were painted by
Gadalyovich onto medical pills, and are accompanied by a descrip-
tion of their healing power and after-effects. These pills can be
seen as contemporary amulets related to old Jewish traditions
such as the mezuzah. Due to the proscription of idols, Jewish amu-
lets emphasise text and names – shape, material and colour make
no difference. – GE
135
 A Research 2014
Lia Perjovschi

Lia Perjovschi’s practice is shaped by her curiosity about the cultural, social
and political context in which she lives – a context that, like her art, has
changed dramatically over the past four decades. If early performances
such as Proba somnului [The Test of Sleep] (1988) denounced the strains
that Ceauşescu’s dictatorship placed upon the bodies and minds of her
fellow Romanians, Lupt pentru dreptul meu de a fi diferita [I’m Fighting for
My Right to Be Different] (1993) evidenced her struggle to assert her iden-
tity in the midst of a newly found political freedom and increasingly perva-
sive consumerist imperatives.

Eager to fill the knowledge gaps carved out by years of isolation and
censorship, in the late 1980s and 90s Perjovschi collected publications
and ephemera on recent international art and organised gatherings with
other artists and intellectuals at her studio in Bucharest. Initially titled
Contemporary Art Archive, she renamed this project-cum-institution
Contemporary Art Analysis in 1999, aware that the knowledge economy
of the new millennium begged less for access to information than for
interpretation thereof. The subjective nature of her archive has come to
the fore in her Timelines (My Subjective Art History from Modernism till
136
 Today) (1990–2004) and Mind Maps/Diagrams (1999–ongoing),
compositions of handwritten notes and images sourced from
books or the internet, which chart her understanding not only of
recent art but also of more general culture, science and politics –
an interdisciplinary research that she conceives as an imaginary
Knowledge Museum. Titles such as General Timeline 1: From
Dinosaurs to Google Going China (1997–2006) are indicative of her
quixotic desire to know, while the diagrams The Rich People of the
World and Top Art Collectors (both 2009 and both only depicting
men) reveal her political standpoint.

A Research, the mind map on display at the 31st Bienal, offers up a

freeze-frame of her research on the context and history of the Bienal
from her studio in Sibiu, Romania – a partial and subjective view of
here from there. – HV
137
 Resimli Tarih 1995
Gülsün Karamustafa

Shortly after graduating in 1969, Gülsün Karamustafa was convicted

for hiding a political fugitive at her home in Istanbul and conse-
quently had her passport annulled until 1987. This was a period of
massive migration from rural areas to the city, leading to the cre-
ation of large, run-down suburban settlements. The clash between
the newcomers’ Anatolian culture and urban life produced hybrid
cultural forms known as arabesk, after the musical genre that popula-
rised Asian-influenced commercial songs amongst the lower classes.
Having come into close contact with this kitsch culture while work-
ing as an art director in film, in the mid-to-late 1980s Karamustafa
began to appropriate wall carpets found in migrants’ homes in a
series of textile collages that earned her the label of ‘arabesque
painter’. This subtly belittling moniker reveals the provocation
inherent in the artist’s use of popular imagery, which was bluntly
dismissed by the middle-class intelligentsia to which she belongs.

138
Although informed by her use of textile collage in this earlier series
of works, Resimli Tarih [Illustrated History] responds to the new
global context that began to emerge after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This hand-sewn, seven-metre-long collage takes the form of a kaftan:
a long, belted tunic that came to symbolise power and wealth during
the Ottoman Empire. While the vividly coloured illustrations of lush
vegetation, peacocks, hardy servants and magnificent palaces are
reminiscent of imperial iconography, the fabrics are hardly opulent
and the cluttered patchwork is at odds with the elegant design of
Ottoman kaftans.

In the wake of the sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union,

Karamustafa gathers the remains of another fallen empire in an
informal visual archaeology where miniature portraits of sultans
coexist with fragments from kitsch wall carpets and synthetic
velvet and silk fabrics cheaply available on the streets of Istanbul.
On a monumental scale, Resimli Tarih pays tribute to popular cul-
ture’s cannibalisation of once hegemonic forms and symbols while
also mourning the end of an era. – HV
139
 Revista Urbânia 5 2014
Graziela Kunsch and Lilian L’Abbate Kelian

The magazine Urbânia originated from a group project by Núcleo

Performático Subterrânea, a collective in São Paulo that staged radical
street performances in the early 2000s. From the third issue on, the
magazine has been run by Graziela Kunsch. With each issue, Urbânia
picks a specific focus of investigation, experimenting with different edi-
torial strategies and assuming a new form.

The fifth issue of Urbânia is being constructed in the context of

the 31st Bienal and features historian and educator Lilian L’Abbate
Kelian as co-editor. Urbânia 5 includes texts and experiments
surrounding educational projects that aim to reinvent schools,
or counter-schools, practices of popular education, initiatives for
decolonisation, recognition and spreading African-Brazilian or
Native Brazilian history and culture, pieces by artists who possess
a pedagogical (or even an ‘anti-pedagogical’) inclination; as well
as educational actions in art exhibitions, among other themes.
140
 The editors propose an anti-hegemonic, critical and emancipatory
approach to education, and the form of the magazine and its distri-
bution aims to reflect this intention. The graphic design was crea-
ted in collaboration with artist and designer Vitor Cesar.
Parallel to the development of the magazine, L’Abbate Kelian and
Kunsch are coordinating a course in ‘Self-training for Educators’
along with a group of educators from the Bienal and members of the
permanent team. The course anticipates experimental activities that
will be developed with the public, and is structured according to five
thematic axes: 1) Accumulated History (experiments in democra-
tic education); 2) Movement (the limits and possibilities of public
policies); 3) Utopia (an open architecture of spaces and curricula);
4) Body (presence, performance and an ethics of endearment); and
5) Vocabulary (new practices require new terminology).

The release of Urbânia 5 will take place during the last weeks of
the 31st Bienal, allowing it to attempt an evaluation of the course,
an observation of the activities of Bienal’s educational project, and a
juxtaposition of other projects in the exhibition which relate to the
interest of the editorial project such as those by Pedro G. Romero,
Imogen Stidworthy and Mujeres Creando. – GK/LLK
141
 The Revolution Must Be a School of
Unfettered Thought 2014
Jakob Jakobsen and María Berríos

What is a revolutionary exhibition? Or what can a revolutionary exhi-

bition be? A propaganda machine against the inadmissible present?
An investigation into the experimental language of revolution? Does it
address change, force change, or is it change itself? In light of the recent
uproar against the current crisis of global capitalism, the resurgence of
‘revolution’ as a concrete horizon gives these questions a different toll.
A revolutionary exhibition puts the continuous rubble of unfinished
revolts to use. It is a struggle with the present, while the actuality of the
present continues to be haunted by historical echoes.

The specific resonance we are exploring in The Revolution Must Be

a School of Unfettered Thought is the exhibition Del Tercer Mundo
[From the Third World], which took place in Pabellón Cuba in
Havana in January 1968. It was one of the main public events of the
Cultural Congress of Havana – a large-scale gathering that attempted
to articulate a language for international struggle against imperialism
142
 and towards the decolonisation and liberation of the global south.
The Congress aimed to work across disciplines and national
borders, bringing together hundreds of artists, writers, gym teach-
ers, poets, scientists, anti-psychiatrists, feminists, black power mili-
tants, dentists, economists, philosophers, students and activists
from most of the world in an attempt to connect their struggles
and revolutionary force.

As a pedagogical exhibition, Del Tercer Mundo strived to map and reflect

on the contemporary immiseration of the world while also offering a
dynamic portrayal of popular rebellion and resistance. It was a multi-
media total installation, applying innovatory audio-visual technologies,
creating an integrated and sensual narrative that included neon anima-
tions, comic strips, mechanical animated billboards, satirical film mash-
ups, protest dioramas, sound effects and three live animals (a llama and
two lions). The point was not to bring the museum to the people, but to
use and transmute the language of the street into exhibition form.

A revolutionary exhibition requires a multilayered language that

challenges language itself. It must be open to destructive col-
lisions with the present and the on-going immiseration of the
already dispossessed. We, as militant researchers, have learned
there is a difficult transition from reflecting on to becoming a
revolutionary exhibition. It is not enough to gather knowledges
around a new subject, it is necessary to construct a new object that
cannot belong to anyone. – JJ/MB
143
 RURU 2000-ongoing
ruangrupa

ruangrupa is an artist’s initiative formed in Jakarta, Indonesia

in 2000 that has grown in the last fourteen years to become one
of the most significant small-scale institutions in South East
Asia. Jakarta is a sprawling city, not unlike São Paulo, divided
into a series of neighbourhoods characterised by diversity.
Working with the texture of the city, ruangrupa make use of
the opportunities that emerge from existing cultural dynamics
– responding to what goes on around them. This may mean
promoting a band, curating an exhibition or developing an
international network that can connect Jakarta’s artists to the
wider world.

144
The members of ruangrupa therefore work across many fields includ-
ing music, education, video, community projects, festivals, architecture
and their own artistic practices. For the 31st Bienal, they present a
hybrid architectural/sculptural structure. This vertiginous environ-
ment presents the different activities of the group as reflected through
the meetings and experiences they have had during their time in São
Paulo. By connecting to diverse aspects of this city, they create a kind of
trans-city portrait – one that projects São Paulo back onto itself through
the eyes of Jakartan artists, in dialogue with how local initiatives under-
stand the meaning of being a collective.

All the elements of ruangrupa’s activities found in this installation

reflect their spontaneous, entangled yet always thoughtful ways of
working. In this way, ruangrupa is able to remain firmly anchored
within their local situation while developing a collective awareness
of how art is changing across the world. It is this awareness of the
possibilities of art today that the group wants to offer to the public
of the 31st Bienal. – CE

145
 Sem título 2014
Éder Oliveira

As is his usual practice in the city where he resides – Belém, Pará –

Éder Oliveira has created large-scale mural portrait paintings for the
31st Bienal. These portraits might be called monumental, if we use the
term ‘monument’ to refer to something other than hegemonic events
and characters in history. The artist makes monuments precisely out
of those whom the social dynamic stigmatises: people suspected to
be involved in crime and those whose images are plastered across
the sensationalist pages in the police section of Pará newspapers.
Transposed onto Belém’s walls, and now those of São Paulo, these char-
acters become widely visible, though still anonymous. Regardless of
the details of their identities and the location where they were originally
photographed – information which Oliveira omits – the murals elicit a
reflection on the way civil rights are ignored, most evidently here in the
realm of photojournalistic coverage.

146
Ordinarily referred to as thugs or criminals by the press – often
before they are convicted, if they are – most of the people portrayed
here are caboclos: mixed-race descendents of African and Native
Brazilians. This demographic fact denotes, in addition to the ethical
problems of police coverage, the racism of the media when reporting
on issues of violence and public safety in Brazil.

Now relocated to the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, at an upscale

address in São Paulo, Éder Oliveira’s portraiture takes on new
aspects. In this cosmopolitan, though extremely excluding
metropolis, the caboclo from Pará personifies ‘the other’: he or she
who does not fit with the dominant socioeconomic standards and,
as such, lives on the geographic and civic margins of society, as do
northeastern Brazilians, Haitians, Bolivians and so many others
in São Paulo. Indirectly, the artist’s murals become centres where
the attention of the public at the 31st Bienal might converge.
– AMM
147
 Sergio e Simone 2007-2014
Virginia de Medeiros

Simone is a transvestite who takes care of a natural spring – Fonte

da Misericórdia – as a shrine for the worship of the Afro-Brazilian
orishas. Sergio is an evangelical preacher who sees himself sent by
God ‘to save the human race’. Simone and Sergio, or Sergio and
Simone, are one and the same person.

In 2006, Virginia de Medeiros met Simone, who was living in Ladeira

da Montanha, one of the most run-down areas of the city of Salvador.
Interested in the region’s residents, Medeiros began documenting
aspects of Simone’s day-to-day life in video. About a month after the
initial footage was made, Simone suffered convulsions as a result of
148
her crack use, followed by a mystical delirium in which she found
God. After this incident, in which she ‘died of an overdose’, Simone
reclaimed the name Sergio, convinced of another religious mission
alongside Jesus. Sergio then narrates for the camera the story of his
transformation and his new identity.

Eight years later, in 2014, de Medeiros re-established contact with Sergio,

who, during a brief relapse, became a pai-de-santo, a priest of the can-
domblé religion, creating his own house of worship, where he assumes
both identities, Sergio and Simone. The collected images reflect the com-
plexity of this constant process of physical and spiritual transformation
against the backdrop of a unique city, in which the two religions remain
in conflict and exchange, also suggesting the difficulty of configuring
another existence within a binary society – in other words, one which,
through discrimination, demands that we be one thing or another. – LP

149
 El shabono abandonado 1979
Juan Downey

Between November 1976 and May 1977, Juan Downey lived with
the Yanomami communities of Bishassi and Tayeri. As soon as he
arrived in the territory of the Yanomami, Downey engrossed him-
self fully in the indigenous social structure of the shabono.

Literarily meaning a felling or clearing in the forest, a shabono is the

elliptic or circular communal dwelling of the Yanomami, which is
subdivided depending on the family structure of the members. The
area in the centre of the shabono is the community’s shared space
and the outside edge is a continuous structure made of tree trunks
and branches with a huge single-pitch roof that covers the domestic
domain, running round the space of social life, rituals and shamanic
exercises. According to the anthropologist Jacques Lizot, the shabono
is a microcosm where the cosmological, religious and social orders of
the Yanomami converge. For Downey it is also a perfect instance of
invisible, light, flexible, economic architecture – an architecture interde-
pendent on natural forces, an organism with the powers of the universe
that feeds nature while at once feeding off of it.
150
Though it might seem as if Downey were following in the steps
of ethnographic documentary by pioneers such as Jean Rouch –
in other words, submerging himself in ‘the place of the events’,
adopting the community’s customs and entering into dialogue
with the ‘observed’ through a visioning of the recorded images
– Downey’s engagement with the genre is tempered by a com-
ponent of subjectivity that subverts its classic rules. He does not
maintain a distance but rather involves himself in the observed
action as an active part. Similarly to his series Video Trans
Americas [see pp. 166-167], the approximation to the ‘other’ in El
shabono abandonado [The Abandoned Shabono] involves a pro-
cess of self-discovery, in this case in an even more extreme form,
completely removed from his life and his family. For Downey, the
artistic experience with the Yanomami is the document of a pro-
cess and not the manipulation of passive materials, as is also borne
out by the maps and drawings which are the result of his medita-
tions in the forest. – NEM

151
 Small World 2014
Yochai Avrahami

What do a ghost train, a crime museum and a parading samba school

have in common? For Yochai Avrahami, these elements present three
ways of telling stories. What is of interest here aren’t the actual stories,
but rather the devices developed to tell them, with a particular focus
on atrocities – large-scale massacres, displacements of populations or
natural disasters.

