Cultural Anthropophagy

The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 1998

Lisette Lagnado and other authors

Exhibition Histories
Cultural Anthropophagy
The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 1998

Lisette Lagnado and Pablo Lafuente (editors)

With additional essays by Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, Carmen

Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz, and Renato Sztutman; interviews
with artists Dias & Riedweg (conducted by Line Ellegaard)
and Andrea Fraser (conducted by David Morris); and texts
by Oswald de Andrade, Andrea Fraser and Paulo Herkenhoff.

Exhibition Histories
Exhibition Histories

Afterall Books presents Exhibition Histories, a series dedicated to shows of

contemporary art that have – since the first documenta in Kassel, Germany, in
1955 – shaped the way art is experienced, made and discussed. Each book in
the series draws on archival material, bringing together numerous illustrations,
texts from the time and newly commissioned essays to provide detailed explor-
ation and analysis of selected exhibitions. The shows under consideration
have all responded to and influenced artistic practice whilst provoking
debates about the meaning and importance of art within culture and society
more broadly.

The history of modern art has conventionally focused on artistic production,

emphasising the individual artist in the studio and the influences on his or
her practice. Exhibition Histories complicates this approach by arguing for
an examination of art in the moment and context in which it is presented to
a public. Exhibitions offer art its first contact with an audience, and in so
doing they place art within explicit or implicit narratives and discursive
frameworks. Every decision about the selection and installation of work, the
choice and use of the venue, the marketing strategy and the accompanying
printed matter informs our understanding of the art on display. The various
agents and diverse factors that give form to an exhibition and determine its
subsequent influence are addressed in these books from multiple standpoints:
the voices of artists, curators and writers are all brought to bear. In some
instances the shows selected for study already have established reputations
and our work involves analysing