Avrahami studied memorials, museums and monuments that were

created by public authorities or ordinary citizens in Israel and other
parts of the world. These tell their versions of historical facts as if
there were no other sides to the story. Using the most varied artifices,
transforming narratives into spectacles and stories according to strict
plot-lines, these devices are devices of power: those who know how to
recount history take power and exert it. In Brazil, Yochai came across
the reverse situation: those in power aren’t so interested in recounting
history as they are in making sure that others do not know how to
– perhaps because those who are capable to do so are involved with
atrocities that they silence.
152
Avrahami’s studies led him to Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and São
Paulo. Of the many possible places of memory, he visited the Slave
Museum in the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, the excavations of the
Valongo Docks in Rio, and the project for the São Paulo Penitentiary
Museum on the site of the old Carandiru prison. From these encoun-
ters, Small World, Avrahami’s contribution to the 31st Bienal, aims to
reflect on the absence or fragility of the devices that sustain narratives
– national or local, official or unofficial – leaving room to perhaps invent
different ways of telling stories. Through a monumental, funfair-like
installation, the artist proposes a situation where there is no history: a
museum for something that does not exist, a scam in which memory
turns flexible in order to once again become emancipatory. – BS

153
 Spear and other works 1963-1965
Edward Krasiński Photography by Eustachy Kossakowski

Edward Krasiński was both a maker of objects and an actor or

performer for the community around him. For most of his life, he lived
in Poland, and with his work he always responded to the situation
around him – yet he exhibited internationally from the beginning of his
career in the 1960s. In the Bienal there are photographs of the artist
with his sculptures, and sculptural works from the early part of that
decade. The photographs of his actions are very deliberately staged,
even if they might seem casual. They show him as a gentle, irreverent
figure who was playing with a supposed aristocratic heritage at a time
in communist Poland when such actions were not politically welcomed.
All the photographs were taken by his friend and collaborator Eustachy
Kossakowski, who was close to the Polish avant-garde scene of the time.

As an artist, Krasiński was always seeking to use play and perfor-

mance as a way to escape the heaviness of his situation, whether in
his engagement with art and its materiality, or in his relationship to
the authorities. He was fascinated by the potential misuse of every-
day objects and sought to transform them into magical configura-
tions, giving them an almost mystical presence.
154
His objects are some of the oldest artworks in the 31st Bienal. Their deli-
cate, even precarious appearance is woven into the atmosphere of the
room itself, with its dark walls and dramatic lighting modulating the simple
materials into contemporary talismans. When shown in the mid-1960s
for the first time, shortly after being made, they were seen as related to
Surrealism, because of their absurdity and playfulness. Fifty years later, in
a contemporary context, their apperance might suggest a different state of
things, less art historical and more connected to social precarity. Krasiński
always struggled against limits and control, and tried to find his own path
in art, yet he did not retreat from the world. Through the transformation
of conventional materials, he tried to conjure up a new popular imagination
that still resonates today. – CE

155
 Those of Whom 2014
Sheela Gowda

Rubber and iron, thread, needles and pigment, incense and ash, cow
dung, car bumpers and hair – everyday materials figure prominently in
the sculptural practice of Sheela Gowda. In her hands these elements
are woven together to create large-scale, three-dimensional composi-
tions, with lines and colour that often envelop space or the viewer.
At times the lines meander, as in the woven ropes of hair or thread. At
others they are rigid and cutting, as in the plumbing-pipes-cum-speakers
constructed into a grid across the gallery, or the slender, tall limbs
made of recycled furniture. On closer inspection, however, Gowda’s
lines reveal themselves to be more than mere abstract forms: each of
her installations is preoccupied with the qualities of specific materials
as much as with the labours associated with them – the how, by and for
whom they are handled and put to use.

156
For the 31st Bienal, Gowda has played with the elasticity of natural
rubber against the rigidity of reclaimed iron furniture and window
grills, as if stretching a new skin over the extant skeletons. Both
materials are also the product of resilient micro-economies refer-
encing their own history and also linked to the economic and politi-
cal history of the country. The extraction of latex from the rubber
tree was the driver of Brazil’s booming economy in the late nine-
teenth century, with disastrous effects for both the Amazonian forest

and its indigenous populations. With the export of rubber tree

seeds to South-Asia in the early 1900s and the commercialisation
of synthetic rubber in the 1960s, however, rubber prices plum-
meted, forcing locals to turn to more profitable but often less envi-
ronmentally safe activities. For Those of Whom, Gowda has worked
with cooperatives of seringueiros – rubber tappers – from the state
of Acre, in northwestern Brazil, whose harvesting contributes to
prevent further deforestation of the Amazonia. Reclaimed from
the urban jungle that is São Paulo, the iron structures are likewise
gathered by companies that collect urban waste from demolition
sites and put them back into circulation. – HV

157
 Turning a Blind Eye 2014
Bik Van der Pol
A MISSING IN PROGRESS BARBARIZING FRAGMENTED IT'S TIME MAN.
VOCABULARY Islandkeepers: PUBLIC CARTOGRA- IT FEELS IMMI-
writing & dis- Gediminas and SPEECH PHIES NENT: POLITICS
cussion Nomeda Urbonas Islandkeeper: Islandkeeepr: AT THE MOMENT
Collective activities contrib-
sessions uting to the cross-
Maria Boletsi Tina Sherwell OF
Public rhetorical strategies Exploring the contem-
Islandkeeper: disciplinary exchange
and the ways they give a porary landscape of
EXPOSITION
between several nodes of
Moosje Goosen knowledge production:
shape to (and restricts) Palestine in particular Islandkeeper:
What does it mean to public space. urban environments.
engage in ‘the missing’
network and participatory Sarah Pierce
technologies; sensorial The main question that runs
and to acknowledge the
media and public space; FREELAND through the thesis is what
unknown?
environmental remediation Islandkeeper: does it mean to situate
design and spatial organiza- one's work "in institution,"
Jeroen Turning a blind
COMMONING tion; and alternative plan- while at the same time
ning design integration. Zuidgeest rubbing against official (and eye [or: ignoring
TIMES institutionalised) ways of
Communi(ci)ty’, the an undesirable
Islandkeepers: THINK TANK societal, cultural and knowing?
moral issues of a boletsi information] or
Rene Gabri and AESTHETICS radical liberation I really do not see
Ayreen Anastas Islandkeeper: of planning.
This island is about living in the signal
a world in which the doing Pamela M. Lee Interactions between forest
is separated from the deed, Think Tank Aesthetics and atmosphere, mapping
in which this separation is reflects on art and its and economics
extended in an increasing relations to current mutual learning as forms o
numbers of spheres of life, debates about the politi- exchange, lost knowledge
in which the revolt about cal and the social against and megaprojects in the
this separation becomes the backdrop of neo- Amazone
ubiquitous. liberalism. displacement, participatory
In collaboration with Casco architecture, lost sights, los
Projects, Utrecht sites, walking tours, invisible
rivers concrete jungle
THE BORDERS unseen and turned away
ARE NO LONGER participatory forms o
staging
nagele AT THE BORDER
Islandkeeper:
: Ernst van den
DIVINE
l Hemel
t ABSTRACTION “The borders of new socio- INTERVENTION
Islandkeeper: political entities (...) are no Islandkeeper:
longer entirely situated at
Maria Lind the outer limit of territories; Samira
Abstract Possible is a they are dispersed a little BenLaloua
research project explor- everywhere, wherever the Scenarios for an interven-
ing notions of abstrac- movement of information, tion as a response to
d tion, taking contempo- people, and things is hap- tenderness in the daily life
rary art as its starting pening and is controlled” and a challenge to that
point. (Etienne Balibar). what is near.
Oct 2013 Oct 2014

ACTION AND FRAGMENTATION URBAN SPACES AND SPACE OF LANGUAGE AND RHETORIC URBAN SPATIAL POLITICS
NATURE AS SITES OF CONFLICT
THE COMMONS,
PRIVATIZATION AND ACCESS
We may all be blind to what is in front of us; we might also be willfully
blind. Turning a Blind Eye, a programme of public workshops, events,
lectures and walks by Bik Van der Pol, explores different notions of the
‘unseen’ (the non-visible and the non-existent), and the ways in which
we look at things or choose what we look at. The programme seeks
to investigate the idea of ‘publicness’, as well as to generate a public
for its own activities. A live, large scoreboard animated live by activa-
tors follows the developments of the projects and invites the publics to
become participants.

Turning a Blind Eye understands artistic practice as a form of

learning, and a space of experience and encounter. Art can be
a strategy for emancipation and a potential response to public
158
issues. The recent occupations of public squares worldwide, or the
increasing commercial exploitation of private information, demon-
strate the urgency of public space as a site of conflict over rights,
information, relations and objects.

Debates over forms of common property such as knowledge and

culture show that public space is to be understood in the broadest
terms possible – as that which holds the fabric of experience-as-
community together. Yet it is threatened by exclusions, privileged
access and disinformation to the point that it becomes invisible.
Public property needs to be re-articulated time and again, and
is just as precarious as the natural environment, threatened by a
predatory economy.

Turning a Blind Eye investigates recent events in Brazil and world-

wide, departing from tensions around the exploitation of urban and
natural space. The programme has been created with the participa-
tion of the general public, students of the School of Missing Studies
and universities and organisations in São Paulo. The 31st Bienal acts
as the site for the project’s creation and research, implementing the
educational model of ‘the school’ as a form of mental theatre that
may create new horizons of action, production and reflection. – BVDP
159
 A última aventura 2011
Romy Pocztaruk

The Trans-Amazonian Highway was created under Brazil’s latest

military regime, during Emílio G. Médici government (1969-1974),
to cut the northern half of Brazil’s territory from east to west and
promote ‘national integration’. The construction of its 4,000 kilome-
tres – stretching from Paraíba to Acre, all the way to the Peruvian
border – represented a pharaonic undertaking at the time, one worthy
of a growing nation: ‘the last great adventure of the century’, accord-
ing to state propaganda. After a few years, the construction of various
stretches of the highway was halted and, with the passage of time, the
Trans-Amazonian Highway had become a site of unkept promises,
long gaps and waits, the ruins of something that never came to be.

In 2011, Romy Pocztaruk spent a month travelling a large part of

the highway to see what remained of the project and what had
been born in the small towns in the vicinity of its absence. The
trip aimed at an experience close to the conquering of a territory
and imagery which, though symbols of nationalist identity, remain
inaccessible and stigmatised to this day. The result is a study in
160
documentary photography, in which Pocztaruk and her possible
subjects never appear in the scene, and which is instead dominated
by registers of their places in transit and life. Though emptied
according to photographic direction, the houses, parks and streets
portrayed present a detailed human dimension of the environment
and material culture.

Forty years late, the paving of some portions of the Trans-

Amazonian Highway was resumed during the year of Pocztaruk’s
trip, only again to be interrupted shortly after. Despite the infra-
structure and the image of the highway as a monument to national
progress, the project A última aventura [The Last Adventure]
features arguments for reopening the debate on the methods of
conducting and effecting social transformation – in this case, via
the simulation of the possibility of transit, of a journey that began
but hasn’t yet been concluded, neither for Pocztaruk nor for
Brazil. – AMM
161
 A última palavra é a penúltima – 2 2008/2014
Teatro da Vertigem

The pedestrian underpass of Rua Xavier de Toledo had been closed for
more than fifteen years when Teatro da Vertigem first staged, in 2008,
A última palavra é a penúltima [The Last Word Is the Penultimate
One]: an intervention based on Gilles Deleuze’s text The Exhausted.
The underpass, located at the centre of São Paulo and connecting
the Viaduto do Chá with the Praça Ramos de Azevedo, used to house
multiple small shops, all offering their goods to paulistas and visitors.
By 2008, the shops were fronted by empty windows for non-existent
passers-by: time capsules through which the effects of ruthless urban
developments led by social inequality and class interests could be
immediately felt.
162
In their revision of the piece for the 31st Bienal, six years later, Teatro
da Vertigem shows how little has changed and, at the same time, how
new factors and forces may suggest a different future. In their interac-
tion with the publics for which the underpass will again be accessible,
the actors and video screens installed in the former shop windows aim
to make visible what the city tries to hide, what it no longer wants to
see: living conditions, the exhaustion that results from the hard labour
which some of the city’s inhabitants engage in, as well as the indi-
viduals themselves who occupy its spaces.

Such a presentation of A última palavra é a penúltima allows us to

reconsider these conditions at a time when the redistribution of visi-
bility and social relations is taking place in the city of São Paulo and
throughout Brazil, as an effect of contemporary strategies of social
organisation, which perfectly echo Teatro da Vertigem’s collective
and localised approach to writing, producing and performing. – PL

163
 Untitled 2014
Vivian Suter

Since leaving Switzerland, in 1982, Vivian Suter’s work is closely

bound up with the place where she has lived and worked since –
Panajachel, Guatemala. Her studio at the Lake Atitlán was originally
a coffee plantation, now overgrown with the avocado and mango
trees that were first introduced to protect the coffee bushes. From
the upper floor of the studio, Suter looks out over a subtropical land-
scape of lakes and volcanoes, whilst downstairs the views of dense
vegetation turn her experience inwards. It is this environment, with
its expressive fertility, that shapes her paintings. The images Suter
produces are not realistic illustrations of the land, but partly abstract
contemplations of an almost mystical relationship between the
human and natural elements that are constantly at play there.

Often, Suter leaves her works out in the open, where they are changed
by the sun, wind, rain and mud. At least two times, following the hurri-
canes Stan (2005) and Agatha (2010) that ravaged Guatemala, the studio
was flooded and the canvases marked by the height of the water and
mud. All these events are present in the final paintings in ways that
make them become diaries of their own making.

164
 This recording of process also shapes the way the works are
shown in public, often without stretchers or hung from wooden
racks like laundry. The acceptance of the often destructive
forces of nature as part of everyday life, reflects a philosophical
approach that seeks to live with what happens, rather than to
determine what must be. In this sense, Suter reaches an equi-
librium in her paintings that is very far from the old modern idea
of viewing art as a means of shaping nature and society. In her
work, things are what they are, in a way that suggests a faith in
forces beyond her understanding; or a balance that recalls older

belief systems and their respect for the natural world and humanity’s
place within it. – CE

165
 Video Trans Americas 1973-1979
Juan Downey

The idea for Video Trans Americas struck Downey as a kind of epiphany
in New York. As a result, he went in search of his roots, after having
lived and worked for almost ten years in Spain, France and the USA.
Downey’s initial intention was to make a video-expedition from Toronto
to Tierra del Fuego, recording with his video camera the different cul-
tures that share the space of the American continent, very often without
any relationship with each other and at other times in open conflict.
The working programme included the recording of different urban and
jungle communities and afterwards projecting the footage made in the
very same communities as well as other contexts across the continent.
Finally, a single work was edited exploring the interactions of time,
space and context.

At the end of the 1960s, Juan Downey started to take an interest in

technology as a decisive factor for renewal that would prompt radical
social and economic changes, as well as a utopian and liberating tool
that could also broker a reconciliation between nature and progress.
Using a broad sampling of media, he focussed his practice on ways
of translating the invisible elements of energy transmission into
visible forms.
166
In 1973, after experimenting with energies in sculptures and
happenings, and coextensively with his research into invisible
architecture understood as an information system, Downey
pinpointed video as the ideal tool for putting his ideas into prac-
tice. Its potential for feedback and reflectivity – video as a medium
in which the artist is both reflected and projected in society – was
perfect not only for expressing the ideas on space and time he was
concerned with, but also to give shape to Video Trans Americas,
the most ambitious project he had undertaken until that moment.
Downey continued in his work with the Yanomami community in
Venezuela, which gave rise to pieces like El shabono abandonado
[The Abandoned Shabono] (1978), (pp. 150-151), and El caimán
con la risa de fuego [The Laughing Alligator] (1979). – NEM

167
 Vila Maria 2014
Danica Dakić in collaboration with Roger Avanzi, the performers of the Unidos de
Vila Maria Samba School and the photographer Egbert Trogemann

Danica Dakić often starts to work with an encounter or an

image that she follows as a path. She then keeps the process
open, allowing participants to improvise, directing them in a
subtle way. A migrant herself, she has created theatrical dispos-
itives to work in collaboration with non-actors, as refugees and
nomads. Her filmic narrative is then built in the editing room.
From the film set to the editing room, displacement and trans-
formation are central to her work.

168
When Dakić met Roger Avanzi, the last representative of a five-genera-
tions-old circus family, it was clear to her that he would be the character
of her next work. In Vila Maria, Dakić films him putting on his make-
up and turning into Picolino the clown, and by doing so she confronts
the viewer with a concrete situation of transformation. Nerino Avanzi,
founder of the Circus Nerino (1913-1964), created Picolino, and his son,
Roger, inherited the character. Picolino is inseparable from Roger’s
body, although it exists beyond him.

Picolino was also part of Vila Maria Samba School’s 2014 carni-
val parade. Dakić filmed Roger in the Circus Museum that he
helped to create in São Paulo to preserve Picolino’s memory and
the memory of Brazilian circus. In another time and space, in
the samba school’s warehouse, eight Picolinos, of all heights and
ages, stand still in front of Dakić’s camera. They give new incarna-
tions to the character and, in exchange, Picolino gives them a new
mask and new roles to play within a poetic call for transformation.
– bs/ge

169
 Violencia 1973-1977
Juan Carlos Romero

Similarly to other artists from his generation, like Edgardo Antonio

Vigo and León Ferrari, Juan Carlos Romero conceived his practice –
since his beginnings in the 1920s – as the totality of all his actions and
interventions in public life, whether or not they could be classified
conventionally as ‘artistic’. And so, apart from his output in postal art,
visual poetry, performance, graphics, painting and etching, Romero also
prioritised his writing, publishing, curatorship, teaching, activism and
the creation of an archive on art and politics. Romero has always been
an experimental artist and a defender of collective practices capable
of generating their own spaces of circulation, both inside and outside
conventional channels.
170
 Violencia [Violence] is an installation, originally created in 1973,
at a time of profound institutional, ideological and social crisis in
Argentina. During this period the country was under military rule
and, with the ex-president Perón about to return after a long exile,
debates raged on the formation of a popular national government,
the profile of a New Left and the need for armed struggle.

Violencia summarises all these issues and condenses virtually all the
artist’s fields of activity: the result of an archiving project focussed on
the way in which the press presented the conflicts of the time; a militant
intervention that called for, in terms akin to Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul
Sartre, a response to oppressive violence with liberating violence; a
holistic conception of the exhibition space and its relationship with the
space of the street; an acceptance of the role of the spectator as a neces-
sary agent for social change; and a graphic and conceptual experiment.
In short, an overarching idea of art as research, intervention and aware-
ness – core elements of Latin American Conceptualism in the 1960s and
70s. – SGN
171
 Voto! 2012-ongoing
Ana Lira

In the months of political campaigns, electoral marketing teams

construct the candidates’ images in order to win over the pub-
lic’s empathy and thus its votes. After election day, what is left is
printed portraits on posters and pamphlets posted on walls and
scattered on sidewalks in many cities. After the 2012 mayoral elec-
tion in Recife, Ana Lira started documenting these obsolete cam-
paign materials, abandoned by candidates and appropriated by the
population through anonymous interventions.

Aided by the passage of time, which whitens the colours and erodes the
eloquence of the slogans, acts of ripping parts of the advertisements and
covering them with writing and stickers created a layer of critical infor-
mation. This allowed the citizens’ point of view to shine through and, at
least symbolically, stimulated their engagement in the face of a profound
crisis of political representation in Brazil and the world at large.

172
Though initially focussing on the two rounds of Recife’s municipal elec-
tions, Ana Lira’s photographyc archive has proceeded, developing into
a broad survey that includes older posters and information evincing a
cartography of the city, from which the relationships between locales
and certain types of intervention can be inferred. During her outings
for this study, Lira noticed that most of the posters are found either in
the downtown area or neighbourhoods in the outer city limits, with only
a weak presence in more upscale areas. This contextual thought aside,
the result of the study blots out the settings of the photos, presenting
them as metaphors for the breakdown of political methods that also
takes place in other regions.

A member of the project Cidades Visuais [Visual Cities] and the

Direitos Urbanos [Urban Rights] movement, created in 2012 to
address Recife’s urban problems, Lira often provides documen-
tary coverage of her generation’s political activism, both from the
inside and out. The images for the project Voto! [Vote!] originated
from her work on the documentary film Eleições: crise de represen-
tação [Elections: Crisis of Representation], and later took on a life
of their own as a photographic series, mobilised by the incessant
production of official political portraits. – AMM
173
 Wall, Work, Workshop.
The São Paulo Drawing 2014
Dan Perjovschi

Just as characters are reduced to schematic lines, seemingly complex

ideas find a simplified form in Dan Perjovschi’s drawings. Lacking the
rhetorical or visual flourishes that often adorn political and artistic rep-
resentations, his cartoons humorously unmask the hypocrisy that per-
vades all aspects of human interaction – from geo-politics to everyday
life. Like the daily news, these drawings demand to be circulated rather
than preserved in museum vaults. Although Perjovschi has become
known for his ephemeral, large-scale installations, his work is also per-
formed live and distributed via artist’s books, free newspapers and the
Romanian magazine Revista 22, to which he has contributed weekly
since 1991.

Perjovschi’s disavowal of traditional art forms is rooted in his experi-

ence of Romanian art academia in the 1970s and 80s. Frustrated by the
constraints of official art, which, like the country, was then under the
tight grip of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime, Perjovschi adopted drawing
174
as a means of channelling social and political critique. Grids of sketched
portraits hinting at the surveillance state began to populate his work in
the late 1980s, culminating in the 5,000-ink-and-watercolour-drawing-wall
Antropotheque (1992). Since then, he has given up on colour and draws
directly on gallery walls, floors and windows. Using iconic images and
few words, his sketches give an apparently transparent visual form to
social and political taboos.

In recent years, Perjovschi’s accessible and direct language has earned

him invitations to international biennials and museums alike. Such expo-
sure has brought him close to some of the processes he critiques, such
as the Westernisation that has followed the fall of communism, the art
system’s exploitation of exotic identities, or the footprint of globetrot-
ting lifestyles. Perjovschi critically addresses these contradictions in
his drawings, for example by contrasting his ability to travel across the
globe with the hindered mobility of migrant workers. In so doing, he
complicates the relationship between the critical, international artist that
he has come to embody with the neoliberal order that he endeavours to
exorcise. – HV
175
 Wonderland 2013
Halİl AltIndere

Over the past two decades, Halil Altındere’s work has collided time
and again with the rapidly changing political and social reality of
Turkey. In a project made for the 5th Istanbul Biennial in 1997, he
dubbed this troubled relationship to his homeland with Dance with
Taboos, which consisted of large-scale reproductions of his identity
card were displayed one after the other, the artist’s face becoming
increasingly hidden in each photograph. Elsewhere, an identity card
depicting the artist with his head in his hands was shown next to a
blown-up banknote featuring Turkey’s first president, Kemal Atatürk,
apparently mimicking Altındere’s shameful gesture – and thus joining
the artist in rejecting a national identity premised upon the annihila-
tion of his own culture and ethnicity as a Kurd.

At the latest Istanbul Biennial in 2013, the game of hide-and-

seek hinted at in this early work quite literally materialises in
the images of Romani teenagers running from the police in
Wonderland, a video that can also be seen in this 31st Bienal.
Featuring the local hip-hop group Tahribad-ı İsyan, this work
adopts the visual language of rap music videos to furiously
denounce the destruction of centuries-old Romani settle-
ments in Sulukule, central Istanbul, to make way for high-end
176
 developments. If Dance with Taboos put the Kurdish question in
the spotlight at a time when the Turkish state was wiping out vil-
lage after village in the southeast of the country, here Altındere
has captured the unrest caused by Istanbul’s rampant gentrifica-
tion – a feeling of discontent that would gain momentum in the
Gezi Park protests of spring 2013.

Bookended by these two bold gestures of political dissent, Altındere’s

practice can be seen as an investigation of both forms of government –
as sanctioned by the state, the art system or social mores – and vernacu-
lar languages of resistance to that very exercise of power. His artistic
strategies are rather tongue-in-cheek: always caustic and irreverent, his
conceptual irony is exemplified by his adaptation of Emma Goldman’s
famous dictum with If I can’t dance it’s not my revolution (2010), which
he moulded into a gold necklace in the style of a fashionable trinket,
thereby turning a marker of normative identity into a statement of
defiance. – HV
177
 Ymá Nhandehetama 2009
Armando Queiroz, Almires Martins and
Marcelo Rodrigues

Almires Martins is Guarani. He was once a fieldworker and a sugar cane

cutter at sugar and alcohol factories. Martins also worked for the Curro
Velho Foundation and the Secretary of the Environment (SEMA) in
Belém, where he met Armando Queiroz, who was conducting a study on
historical stigmas in the context of the Amazon. Their meeting resulted
in the video Ymá Nhandehetama, which is Guarani for ‘in the past we
were many’. The production of the video also featured the participation
of Marcelo Rodrigues as director of photography.

In the face of so many stereotypes, oral history – as practised in the

meeting between Almires Martins and Armando Queiroz – appears as
a path by which individual testimony conjures collective memory. More
than this, speech, as far as it expresses subjectivity, critical perspective
and autonomy, empowers and legitimises itself and the narrator, making
mediations unnecessary.
178
The political action which takes place in Ymá Nhandehetama is a
reflection of Armando Queiroz’s efforts as an artist, curator, pro-
fessor, writer and director of Casa das Onze Janelas, a cultural
and contemporary arts space in Belém. All of these activities are
today characterised by a reflection of the Amazon as a terrain for
geographic, economic and identity-based disputes. In his activism,
Queiroz often employs readings and workshops as work strategies,
in which he and the participants inevitably share power and respon-
sibility in a collective agenda. In this sense, negation is an essential
strategy. As Queiroz writes in the text ‘The Amazon is not mine!’:
‘The Amazon is not yours. The Amazon is not. [...] The Amazon is
not real. The Amazon is not naïve and peaceful. [...] The Amazon is
not.’ – AMM

179
 Zona de tensão anos 1980
Hudinilson Jr. Organised by Marcio Harum

Strongly influenced by the scale of the city, some of the works by

Hudinilson Jr. (1957–2013) in Zona de tensão [Tension Zone] are
in line with original projects found in the artist’s personal archives,
confirming his interest in the use of the billboard not only as a
means of mass communication and urban furnishings from the era
before the ‘Lei Cidade Limpa’ – a law passed in 2007 prohibiting
advertisements on public spaces in the city of São Paulo – but
essentially as an installation object.

The collage – displayed here in large dimensions according to the

detailed assembly plans found in his studio/home, composes an
immense landscape comprised of the skin and hair of a fragmented
body: a body that is no longer individual, no longer masculine or femi-
nine, as the result of an exercise which transforms it by exploring the
possibilities of a Xerox machine.

180
As if he were nearsighted, Hudinilson Jr. often tried his hand at
simple graphic resources in the production of his work, through
obsessively amplified photocopies of A3 and A4 formats. These
include the presence of chequered structures, printed on notebook
paper or meticulously constructed by his own design and cut-and-
paste techniques.

During a lengthy period, the recurring figure of this grid

stands out in self-portraits and images of naked men, guiding
us to an understanding of the political, social, moral and physi-
cal restraints to which homoerotic desire and queer artistic
thought were subjected to during the years of military dictator-
ship and the outbreak of AIDS. – MH

181
 Architecture
For the 31st Bienal, the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
has been divided into distinct architectural areas: Park,
Ramp and Columns. These parts separate and connect
the whole in a way that is intended to articulate the
total experience of the 31st Bienal for its visitors.
The architectural process began with two presupposi-
tions: firstly, the building is simply too big, and needed
to be articulated in order to construct a coherent basis
for the exhibition. Secondly, the Bienal required a
rich and flexible ground into which artistic projects in
the making could be embedded. The two objectives
resulted in the creation of three complementary archi-
tectural base layers.
Given that the curatorial, artistic and architectural
development of the 31st Bienal happened concurrently,
the initial absence of artworks encouraged a series of
studies exploring the Bienal de São Paulo’s architec-
tural history and the building’s relationship to the park
and the city. At the same time, a thorough analysis was
made of the dimensions, depths, circulation, orienta-
tion and condition of light and darkness inside Oscar
Niemeyer’s pavilion. Using these studies, the original
interior space was divided by a central ‘valve’ that cuts
the building vertically and serves to regulate the newly
constructed divisions and mark their thresholds.

182
 Columns Area

Ramp Area

Park Area

On the ground floor, the Park area exploits the exist-

ing transparency and its location between the park and
the art exhibition to shape a place for social interaction.
Its many entrances have been kept open as an invita-
tion to engage with the 31st Bienal before choosing to
go into the exhibition itself. The wooden Plataforma
is designed to host spontaneous and organised com-
munities engaged in various gatherings, conversations,
lectures or performances. Elsewhere in the Park there
are places for workshops and other educational activi-
ties, while carpeted ‘puddles’ can be used as informal
gathering and discussion points. The design of the area
is also intended to welcome and provide a comfortable
entrance zone for nearly a quarter of a million students.
To the northeast of the Park area, the three floors of the
Ramp area crystallised around the impressive void and
concentric ramp. Reminiscent of an eighteenth-century
opera house, this place is identifiable as the location for a
singular vertical event, with encounters that are constantly
in dialogue and echo across from one work to another. The
183
 exhibition in the Ramp area was conceived with the idea of
simultaneity: through sound and vision, the three floors are
experienced at one time. Walking up the Ramp becomes a
process of unfolding attention to artworks that are vaguely
present in one’s consciousness from the start. The point
of view that the visitor occupies is therefore the (ever-
changing) centre of ­­perception.

A sketch of the Park area and the wooden Plataforma.

Lastly, stretching for more than 120 metres at the

southwestern end of the second floor is the Columns
area: an enormous, deep space where a grid of col-
umns stands out. This area confronts the visitor with a
different experience of engagement. By moving from
the exposed face of the building’s façade into the dark
heart of the enclosed space, the visitor comes across
twenty-nine individual cells and niches. Each one is an
invitation to discover artworks that sometimes leads to
further rooms and new discoveries. It is also a journey
between light and dark (natural and projected), where
each visitor is likely to find a different path and hence a
singular experience.
184
Education
Education as a way to understand every relationship – this
perspective is at the core of the 31st Bienal. Because of that,
there is not a time for education, a time that might come
before or after the selection, production or installation of art
in an exhibition space. Every moment needs to be one of
learning for all those involved: for the artists or participants,
invited to develop projects together or in groups, always in
collaboration with many, including the Bienal’s permanent
and temporary teams; for the curators, obliged to under-
stand every conversation and exchange as exceptional,
which means that applying ready-made formulas cannot
be an option; for the Bienal and all its staff, driven into new
processes and new people, often without choice; for the
participants in each of the artistic projects and the visitors
themselves, exposed to experiences of seeing, talking, danc-
ing, eating, moving, in ways that should, on every occasion,
bring something unexpected.
Education started at the very beginning of the process,
with the Bienal’s education team engaged in the initial
stages of researching the artists’ projects, creating a
relationship that has continued throughout the build-up
to the exhibition, and that has resulted in a mediation
in which the works and events are the occasion for an
exchange that should be radically open, undecided
from the start. Education also started with as series
of ‘open meetings’, in which diverse groups of people
were convoked in cities such as Belém, Belo Horizonte,
Fortaleza, Bogotá, Lima, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador,
185
 Santiago, São Carlos, São Paulo or Sorocaba to discuss
local urgencies and perspectives. Also in the workshop
A Toolbox for Cultural Organisation, for which sixteen
young artists, curators, writers and educators have and
will be gathering for three weeks in January, May and
October 2014, to think together how to intervene in
and through culture in different times and places.
There is also no single space for education that is set apart
from those of working, contemplating, resting, even eating.
Education must happen everywhere: at the restaurant/
café, where those who cook learn, and where those who eat
learn from those who cook; in the exhibition spaces, where
interactions between images, objects and people, including
visitors and educators, propose new questions and formula-
tions; in the ateliers or the streets where these images and
objects are made; at workshops, such as those at the Favela
do Moinho (p. 191), where acts of collaborative learning
aim to result in a permanent transformation; or at the ‘open
meetings’, which are possible only in collaboration with
local institutions both small and large.
Education, finally, takes place in intimate and large
scale; from one-to-one exchanges to group visits; from
saraus, in which culture is made by anyone, to con-
ferences, in which knowledge is shared to all those
present. These moments occur with the same intended
effect: the transformation of all those who come into
contact with the 31st Bienal into something that they
were not before.

186
públicos recursos
financeiros / materiais / imateriais / humanos

vídeo
mapeamento redes sociais
site
pesquisa
tornar visível
olhar relatório
foto
newsletter
pontos de vista
experiência
material educativo
provocar
extra muros

sensibilização deslocar
itinerâncias

planejar RELAÇÃO
encontrar
reflexão
construir redes
escutar
diálogos
avaliação
comunidades
laboratório

trocar responder socialmente

seminário
continuar
fazer acontecer acompanhamento
parcerias

alinhamento

poder público / privado

187
 Visual
identity
Developed together with the design team at
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, the 31st Bienal’s
visual identity is based on a commissioned drawing
and a typographic frame.  
The process for developing this identity was intensi-
fied through a work of exchange and analysis of images.
Gradually a set of images stood out: spirals and knots
reappeared over and over as well as other intricate forms
including organic figures emerging from pre-modern soci-
eties. Needing a further step and something tailor-made
for developing these ideas, the team invited Prabhakar
Pachpute to compose an image. The resulting drawing
looks like an impossible conglomeration of bodies inside
a Tower of Babel structure. The fantastical aspect of this
figure, which also recalls a many-legged organism, depicts
an imagined collectivity and the mental and physical trans-
formation crucial to the curatorial approach of this Bienal.
Being mobile, it stresses the urge to come together and
walk in common towards an uncertain destination. 
In the poster, the drawn image is framed by a calli-
graphic type that suggests handmade manufacture.
This sets the tone for an intimacy in the relations
between art, mediation and audiences that we are
aiming for in the 31st Bienal. It uses a typeface based

188
on the work of English calligrapher Julian Waters and
other applications adopt Arrus typeface, by Richard
Lipton. The overall composition follows the canvas
limits as guidelines, its awkwardness affirming the
central role of typography in the visual identification.
Within this composition, colour appears punctually,
highlighting some words according to the communica-
tion needs.

189
 Programme
in time
The 31st Bienal, besides its programme in space (the
exhibition), also includes a Programme in Time: a
series of performances, workshops, screenings, public
meetings, discussions and conferences that takes
place throughout the duration the exhibition and that
attempts different modes of constructing relations to
audiences, from the festive to the discursive.
The programme addresses three key issues, based on
what we perceive as current social, political, cultural and
artistic urgencies:

Art and Uses.

Through a series of workshops, discussions and lectures, Art
and Uses considers artistic practice through its possibilities
of action. It is divided into two sessions: the first one, on 13
September and co-organised with Stephen Wright, looks at
theories of usership and specific artists’ projects. The second
is held on 11 October and examines art agencies and institu-
tions’ ability to function as platforms for critical thinking, as
well as catalysers of change.

190
 Right to the City.
Co-organised together with Raquel Rolnik and Zeyno Pekunlu,
Right to the City will involve artists, activists, sociologists
and others also in two sessions. The first session, on 26–28
September, reflects on the neoliberal city and issues of hous-
ing policy, mega urban projects and resistance. The second,
on 22–23 November, looks at police violence in the city, the
failure of the representational model in democracy, the crimi-
nalisation of minorities and activists and the ‘favela syndrome’.

Trans- (Religion/Gender).
Held on 8–9 November, Trans- explores the recent
changes in religious worship and personal identity,
the relation between mysticism and ideology, and the
inconsistencies of binary thinking in terms of body,
gender, religion and other apparent absolutes.

These three events will happen in parallel to a series of

saraus, or performative gatherings, that will take place in the
Park area of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion fortnightly on
Wednesday evenings and every Sunday afternoon. Organised
by the Agência Solano Trindade, these events will bring
together artists and cultural groups acting in the periphery
of São Paulo, presenting the breadth of artistic expression in
the city and country. These events will be accompanied by
a project developed in collaboration with Comboio and the
Moinho Vivo movement a series of workshops and a sarau
taking place at the Favela do Moinho, in the centre of São
Paulo, also during the Bienal.
This programme is subject to alterations. For up-to-date
information, please consult the website: 31bienal.org.br.

191
 IMAGE Captions 36 Homenaje a César Vallejo, by
Jorge Oteiza. 1960. [Homage to
Alejandra Riera with UEINZZ César Vallejo]. Metal sculpture.
30 Cinéma abandonné. [Abandoned Image: Tatiana Guerrero.
Cinema]. Digital photography. 37 Agoramaquia (el caso exacto de la
Image: Unknown author. estatua). 2014. [Agoramaquia (The
30 Estátua de Cristóvão Colombo Exact Case of the Statue)]. White
é retirada do Parque Colón, em masking on digital photograph.
frente a Casa Rosada, Buenos Dimensions variable. Image: Asier
Aires. 2014. [Christopher Columbus Mendizabal.
Statue Is Removed from Parque
Colón, in Front of the Casa Rosada, Val del Omar
Buenos Aires]. Digital photography. 38 Aguaespejo granadino. 1953‑1955.
Image: Unknown author. [Water-Mirror of Granada].
35 mm film, BN, Dolby SR. 23′.
Asger Jorn Courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de
32‑33 10.000 års nordisk folkekunst. Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Donación
1961‑1965. [10,000 Years of del Archivo María José Val del Omar
Nordic Folk Art]. Black-and- and Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga,
white photography (contact 2011. Image: Val del Omar.
sheets). Variable dimensions. 39 Fuego en Castilla. 1958‑1960. [Fire
Courtesy: Museum Jorn, Silkeborg. in Castile]. 35 mm film, black and
Image: Gérard Franceschi. white, colour. 17′. Courtesy: Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
Tiago Borges and Yonamine Madrid. Donación del Archivo María
34 AfroUFO – projeto. 2014. José Val del Omar and Gonzalo
[AfroUFO – Project]. Drawing. Sáenz de Buruaga, 2011. Image: Val
Image: Yonamine and Tiago Borges. del Omar.
35 neoblanc. 2014. Serigraphy.
21 × 30 cm. Image: Yonamine and Clara Ianni and
Tiago Borges. Débora Maria da Silva
40‑41 Apelo. 2014. [Plea]. Study for film.
Asier Mendizabal Image: Clara Ianni.
36 España, aparta de mí este cáliz,
Estela funeraria homenaje a César El Hadji Sy
Vallejo, by Jorge Oteiza. 1958. 42 Archéologie marine (croquis).
[Spain, Take This Cup of Suffering 2014. [Marine Archaeology
Away from Me, Tombstone (sketch)]. Graphite and string on
homage to César Vallejo]. Metal paper. 60 × 42 cm. Image: Pedro Ivo
sculpture. Dimensions unknown. Trasferetti / Fundação Bienal de São
Location of the piece unkown. Paulo.
Courtesy: Fundación Museo Jorge 43 Archéologie marine (production).
Oteiza, Alzuza. Image: Archivo 2014. [Marine Archaeology (in
Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza, production)]. Fishing net, Brazilian
Alzuza. coffe bags, sisal, canvas, strings,

192
 paint and glue. 16 × 5 m. Image: Pedro 49 Overhead. 2010. (Series: TrabZONE.
Ivo Trasferetti / Fundação Bienal de 2010). C-print photograph.
São Paulo. 150 × 100 cm. Courtesy: Nilbar Güreş,
Rampa Istanbul and Galerie Martin
Lázaro Saavedra Janda, Vienna. Image: Nilbar Güreş.
44 Karl Marx. 1992. Collage.
Image: Lázaro Saavedra. Leigh Orpaz
45 Programa Cubano v.2.0. 2012. 50‑51 Breakfast. 2014. DV Pal video
[Cuban Programme v.2.0]. shot with thermal camera. 2′29″.
Flowchart. Dimensions variable. Image: Leigh Orpaz.
Image: Lázaro Saavedra.
Wilhelm Sasnal
Imogen Stidworthy 52 Capitol. 2009. Oil on canvas.
46 Voix Manquée (lines from 2nd 160 × 200 cm. Courtesy: Foksal
page) from L’Arachnéen. 1982. Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.
[Missing Voice (Lines from Image: Marek Gardulski.
2nd page) from L’Arachnéen]. 53 Untitled. 2013. Oil on canvas.
Notes on printed text on paper. 160 × 200 cm. Courtesy: Foksal
Image: Fernand Deligny. Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.
47 Gisèle Durand with map; production Image: Paul McAree.
still from Balayer – A Map of 53 Untitled (Mine). 2009. Oil on canvas.
Sweeping. 2014. HD Video projected 220 × 200 cm. Courtesy: Foksal
on 2 floor-based wooden screens; Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.
6-channel Ambisonic sound on Image: Marek Gardulski.
Genelec loudspeakers; 1 Panphonics
focusing audio element; textile; Arthur Scovino
5 stools. 15′. SD video footage 54 Caboclo Borboleta (O Caboclo dos
courtesy of Jacques Lin, filmed at Aflitos). 2014. [Butterfly Caboclo
La Magnanerie, Graniers, Monoblet (The Caboclo of the Aflitos)].
(France) between 2000 and 2008. Drawing (study for project).
With the voices of Dominique 21 × 30 cm. Image: Arthur Scovino.
Hurth, Jacques Lin and Suely Rolnik; 54 Caboclo Samambaia. 2013.
Audio mixing: Stefan Kazassoglou; [Bracken Caboclo]. Drawing, inkjet
Video post-production: Martin print, monotype and typewriting.
Wallace; Special thanks to Sandra 21 × 30 cm. Image: Arthur Scovino.
Álvarez de Toledo for generously 55 Caboclo Borboleta (O Caboclo dos
sharing her thoughts and her Aflitos). 2013. [Butterfly Caboclo
knowledge, and for her extensive (The Caboclo of the Aflitos)]. Digital
support. Image: Imogen Stidworthy. photography. Dimensions variable.
Image: Arthur Scovino.
Nilbar Güreş
48 Webcam-Sex; Queer Solo. Danica Dakić
2011‑2012. (Series: Black Series). 56‑57 Céu. 2014. Single-channel video
Mixed media. 72 × 78 cm. projection, colour, sound. 10′53″.
Courtesy: Nilbar Güreş, Rampa Image: Danica Dakić.
Istanbul and Galerie Martin Janda,
Vienna. Image: Nilbar Güreş.
193
 Anna Boghiguian Nahum Zenil
58 Cities by the River. 2014. Mixed 67 Gracias Virgencita de Guadalupe.
media on paper. 29.5 × 42 cm. 1984. [Thanks to the Little Virgin
Image: Anna Boghiguian. of Guadalupe]. Mixed media.
59 Women in Kalighat Red Light 46 × 31 cm. Image: Nahum Zenil.
District behind Mother Teresa.
2014. Guache on watercolour paper. León Ferrari
33 × 43 cm. Image: Anna Boghiguian. 68 Palabras ajenas (capa). 1967.
[Words of Others (cover)]. Book.
Nurit Sharett Image: Fundación Augusto y León
60‑61 Counting the Stars. 2014. Stills Ferrari, Buenos Aires.
from 3-channel HD video. 1h.
Support: Rabinovich Foundation and Etcétera…
Mifal Hapais. Image: Nurit Sharett. 69 Infierno financiero. 2014. [Financial
Hell]. (Series: Errar de Dios. [Erring
Prabhakar Pachpute from God]). Collage: participatory
62 Back to the Farm II. 2013‑2014. installation. Dimensions variable.
Charcoal on wall and stop-motion Courtesy: Etcétera… Errar de Dios, a
video. Image: Prabhakar Pachpute. project by Etcétera… Texts: Franco
62 Back to the Farm I. 2013‑2014. Berardi ‘Bifo’, Loreto Garín Guzmán,
Charcoal on wall and stop-motion Federico Zukerfeld. Architecture:
video. Image: Prabhakar Pachpute. Antoine Silvestre. Graphic design:
63 Dust Bowl in Our Hand. 2013‑2014. Hernán Cardinale. Technological
Charcoal on wall and stop-motion development: UNTREF. Special
video. Image: Prabhakar Pachpute. thanks: Fundación Augusto y León
Ferrari. Image: BOVESPA and Cristo
Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Pedro no Limbo, of Hieronymus Boch.
Lemebel – Francisco Casas)
64 Las dos Fridas. 1989/2014. Archivo F.X. / Pedro G. Romero
[The Two Fridas]. Photography. 70‑71 La Escuela Moderna. 2014. [The
120 × 135 cm. Image: Pedro Modern School]. Installation,
Marinello. photographs. Image: Archivo F.X.

Sergio Zevallos Mujeres Creando

65 Martirios. 1983. [Martyrdoms]. 72‑73 Útero ilegal. 2014. [Illegal
(Series: Suburbios. 1983. [Suburbs]). Uterus]. (Series: 13 horas de
Silver photograph on fiber-based rebelión. [13 Hours of Rebellion]).
paper. 60 × 38.5 cm. Courtesy: Galería Sculpture and video installation.
80m² Livia Benavides, Lima. 9′6″. Courtesy: Mujeres Creando.
Image: Sergio Zevallos. Image: María Galindo.

Ocaña Chto Delat

66 Inmaculada de las pollas. 1976. 74‑75 The Excluded. In a moment of
[Immaculate of the Cocks]. danger. Animation. Duration not
Mix media on paper. 50 × 60 cm. yet confirmed. Co-produced with
Courtesy: Colección Nazario Luque Secession, Vienna. Image: Chto
Vera, Barcelona. Image: Ocaña. Delat.
194
 Kasper Akhøj and Johanna Calle
Tamar Guimarães 84 Contables. 2008. [Countable].
76‑77 A família do Capitão Gervásio. (Series: Imponderables.
2013. [Captain Gervásio’s Family]. 2008‑2009). Wire mesh and
16 mm film loop, concrete copper on cardboard. 39 × 35 cm.
structures. 14′. Courtesy: The Image: Johanna Calle.
artists, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São 85 Nogal. 2012. [Walnut].
Paulo; Ellen De Bruijne Projects, (Series: Perímetros. 2012‑2014.
Amsterdam. Acknowledgments: [Perimeters]). Typed text on
Danish Art Foundation, the medium antique legal ledger. 320 × 412 cm.
Vânia Arantes Damo, Centro Espírita Collection: Marilia Razuk.
Luz da Verdade, its mediums and Courtesy: Johanna Calle and
patients. Image: Tamar Guimarães Marilia Razuk Gallery, São Paulo.
and Kasper Akhøj. Image: Johanna Calle.

Yuri Firmeza Jo Baer

78 A fortaleza. 2010. [The Fortress]. 86 In the Land of Giants (Spiral and
Photography. 150 x 110 cm. Stars). 2013. (Series: In the Land of
Image: Yuri Firmeza. Giants.). Oil on canvas. 155 × 155 cm.
78‑79 Nada é. 2014. [Nothing Is]. Film. Courtesy: Galerie Barbara Thumm,
Duration not yet confirmed. Berlin. Image: Jo Baer.
Image: Yuri Firmeza. 87 Royal Families (Curves, Points
and Little Ones). 2013. (Series: In
Teresa Lanceta the Land of Giants.). Oil on canvas.
80 Handira IV. 1997. (Series: Handira). 155 × 155 cm. Courtesy: Galerie
Wool and cotton fabric. 168 × 97 cm. Barbara Thumm, Berlin. Image: Jo
Image: Teresa Lanceta. Baer.
80 Granada Blanca. 2002. [White
Granada]. Wool and cotton fabric. Ruanne Abou-Rahme and
195 × 134 cm. Image: Teresa Lanceta. Basel Abbas
81 Bert Flint V. 1997‑1998. (Series: Bert- 88 The Incidental Insurgents: The
Flint.). Wool and cotton fabric. Part about the Bandits. 2012.
230 × 110 cm. Image: Teresa Lanceta. Chapter 1: Installation: documents,
images, personal items, desks,
Voluspa Jarpa chairs, table, stools, office cabinet,
82 Minimal Secret. 2011. Laser cut storage boxes, speakers, 2 record
carton. 80 × 40 cm. Private Collection. players, vinyls, sound of vinyl
Image: Voluspa Jarpa. crackle, desktop computer with
83 No-History’s Library. 2012. Print 35′51″ video on loop. Chapter 2:
book instalation. Dimensions 6′ 1-channel video and 2-channel
variable. Collection: Voluspa Jarpa. sound and subwoofer. Dimensions
Image: Voluspa Jarpa. variable. Courtesy: The artists and
Carrol/Fletcher Gallery, London.
This work was produced by Young
Arab Theatre Fund and Al-Ma’mal
Foundation for Contemporary Art,
Jerusalem. Image: Servet Dilber /
13th Istanbul Bienali. 195
 89 The Incidental Insurgents: The Mark Lewis
Part about the Bandits. 2012. 94‑95 Invention. 2014. Production stills
Chapter 1: Installation: documents, for installation. Dimensions variable.
images, personal items, desks, Image: Mark Lewis. Exhibition
chairs, table, stools, office cabinet, design in collaboration with
storage boxes, speakers, two record Mark Wasiuta and Adam Bandler.
players, vinyls, sound of vinyl Financial Support: Canada Council
crackle, desktop computer with for the Arts. Glass Sponsorship:
35′51″ video on loop. Chapter 2: 6′ Guardian Brasil Vidros Planos Ltda.
1-channel video and 2-channel sound São Paulo Architects: SuperLimão
and subwoofer. Dimensions variable. Studio. Special Thanks: Arte Tubos,
Image: Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Daniel Faria Gallery, Justina M.
Contemporary Art, Jerusalem. Barnicke Gallery, The Power Plant
89 The Incidental Insurgents: The Contemporary Art Gallery. Films:
Part about the Bandits. 2012. A Mark Lewis Studio production, in
Chapter 1: Installation: documents, association with Soda Film + Art and
images, personal items, desks, in co-production with the National
chairs, table, stools, office cabinet, Film Board of Canada and RT
storage boxes, speakers, two record Features. Writer and Director: Mark
players, vinyls, sound of vinyl Lewis. Director of Photography:
crackle, desktop computer with Martin Testar. Producer: Eve
35′51″ video on loop. Chapter 2: Gabereau. Co-Producers: Emily
6′ 1-channel video and 2-channel Morgan, Gerry Flahive for NFB,
sound and subwoofer. Dimensions Anita Lee for NFB. Executive
variable. Courtesy: The artists and Producers: Lourenço Sant’ Ana
Carrol/Fletcher Gallery, London. for RT Features, Michelle Van
This work was produced by Young Beusekom for NFB. Special Thanks:
Arab Theatre Fund and Al Mamal Barcelona Filmes
Foundation for Contemporary Art,
Jerusalem Image: Servet Dilber / Agnieszka Piksa
13th Istanbul Bienali. 96‑97 Justice for Aliens. 2012.
Digital collage. 37 × 52.5 cm.
Mapa Teatro – Laboratorio de Image: Agnieszka Piksa.
artistas
90‑91 Los incontados: un tríptico. 2014. Otobong Nkanga
[The Uncounted: A Triptych]. 98‑99 Project of the work Landversation.
Installation. Dimensions variable. 2014. Drawing. Image: Otobong
Image: Mapa Teatro. Nkanga.

Yael Bartana Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa

92‑93 Inferno. 2013. [Hell]. 1-channel 100‑101 Letra morta. 2014. [Dead
video and sound installation. 18′7″. Letter]. HD video. 27′. Director of
Courtesy: Petzel Gallery, New York; photography: José Mari Zabala.
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Image: Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa.
Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel
Aviv. Image: Yael Bartana.

196
 Walid Raad Dimensions variable. Project funded
102 Appendix C _ 19th (mid). 2014. by FWF Austrian Science Fund
(Series: Scratching on Things that (AR 19-G21). Image: Ines Doujak.
I Could Disavow). Wood, drywall, Support: bmukk.
paint. Dimensions variable. Private 107 Cochineal 1738.
collection, Baghdad. Courtesy: Paula (Series: Loomshuttes, Warpaths /
Cooper Gallery, New York. Eccentric Archive. 2009-ongoing).
Image: Walid Raad. Print on paper. Dimensions
103 Untitled 2. 2014. (Series: Scratching variable. Project funded by
on Things that I Could Disavow). FWF Austrian Science Fund (AR
Wood, drywall, paint. Dimensions 19-G21). Image: Ines Doujak.
variable. Private collection, Baghdad. Support: bmukk.
Courtesy: Paula Cooper Gallery, New
York. Image: Walid Raad. Qiu Zhijie
103 Untitled 14. 2014. (Series: Scratching 108 The Map of the Park. 2012. Ink on
on Things that I Could Disavow). wall. 300 × 400 cm. Image: Qiu Zhijie.
Wood, drywall, paint. Dimensions 109 The Map of Utopia. 2012. Ink on
variable. Private collection, Baghdad. wall. 350 × 900 cm. Image: Qiu Zhijie.
Courtesy: Paula Cooper Gallery, New 109 The Map of the Revolutionary
York. Image: Walid Raad. History. 2012. Ink on wall.
100 × 250 cm. Image: Qiu Zhijie.
Giuseppe Campuzano
104 DNI (De Natura Incertus). 2009. Thiago Martins de Melo
Lenticular print. 110 × 144 cm. 110 Árvore de sangue – Fogo que
Image: Carlos Pereyra. consome porcos. 2013. [Blood
105 Carnet. 2011. ID photographs. Tree – Fire Devouring Pigs]. Oil on
Dimensions variable. canvas. 390 × 360 cm. Image: Mendes
Image: Giuseppe Campuzano. Wood DM, São Paulo.
111 Martírio – projeto. 2013.
Ines Doujak and John Barker [Martyrdom – project]. Drawing.
106 Material research for ‘Velvet 1954’. Image: Thiago Martins de Melo.
(Series: Loomshuttes, Warpaths /
Eccentric Archive. 2009-ongoing). Bruno Pacheco
Photography. Project funded by FWF 112 Meeting Point. 2012. Oil on canvas.
Austrian Science Fund (AR 19-G21). 215 × 375 cm. Courtesy: Hollybush
Image: Ines Doujak and John Barker. Gardens, London; Galeria Filomena
Support: bmukk. Soares, Lisbon. Image: Pedro Tropa.
106 Material research for ‘Wool 1580’. 113 Meeting Point. 2011. Oil on canvas.
(Series: Loomshuttes, Warpaths / 220 × 400 cm. Courtesy: Hollybush
Eccentric Archive. 2009-ongoing). Gardens, London; Galeria Filomena
Photography. Project funded by FWF Soares, Lisbon. Image: Pedro Tropa.
Austrian Science Fund (AR 19-G21).
Image: Ines Doujak and John Barker.
Support: bmukk.
107 Velvet 1954. (Series: Loomshuttes,
Warpaths / Eccentric Archive.
2009-ongoing). Print on paper.
197
 Gülsün Karamustafa the merging of the two cities
114‑115 Muhacir. 2003. [The Settler]. models from a variety of
2-channel vídeo. 5′18″. perspectives). 2014. Prints, video,
Courtesy: Gülsün Karamustafa and scale model. Dimensions variable.
Rampa, Istanbul. Image: Gülsün Courtesy: Studio Jonas Staal.
Karamustafa. Image: Jonas Staal

Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Erick Beltrán

Grupo Contrafilé 126‑127 O que caminha ao lado. 2014.
116 Mujawara. 2014. Event, [Double Goer]. Project. Image: Erick
collaborative action. Image: Sandi Beltrán.
Hilal and Alessandro Petti.
117 Preparation for the Baobá plantation Tony Chakar
ritual, Pajelança Quilombólica 128‑129 Of Other Worlds that Are in This
Digital, Baobás’ Route/Mocambos One. 2014. Project. Image: Tony
Network, Roseira Farm, Campinas, Chakar.
2010. Event, collaborative action.
Image: Peetssa Nilbar Güreş
132‑133 Open Phone Booth. 2011. 3-channel
Michael Kessus Gedalyovich video, HD, 16:9 format. 33′46″.
118‑119 The Name Giver. 2013. Oil Courtesy: Nilbar Güreş, Rampa
and tar on wood. 170 × 76 cm. Istanbul and Galerie Martin Janda,
Courtesy: Michael Kessus Vienna. Image: Nilbar Güreş.
Gedalyovich.
Michael Kessus Gedalyovich
Gabriel Mascaro 134 The Placebo Scroll. 2014.
120‑121 Não é sobre sapatos. 2014. [It Is Palimpsest mix with nature.
Not About Shoes]. Video. Duration Dimensions variable. Image: Michael
not yet confirmed. Image: Unknown Kessus Gedalyovich.
author. 135 The Coffee Reader. 2014. Part of
The Placebo Scroll. Image: Michael
Marta Neves Kessus Gedalyovich.
122‑123 Não-ideias. 2011-ongoing. [Non-
Ideas]. Series. Handpainted banner. Lia Perjovschi
Dimensions variable. Image: Marta 136 KM Map. 1999. (Series: Today.).
Neves. Diagram (Mind Map). Dimensions
variable. Image: Lia Perjovschi.
Jonas Staal 137 Knowledge Worker. 1999.
124 Nosso Lar, Brasília (Plans for the (Series: Today.). Diagram (Mind
cities Nosso Lar and Brasília, Map). Dimensions variable.
overlapped). 2014. Prints, video, Image: Lia Perjovschi.
scale model. Dimensions variable.
Courtesy: Studio Jonas Staal.
Image: Jonas Staal.
125 Nosso Lar, Brasília (studies for
the video Nosso, Lar Brasília
showing 3D impressions of
198
 Gülsün Karamustafa Éder Oliveira
138‑139 Resimli Tarih. 1995. [Illustrated 146 Sem título – intervenção
History]. Textile collage. urbana. 2013. [Untitled – urban
350 × 700 cm. Courtesy: Gülsün intervention]. Mural painting.
Karamustafa and Rampa, Istanbul. Dimensions variable. Image: Jessica
Image: Gülsün Karamustafa. Nascimento.
147 Sem título – processos de criação.
Graziela Kunsch and 2013. [Untitled – creative processes].
Lilian L’Abbate Kelian Image: Éder Oliveira.
(Núcleo performático
Subterrânea) Virginia de Medeiros
140 Revista Urbânia. 2001. [Urbânia 148 Sergio e Simone. 2007‑2009. [Sergio
Magazine]. Magazine. and Simone]. Still. Hi8 and digital
141 Revista Urbânia 2. 2002. [Urbânia video. 10′. Image: Virginia de
Magazine 2]. Magazine. Medeiros.
149 Sergio e Simone. 2014. Stills.
Jakob Jakobsen and Hi8 and digital video-installation.
María Berríos Image: Virginia de Medeiros.
142 Arquivo do “Congreso Cultural de
La Habana”. 2014. [Archive of the Juan Downey
‘Congreso Cultural de La Habana’ 150 Shabono Circular. 1977.
[Cultural Congress of Havana]]. [Circular Shabono]. (Series: Video
Digital photography. Image: Jakob Trans Americas. 1973‑1979). 13
Jakobsen and María Berríos. Photographs. 16 × 22 cm (each).
142 Exhibition Del Tercer Mundo [On Image: Juan Downey.
the Third Word], zone 4. 1968. 151 El shabono abandonado. 1978.
Black-and-white photograph. [The Abandoned Shabono].
Courtesy: Archivo Fotográfico del (Series: Video Trans Americas.
Ministerio de Cultura, Centro de 1973‑1979). Video. 27′. Image: Juan
Comunicación Cultural, Havana. Downey.
Image: Archivo Fotográfico del
Ministerio de Cultura, Centro de Yochai Avrahami
Comunicación Cultural, Havana. 152‑153 Stills from research visit videos.
143 Exhibition Del Tercer Mundo [On 2014. Video. Image: Yochai
the Third Word], zone 2. 1968. Avrahami.
Black-and-white photograph.
Courtesy: Archivo Fotográfico del Edward Krasiński
Ministerio de Cultura, Centro de 154 Spear. 1965. View from the
Comunicación Cultural, Havana. exhibition Edward Krasińki ABC,
Image: Archivo Fotográfico del Bunker Sztuky, Krakow, 2008.
Ministerio de Cultura, Centro de 197 × 72 × 5 cm. Collection: Paulina
Comunicación Cultural, Havana. Krasińka, Zalesie. Courtesy: Paulina
Krasińka and Foksal Gallery
ruangrupa Foundation, Warsaw. Image: Paulina
144‑145 RURU. 2000-ongoing. Krasińka and Foksal Gallery
Installation. Dimensions variable. Foundation, Warsaw.
Image: ruangrupa.
199
 155 Spear. c. 1963/1964. 12 wooden Romy Pocztaruk
pieces painted black and red, metal 160‑161 A última aventura: Medicilândia.
wires. 320 cm. Collection: Paulina 2011. [The Last Adventure:
Krasińka, Zalesie. Courtesy: Paulina Mediciland]. Digital photography.
Krasińka and Foksal Gallery Dimensions variable. Image: Romy
Foundation, Warsaw, 2013. Pocztaruk.
Image: Eustachy Kossakowski and
Hanna Ptaskowska / Archive of Teatro da Vertigem
Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. 162‑163 A última palavra é a penúltima.
2008. [The Last Word Is the
Sheela Gowda Penultimate One]. Theatre play.
156 This is the seed of the rubber tree Image: Edu Marin.
viewed under a magnifying glass
(in the hand of the artist!). In the Vivian Suter
background are the rubber sheets. 164‑165 Images of artist’s studio. 2014.
2014. Image: Sheela Gowda. Image: Vivian Suter.
156 The cuts on the trees are for the
latex to ooze out of the tree. Many Juan Downey
of these cuts are quite old. 2014. 166 Inca. 1973. (Series: Video Trans
Image: Sheela Gowda. Americas. 1973‑1976). Black-
157 The liquid latex is coagulated in a and-white video, sound. 27′32″.
tray for about six hours. After which Image: Juan Downey.
it is passed through a simple metal 167 Guatemala. 1973. (Series: Video
press that is in the homes of the Trans Americas. 1973‑1976.). Black-
rubber tappers. Passing it repeatedly and-white video, sound. 27′32″.
between the rollers spreads the Image: Juan Downey.
thick pad of latex into a thinner
sheet. This is then hung on a line to Danica Dakić
dry. As it dries the rubber changes 168‑169 Vila Maria. 2014. Single-channel
into a beige/yellow translucent video projection, colour, sound.
sheet that is then marketed. 2014. 6′56″. Image: Danica Dakić.
Image: Sheela Gowda.
Juan Carlos Romero
Bik Van der Pol 170‑171 Violencia. 1973‑1977. [Violence].
158 School of Missing Studies. Print on paper. Dimensions variable.
2013‑2014. Digital diagram. Image: Juan Carlos Romero.
Dimensions variable. Image: Nikola
Knezevic. Ana Lira
159 [accumulate, collect, show]. 2011. 172‑173 Voto! 2012-ongoing. [Vote!]. Series.
Installation. Dimensions variable. Digital photography. Dimensions
Courtesy: Frieze Projects, Frieze Art variable. Image: Ana Lira.
Fair, London. Image: Bik Van der
Pol. Dan Perjovschi
174 Indignation! 2013. Digital drawing.
Dimensions variable. Image: Iulia
David.

200
175 Before and After Exploitation.
2013. Digital drawing. Dimensions
variable. Image: Iulia David.

Halil Altındere
176‑177 Wonderland. 2013. Video. 8′25″.
Courtesy: Pilot Galeri, Istanbul.
Image: Halil Altındere.

Armando Queiroz with Almires

Martins and Marcelo Rodrigues
178‑179 Ymá Nhandehetama. 2009. Video.
8′20″. Image: Armando Queiroz.

Hudinilson Jr.
180 Pinto não pode. 1981. [Cock Is
not Allowed]. Xerox, stamp paint,
collage on paper. 34.5 × 21 cm.
Courtesy: Galeria Jaqueline Martins,
São Paulo. Image: Filipe Bernt.
180 Hudinilson Jr. producing
photocopies for his works. 1980.
Black-and-white photograph.
Dimensions variable.
Courtesy: Galeria Jaqueline Martins,
São Paulo. Image: Galeria Jaqueline
Martins, São Paulo.
181 Gesto IV (3ª versão). 1986. [Gesture
IV (3rd version)]. Xerox photocopy.
38.5 × 20 cm Courtesy: Galeria
Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo.
Image: Hudinilson Jr.

ARchitecture
183‑184 2014. Image: Oren Sagiv.

EDUCATIVO
187 Toolmap. 2014. Diagramme.
Image: Design Bienal.

VISUAL IDENTITY
189 2014. Poster. Image: Prabhakar
Pachpute / Fundação Bienal de São
Paulo.

201
 Credits Members
Alberto Emmanuel Whitaker
BIENAL DE SÃO PAULO FOUNDATION Alfredo Egydio Setubal
Aluizio Rebello de Araujo
Founder Antonio Bias Bueno Guillon
Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho · 1898–1977 Antonio Bonchristiano
Chairman Emeritus Antonio Henrique Cunha Bueno
Beatriz Pimenta Camargo
Honorary Board Beno Suchodolski
Oscar P. Landmann † Chairman Cacilda Teixeira da Costa
Carlos Alberto Frederico
Honorary Board of former Presidents Carlos Jereissati Filho
Alex Periscinoto Cesar Giobbi
Carlos Bratke Claudio Thomas Lobo Sonder
Celso Neves † Danilo Santos de Miranda
Edemar Cid Ferreira Decio Tozzi
Heitor Martins Eduardo Saron
Jorge Eduardo Stockler Elizabeth Machado
Jorge Wilheim † Emanoel Alves de Araújo
Julio Landmann Evelyn Ioschpe
Luiz Diederichsen Villares Fábio Magalhães
Luiz Fernando Rodrigues Alves † Fernando Greiber
Maria Rodrigues Alves † Fersen Lamas Lembranho
Manoel Francisco Pires da Costa Geyse Marchesi Diniz
Oscar P. Landmann † Heitor Martins
Roberto Muylaert Horácio Lafer Piva
Jackson Schneider
Management Board Jean-Marc Robert Nogueira Baptista Etlin
Tito Enrique da Silva Neto · President João Carlos de Figueiredo Ferraz
Alfredo Egydio Setubal · Vice President José Olympio da Veiga Pereira
Maria Ignez Corrêa da Costa Barbosa
Lifetime Members Marisa Moreira Salles
Adolpho Leirner Meyer Nigri
Alex Periscinoto Miguel Wady Chaia
Álvaro Augusto Vidigal Nizan Guanaes
Carlos Bratke Paulo Sérgio Coutinho Galvão
Carlos Francisco Bandeira Lins Roberto Muylaert
Gilberto Chateaubriand Ronaldo Cezar Coelho
Hélène Matarazzo Sérgio Spinelli Silva Jr.
Jens Olesen Susana Leirner Steinbruch
Julio Landmann Tito Enrique da Silva Neto
Marcos Arbaitman Tufi Duek
Pedro Aranha Corrêa do Lago
Pedro Franco Piva
Pedro Paulo de Sena Madureira
Roberto Pinto de Souza
Rubens José Mattos Cunha Lima
204
Audit Board 31st Bienal de São Paulo
Carlos Alberto Frederico
Gustavo Halbreich Curatorship
Tito Enrique da Silva Neto Charles Esche · Curator
Pedro Aranha Corrêa do Lago Galit Eilat · Curator
Nuria Enguita Mayo · Curator
Executive Board Oren Sagiv · Curator
Luis Terepins · President Pablo Lafuente · Curator
Justo Werlang · 1st Vice President Benjamin Seroussi · Associate Curator
Salo Kibrit · 2nd Vice President Luiza Proença · Associate Curator
Sofia Ralston · Curatorial Assistant
Directors
Flavia Buarque de Almeida Advisory Board
João Livi Ivo Mesquita
Lidia Goldenstein Moacir dos Anjos
Mario Cunha Campos Suely Rolnik
Rodrigo Bresser Pereira
Architecture
Advisor Oren Sagiv · Chief Architect
Emilio Kalil Anna Helena Villela · Coordinator
Roi Zach · Architect
Superintendent Izabel Barboni Rosa · Assistant to Coordination
Rodolfo Walder Viana
Architecture Team
Coordinations Beatriz Vicino
João Yamamoto
Projects and Production General Karina Kouhtek
Coordinator Liz Arakaki
Dora Silveira Corrêa Maria Julia Herklotz
Stav Dror
Education Curator Yifat Zailer
Stela Barbieri
Projects and Production

Production Managers
Felipe Isola
Joaquim Millan

Senior Producers
Helena Ramos
Waleria Dias

205
 Junior Producers Design Coordination
Lilian Bado Ana Elisa de Carvalho Price · Coordinator
Veridiana Simons Felipe Kaizer · Graphic Designer
Vivian Bernfeld Adriano Campos · Design Assistant
Viviane Teixeira Douglas Higa · Design Assistant
Meire Assami · Design Assistant
Production Assistants
Adelaide D’Esposito Editorial Coordination
Fernando Hargreaves Cristina Fino · Coordinator
Fernando Ticoulat Diana Dobránszky · Editor
Gabriela Lopes Maria Lutterbach · Assistant Editor

Transport Logistics Internet and New Technologies

Luiz Santorio Coordination
Patricia Lima Victor Bergmann · Coordinator

Conservation Support to General Coordination

Graziela Carbonari Eduardo Lirani · Controller and Graphic
Producer
Research
Thiago Gil Press Office
Pool de Comunicação
Light Design Project
Design da Luz Estúdio (Fernanda Carvalho) External International Press Relations
Rhiannon Pickles PR
Set Construction
Fresh Design Audio Guide
Estúdio Zut
Artworks’ Audio-visual
Maxi Áudio Luz Imagem Website Development
Agência Pic
Volunteer Assistant
Jônatas Clemente Pereira de Brito Mobile Application
Estúdio Existo
Communication
Audio-visual Documentation
Communication Coordination Management
Felipe Taboada · Coordinator Pedro Ivo Trasferetti von Ah
Julia Bolliger Murari · Communication
Assistant
Gabriela Longman · International Press
Relations

206
Educativo Bienal Supervisors
Ana Gabriela Leirias
General Coordination Ana Helena Garcia Santana
Daniela Azevedo Carlos Eduardo Poma Valadão
Carolina Albuquerque Gonçalves
General Supervision Elena Robles Garcia
Carolina Melo · Internal Relations and Training Julia Jenior Lotufo
Celso Rabetti · Production and Administration Leonardo Araújo Beserra
Helena Kavaliunas · External Relations and Marcus Vinicius Silva dos Santos
Communication Maria Lígia Nobre Goes
Laura Barboza · Education and Content Pedro Augusto Andrada
Guga Queiroga · Assistant to Supervision Raíza Ribeiro Cavalcanti
Sidiney Peterson Ferreira de Lima
Administration Viviane Tabach
Simone Martins · Assistant Wilson Tonon Lazarim

Evaluation of Actions Production

Rosana Martins · Coordinator Ana Luisa Nossar · Coordinator
Luan Inarra · Intern Dayves Vegini · Coordination Assistant
Lila Schneider · Producer
Communication Uirá França · Producer
Jhony Arai · Coordinator André Bitinas · Assistant
Felipe Félix · Videomaker Pedro Nascimento · Assistant
Vivian Lobato · Journalist Diogo Terra Vargas · Intern
Sofia Colucci · Photographer
Rodrigo Lins · Photographer Projects and Partnerships
Sattva Horaci · Intern Photographer Pablo Tallavera · Actions in Communities
Coordinator
Content Felipe Tenório · Actions in Communities
Elaine Fontana · Coordinator Assistant
Célia Barros · Content Research and Lecturer Anita Limulja · Teacher for the Bienal at the
Leonardo Matsuhei · Content Research and Schools Project
Lecturer Débora Rosa · Teacher for the Bienal at the
Paula Nogueira Ramos · Content Research and Schools Project
Lecturer Bianca Casemiro · Producer
Regiane Ishii · Content Research and Lecturer Cecília Bracale · Producer
Mayra Koketsu · Producer
Educators’ Training
Elaine Fontana · Coordinator External Relations
Marina Pecci Jimenez · Assistant Ana Lua Contatore · Assistant
Maíra Martinez · Assistant

Volunteers
Rosa Maria Maia Antunes · Coordinator
Vera Cerqueira
Natalia Galindo Chiarelli

207
 Content Production for Educational Pablo Lafuente
Material Pedro Garbellini da Silva
Helenira Paulino · Coordination Pio Santana
Célia Barros Regiane Ishii
Leonardo Matsuhei Rosana Martins
Matias Monteiro Roseli Alves
Regiane Ishii Sattva Horaci
Stela Barbieri
Workshop for the development of Sofia Ralston
Educational Material Talita Paes
Ana Carolina Druwe Vivian Lobato
Ana Helena Grimaldi Viviane Tabach
Ana Letícia Penedo
Bruno Garibaldi Bienal Archive
Carlos Alberto Negrini Ana Luiza de Oliveira Mattos · Coordinator
Carlos Eduardo Gomes Silva Ana Paula Andrade Marques · Researcher
Carlos Eduardo Gonçalves da Silva Fernanda Curi · Researcher
Carlos Eduardo Poma Valadão Giselle Rocha · Conservation
Carolina Melo Melânie Vargas de Araujo · Archivist
Célia Barros
Clara Alves Library Project
Débora Rosa Maria do Socorro Ferreira de Araújo ·
Divina Datovo Prado Librarian
Elaine Fontana Marcele Souto Yakabi · Archivist
Eri Alves Milton dos Santos · Assistant
Fábio Gomes
Fábio Caiana Inventory Project
Fátima Regina Vilas Bôas Silvana Goulart França Guimarães ·
Felipe Tenório Coordinator
Helena Kavaliunas Ana Maria de Almeida Camargo · Advisor
Helenira Paulino Sebastiana Cordeiro da Silva · Senior Archivist
Jhony Arai Gustavo Aquino dos Reis · Junior Archivist
Juliana Rodrigues Barros Matheus Pastrello da Silva · Intern
Lara Teixeira da Silva Gabriela Brancaglion Alfonso · Intern
Lívia Cristina dos Anjos Nascimento Thaís Vital Pelligrinelli · Intern
Luiza Proença Guilherme Rodrigues Ribeiro da Silva · Intern
Lucas Itacarambi
Lucia Abreu Machado Legal Counselling
Luciano Fávaro Marcello Ferreira Netto
Marcel Cabral Couto
Marco Biglia
Maria Elisabeth Vespoli
Maria Filippa Jorge
Marisa Pires Duarte
Marlene Hirata
Nuria Enguita Mayo
Oiram Bichaff
208
Financial Management Maintenance
Vagner Carvalho · Manager Alexandro Pedreira da Silva
Amarildo Firmino Gomes · Accountant Cléber Silva de Souza
Fábio Kato · Financial Clerk Paulo Vitor Silva Oliveira
Lisânia Praxedes dos Santos · Assistant Vanderlan da Silva Bispo
Thatiane Pinheiro Ribeiro · Financial Assistant
Valdemiro Rodrigues da Silva · Supplies Janitors
Coordinator Isabel Rodrigues Ferreira
Vinícius Robson da Silva Araújo · Supplies Mércia Ferreira da Silva
Clerk Rodrigo Costa de Assunção
Vanilde Herculano da Silva
Marketing & Fundraising
Marta Delpoio · Coordinator General Secretariat
Gláucia Ribeiro · Analyst Maria Rita Marinho · Manager
Raquel Silva · Assistant Angélica de Oliveira Divino · Administrative
Assistant
Human Resources & Maintenance Carlos Roberto Rodrigues Rosa · Courier
Mário Rodrigues · Manager Josefa Gomes · Catering Assistant
Albert Cabral dos Santos · Human Resources
Assistant Information Technology
Danilo Alexandre Machado de Souza · Human Leandro Takegami · Coordinator
Resources Assistant Jefferson Pedro · Assistant
Manoel Lindolfo C. Batista · Consultant
Engineer Institutional Relations
Wagner Pereira de Andrade · Caretaker Flávia Abbud · Coordinator
Marina Dias Teixeira · Assistant
Reception
Receptionists
Fabiana Salgado
José Cicero Quelis da Silva
Nilsandro Batista
Marcelo dos Santos
Pedro Luiz Januário
Rogério de Jesus Rodrigues

Fire Brigade
Andre Fernando Ferreira Pacifico
Artur Medeiros
Leandro Silva Meira Corelli
Ricardo de Azevedo Santos

209
 PUBLICATION Editorial Coordination
Editorial Bienal
Concept
Benjamin Seroussi Desktop Publishing
Charles Esche Design Bienal
Galit Eilat
Luiza Proença Translation
Nuria Enguita Mayo Cid Knipel (English, French, Spanish/
Oren Sagiv Portuguese)
Pablo Lafuente Danielle Zilberberg (Hebrew/English)
Dean Inkster (French/English)
Edited by Gênese Andrade (Spanish/Portuguese)
Erick Beltrán Jeffery Hessney (Portuguese/English)
Nuria Enguita Mayo Lambe&Nieto (Spanish/English)
Matthew Rinaldi (Portuguese/English)
Authors Vadim Nikitin (Russian/Portuguese)
Alejandra Riera – AR Ziv Neeman (Hebrew/English)
Ana Maria Maia – AMM
Benjamin Seroussi – BS Copyediting and Proofreading
Bik Van der Pol – BVDP Bruno Tenan (Portuguese)
Charles Esche – CE Clare Butcher (English)
Galit Eilat – GE Jeffery Hessney (English)
Graziela Kunsch – GK
Helena Vilalta – HV Images Management
Ines Doujak – ID Pedro Ivo Trasferetti von Ah
Jakob Jakobsen – jj
John Barker – JB Graphic Production
Luiza Proença – LP Signorini Produção Gráfica
Mapa Teatro – MT
Marcio Harum – MH Pre-press
Maria Berríos – MB Ipsis
Marta Mestre – MM
Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz – MJHC Printing and Finishing
Miguel A. López – MAL Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo
Nuria Enguita Mayo – NEM
Pablo Lafuente – PL
Pedro G. Romero – PGR
Santiago García Navarro – SGN
Teresa Lanceta – TL
UEINZZ
Walid Raad – WR
Walter Solon – ws

Graphic Project
Erick Beltrán

210
© Publication Copyright: Dados Internacionais de Catalogação
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. na Publicação (CIP)
All rights reserved.
[Guide 31st Bienal de São Paulo: how to
Images and texts reproduced in this
(…) things that don’t exist] / Edited by
publication were granted by permission from
Nuria Enguita Mayo and Erick Beltrán.
the artists, photographers, writers or their
-- São Paulo : Fundação Bienal de São
legal representatives, and are protected by
Paulo, 2014.
law and licence agreements.
Curated by: Charles Esche, Galit Eilat,
No part of this publication may be Nuria Enguita Mayo, Oren Sagiv, Pablo
reproduced without prior stated permission Lafuente, Benjamin Seroussi, Luiza
from the artist, photographer and writer. Proença.

ISBN: 978-85-85298-47-0
All efforts were made to find the copyright
owners, although this was not always 1. Arte - Exposições – Guias. I. Mayo, Nuria
successful. We will be happy to correct any Enguita. II. Beltrán, Erick. I. Esche,
omission in case it comes to our knownledge. Charles. II. Eilat , Galit. III. Sagiv,
Oren. IV. Lafuente, Pablo. V. Seroussi,
This guide was published on the occasion of Benjamin. VI. Proença, Luiza. VII.
the 31st Bienal de São Paulo – How to (…) Título
things that don’t exist, held from 6 September
 CDD-700.74
through 7 December 2014 at the Ciccillo
Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park.
Índice para catálogo sistemático:
www.bienal.org.br
1. Arte : Exposições : Guias 700.74

211
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Institucionals: ABACT, Academy of the Arts of the World, Acervo África, Afterall, Arquivo da
Câmara dos Deputados, Arquivo Público do Estado de São Paulo, Arquivo Público do Estado
do Rio de Janeiro, Arte Tubos, Associação Cultural Kinoforum, Associação Reciclázaro, Ateliê
Aberto, Barcelona Filmes, Biblioteca Terra Livre, Brilia, Canada Council for the Arts, Casa da
Imagem, Casa da Lapa, Casa de Cultura Tainã, Casa do Migrante, Casa do Povo, Central Saint
Martins, Centro Cultural São João, Centro Cultural São Paulo – CCSP, Centro de Convivência
Educativo e Cultural de Heliópolis, Centro de Formação Cultural Cidade Tiradentes, Choque
Cultural, Cia Ballet de Cegos, Cine Marabá, Cinecidade Locações, Clube de Mães, Colégio
de Santa Inês, Coletivo BaixoCentro, Coletivo Feito a Mão, Coletivo Katu, Coletivo Ocupe
a Cidade, Condomínio Copan, Consulado Geral do México em São Paulo, Coordenação de
Documentação Diplomática do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Daniel Faria Gallery,
Edifício Martinelli, EE Professor Augusto Baillot, EE Professor Ceciliano José Ennes, El
Galpón Espacio, Embaixada da República da Polônia em Brasília, EMEF Deputado Rogê
Ferreira, EMEF General Osório, EMEF Presidente Campos Salles, Escola de Samba Sociedade
Rosas de Ouro, Escola de Samba Unidos de Vila Maria, Espaço Fonte, ETEC de Artes, FDE –
Fundação para o Desenvolvimento da Educação, Foksal Gallery Foundation, Fundação Julita,
Fundação Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, Fundación Augusto y León Ferrari Arte y Acervo
(FALFAA), Galeria Athena Contemporânea, Galeria do Rock, Galeria Isabel Aninat, Goethe-
Institut São Paulo, Grupo Cangarassu, Guardian Vidros do Brasil, Hebraica São Paulo, Ilú Obá
De Min, Instituto Brincante, Instituto de Artes do Pará, Instituto João Goulart, Instituto Nova
União da Arte, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Kunsthalle Basel, Largo das Artes, Lightbox,
Marcha das Vadias, Mendes Wood DM, Metro Jornal, Mifal Hapais, Museo de Arte de Lima
(MALI), Museu Afro Brasil, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), Museu
Mineiro, Museu Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Museum Jorn, Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA), National Film Board of Canada, Núcleo de Artes Afrobrasileiras da
USP, Núcleo Educativo Bolha de Sabão, Ocupação Cine Marrocos, Pará Movimento, Pilot
Gallery, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Playarte Pictures, Poiesis – Oficinas Culturais,
Prefeitura de São Paulo, Projeto Âncora, Projeto Arrastão, Projeto Latitude, Quiddity Films,
Rabinovich Foundation, Rampa Istanbul, RT Features, Santander Cultural, Sarau da Cooperifa,
Secretaria Municipal da Educação, SISEM – Sistema Estadual de Museus de São Paulo, Soda
Film + Art, SP Urbanismo, Subprefeitura da Sé, SuperLimão Studio, Terra de Santa Cruz,
The Danish Arts Foundation, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Top 35 Locação
de Equipamentos Cinematográficos, Tropical Filmes, UNIFOR, Via Quatro, Videobrasil,
Voodoohop, Whitechapel Gallery

212
People: Adam Szymcyzk, Adriana Leal, Adston Mantovani Junior, Afonso Luz, Agustín Pérez
Rubio, Aizpea Goenaga Mendiola, Al Clark, Albert Benlloch, Alberto Whitaker, Alejandra
Hernández Muños, Alejandra Muñoz, Aleksander Gowin, Alessandro Correia Marques,
Alexandre Henrique da Silva, Alfonso Celso, Alissandro Doerzbacher, Alper Demirbas,
Amilcar Packer, Amit Meker, Ana Carolina Druwe, Ana Dupas, Ana Helena Grimaldi, Ana
Letícia Penedo, Ana Pato, Ana Paula Cohen, André Ferraz, André Mesquita, Angélica Viana
da Hora, Anibal Jozami, Anita Lee, Anna Ferrari, Anthony Corwin, Antonio Carlos Figueira
de Mello, Antonio de Souza Neto, Arnaldo de Almeida Santos, Audrey Regina Ponce, Aurora
Maria Sgambatti Freitas, Barbara Fischer, Barbara Thumm, Barry Rosen, Bart Baere,
Bartomeu Marí, Bel Falleiros, Bernardo De Souza, Bernardo Nunes Nielsen, Berta Sureda,
Brunna Macedo de Medeiros, Bruno Garibaldi, Bruno Possatti, Carla Caffé, Carla Tavarez,
Carlos Alberto Negrini, Carlos Eduardo Gomes da Silva, Carlos Eduardo Gonçalves, Carlos
Eduardo Valadão, Carlos Urroz, Carolina Eymann, Cássia Aparecida Frai Alves, Celso Curi,
Celso Donizeti Brito, Christian Duarte, Cicero Teles da Silva, Clara Alves, Cleide Lourenço
Inácio Pereira, Clémentine Deliss, Cleuza Silveira, Craig Burnett, Cristiana Tejo, Cristina
Aparecida Reis Figueira, Daina Leyton, Daniel Faria, Daniel Ruaix Duran, Daniel Sabóia,
Daniela Castro, Daniela Gutfreund, Darlan Alves, Davide Quadrio, Davidson Panis Kaseker,
Débora Rosa da Silva, Defne Ayas, Demétrio Portugal, Dercy Aparecido Pereira, Desiderio
Navarro, Diana Wescher, Diogo Rocha Ferreira, Dorota Kwinta, Douglas Freitas, Eduardo
Jesus, Edward Fletcher, Elcio Fonseca, Elena Aparicio, Elena Hill, Eliana Maria Lorieri,
Elizabeth de Toledo e Silva, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Elvira Marco, Emerson Rossini, Emily
Morgan, Eri Alves, Esra Sarigedik, Ester Pegueroles, Eve Gabereau, Fabio Cypriano, Fábio
Gomes, Fábio Moreira Caiana, Fabíola Caetano, Fátima Regina Vilas Bôas, Felipe Luz, Felipe
Tenório da Silva, Felix Esche, Fernando Abdalla, Fernando de Oliveira Silva, Fernando José
Mendonça de Araujo, Fernando Oliva, Flavia Giacomini, Frances Harvey, Francesca Colussi,
Francisco Cruz, Gabriela Vanzetta, Gaëtane Verna, Gerry Flahive, Gisneide Tavares da Silva,
Guilherme Wisnik, Gustavo Mussi Canovas, Gustavo Tranquilin Henrique, Heitor Martins,
Helena Rabethge, Hendrik Folkerts, Hudinilson e Maria Aparecida Urbano, Iara Rolnik
Xavier, Iara Teixeira da Silva, Icaro Vilaça, Iridam Cordeiro Rocha, Irmã Nilza, Isabel Martínez
Abascal, Jade Kouri Marcos, Janaina Dalri, Jane Warrilow, Jânio de Oliveira, Jaqueline Martins,
Jean-Claude Bernardet, Jesús Carrillo, Joanna Kiliszek, Joël Girard, John van de Velde, José
Amálio Pinheiro, Jose Eduardo Ferreira Santos (Dinho), José Macedo de Medeiros, José Roca,
Jossua Aquarone, Joyce Almeida dos Santos, Júlia Ferreira, Julia Rebouças, Juliana Pozzi,
Juliana Rodrigues Barros, Julie Trickett, Julieta Zamorano, Julio C. Perez N., Júlio Martins,
Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte, Kathrin Kur, Lala Rebaza, Lamartiny Silveira Gomes,
Laura Sobral, Laura Vallés, Laurence Rassel, Laymert Garcia dos Santos, Lia Mara Piccolo,
Lia Rodrigues, Ligia Nobre, Lilian da Silva Lima, Lisa Um, Lisette Lagnado, Lívia Cristina dos
Anjos Nascimento, Lourenço Sant’ Anna, Lua Gimenes, Lucas Gioja, Lucas Itacarambi, Lucas
Oliveira, Lucas Satti, Lucia Abreu Machado, Lucia Barnea, Luciane Ramos, Luciano Fávaro,

213
Lucilene Aparecida Esperante, Luis Enguita, Luis Romero, Luiz Coradazzi, Luiz Fernando de
Almeida, Luiz Fernando Mizukami, Lula Gouveia, Magdalena Ziolkowska, Maila dos Anjos
Accula, Manuel Borja-Villel, Mara Sartore, Marcel Cabral Couto, Marcelo Rezende, Marcelo
Walter Durst, Marcio Harum, Marco A. Biglia Junior, Marcone Vinicius Moraes de Souza,
Marcos Moraes, Maria da Glória do Espírito Santo de Araújo, Maria Elisabeth Vespoli, Maria
Filippa C. Jorge, Maria Helena Chenque, Mariana Cobra, Mariana Lorenzi, Maribel López,
Marília de Santis, Marilys Downey, Maria Muhle, Mario Ramiro, Mario Sergio Ribeiro, Marisa
Pires Duarte, Marlene Hirata Uchima, Marlise Ilhesca, Marta Kuzma, Marta Rincón, Matheus
Cury, Matias Barboza Pinto, Mauricio Gasperini, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Michel Gaboury,
Miguel A. López, Miguel Albero, Milton Fucci Junior, Mirela Fernanda Maia Milanez
Valverde, Mirian Ribeiro dos Santos, Natalia Majluf, Nayara Datovo Prado, Nazario Luque
Vera, Norton Ficarelli, Oiram Bichaff, Orlando Maneschy, Osman Eralp, Otto Berchem, Pablo
León de la Barra, Patricia Almeida, Paula Chiaverini, Paulina Krasinska, Paulo Herkenhoff,
Paulo Rodrigues, Pedro Barbosa, Pedro Garbellini da Silva, Pedro Montes Lira, Pep Benlloch,
Pere Pedrals, Pio Santana, Rachel Cook, Rachel Robey, Rafael Barber, Raimond Chaves,
Raquel Rolnik, Renata Toledo Geo, Rentao Sivieri, Ricardo Resende, Roberto Winter, Rodrigo
Oliveira, Rodrigo Teixeira, Ronaldo Antônio dos Santos, Rosario Peiró, Roseli Alves, Roseli
Garcia, Sandra Rodrigues Paula, Solange Farkas, Sonia Ferrari Rodovalho, Sophia Alckmin,
Sr. Cabral, Stephanie Smith, Talita Paes, Tania Bruguera, Tatiana Guerrero, Teresa Lizaranzu,
Teresa Østegaard Pedersen, Thais Romão, Toco Alves, Tom Freitas, Tunga, Vasif Kortun,
Vera Lúcia Dias da Silva Crisafulli, Vicente Todolí, Vitor Cesar, Waltemir Belli Nalles, Yolanda
Wood, Zdenka Badovinac
C O - R EAL I s A T IO N

E ducation S ponsorship
R amp S ponsorship

Sponsorship

SU P P OR T
MED IA S UP P O R T

Communication

CU L T U R A L PA R TN E R S

Project made possible with the support of Proac.

I nternational S upport

R EAL I s A TIO N
 96 Agnieszka Piksa. 1984, Warsaw,
INDEX of Poland.

participants 30 Alejandra Riera. 1965, Buenos

Aires, Argentina.

116 Alessandro Petti. 1973, Pescara,

Italy.

178 Almires Martins. 1967. Mato

Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

172 Ana Lira. 1977, Caruaru, Brazil.

58 Anna Boghiguian. 1946, Cairo,

Egypt.

178 Armando Queiroz. 1968,

Belém, Brazil.

54 Arthur Scovino. 1980, São

Gonçalo, Brazil.

32 Asger Jorn. 1914, Vejrum,

Denmark – 1973, Aarhus,
Denmark.

36 Asier Mendizabal. 1973,

Ordizia, Spain.

88 Basel Abbas. 1983, Nicosia,

Cyprus.

158 Bik Van der Pol. 1994,

Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

112 Bruno Pacheco. 1974, Lisbon,

Portugal.

74 Chto Delat. 2003, Saint

Petersburg, Russia.

220
 116 Contrafilé, Grupo. 2000, São 176 Halil Altındere. 1971, Mardin,
Paulo, Brazil. Turkey.

40 Clara Ianni. 1987, São Paulo, 180 Hudinilson Jr. 1957-2013, São
Brazil. Paulo, Brazil.

174 Dan Perjovschi. 1961, Sibiu, 46 Imogen Stidworthy. 1963,

Romania. London, England.

168 Danica Dakić. 1962, Sarajevo, 106 Ines Doujak. 1959, Klagenfurt,
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria.

40 Débora Maria da Silva. 1959, 142 Jakob Jakobsen. 1965,

Recife, Brazil. Copenhagen, Denmark.

146 Éder Oliveira. 1983, Nova 86 Jo Baer. 1929, Seattle, United

Timboteua, Brazil. States.

154 Edward Krasiński. 1925, Lutsk 84 Johanna Calle. 1965, Bogotá,

(today part of Ukraine), Poland Colombia.
– 2004, Warsaw, Poland.
106 John Barker. 1948, London,
42 El Hadji Sy. 1954, Dakar, England.
Senegal.
124 Jonas Staal. 1981, Zwolle, The
126 Erick Beltrán. 1974, Mexico Netherlands.
City, Mexico.
170 Juan Carlos Romero. 1931,
68 Etcétera… 1997, Buenos Aires, Avellaneda, Argentina.
Argentina.
150, 166 Juan Downey. 1940, Santiago,
120 Gabriel Mascaro. 1983, Recife, Chile – 1993, New York, United
Brazil. States.

104 Giuseppe Campuzano. 100 Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa. 1963,

1969–2013, Lima, Peru. Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.

130, 140 Graziela Kunsch. 1979, São 76 Kasper Akhøj. 1976,

Paulo, Brazil. Copenhagen, Denmark.

114, 138 Gülsün Karamustafa. 1946, 44 Lázaro Saavedra. 1964, Havana,

Ankara, Turkey. Cuba.

221
 50 Leigh Orpaz. 1977, New York, 60 Nurit Sharett. 1963, Tel Aviv,
United States. Israel.

68 León Ferrari. 1920–2013, 64 Ocaña. 1947, Cantillana, Spain –

Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1983, Seville, Spain.

136 Lia Perjovschi. 1961, Sibiu, 98 Otobong Nkanga. 1974, Kano,

Romania. Nigeria.

140 Lilian L’Abbate Kelian. 1976, 70 Pedro G. Romero. 1964,

São Paulo, Brazil. Aracena, Spain.

90 Mapa Teatro – Laboratorio de 62 Prabhakar Pachpute. 1986,

artistas. 1984, Paris, France. Chandrapur, India.

178 Marcelo Rodrigues. 1965, 108 Qiu Zhijie. 1969, Zhangzhou,

Belém, Brazil. China.

142 María Berríos. 1978, Santiago, 160 Romy Pocztaruk. 1983, Porto
Chile. Alegre, Brazil.

94 Mark Lewis. 1958, Hamilton, 144 ruangrupa. 2000, Jakarta,

Canada. Indonesia.

122 Marta Neves. 1964, Belo 88 Ruanne Abou‑Rahme. 1983,

Horizonte, Brazil. Boston, United States.

118, 134 Michael Kessus Gedalyovich. 116 Sandi Hilal. 1973, Beit Sahour,
1960, Haifa, Israel. Palestine.

64 Miguel A. López. 1983, Lima, 64 Sergio Zevallos. 1962, Lima,

Peru. Peru.

72 Mujeres Creando. 1992, La Paz, 156 Sheela Gowda. 1957,

Bolivia. Bhadravati, India.

64 Nahum B. Zenil. 1947, 76 Tamar Guimarães. 1967, Belo

Chicontepec, Mexico. Horizonte, Brazil.

48, 132 Nilbar Güreş. 1977, Istanbul, 162 Teatro da Vertigem. 1991, São
Turkey. Paulo, Brazil.

222
 80 Teresa Lanceta. 1951, 78 Yuri Firmeza. 1982, São Paulo,
Barcelona, Spain. Brazil.

110 Thiago Martins de Melo. 1981,

São Luís, Brazil.

34 Tiago Borges. 1973, Luanda,

Angola.

128 Tony Chakar. 1968, Beirut,

Lebanon.

30 UEINZZ, Cia Teatral. 1977, São

Paulo, Brazil.

38 Val del Omar. 1904, Granada,

Spain – 1982, Madrid, Spain.

148 Virginia de Medeiros. 1973,

Feira de Santana, Brazil.

164 Vivian Suter. 1949, Buenos

Aires, Argentina.

82 Voluspa Jarpa. 1971, Rancagua,

Chile.

102 Walid Raad. 1967, Chbanieh,

Lebanon.

52 Wilhelm Sasnal. 1972, Tarnów,

Poland.

92 Yael Bartana. 1970, Afula, Israel.

64 Yeguas del Apocalipsis. 1987-

1997, Santiago, Chile.

152 Yochai Avrahami. 1970, Afula,

Israel.

34 Yonamine. 1975, Luanda,

Angola.

223
Typefaces: Century Old Style (Adobe) and Circular (Lineto).
Papers: Offset Alta Alvura 90 g/m² (inside);
Supremo Alta Alvura 250 g/m² (cover).
Print-run: 1,000 copies.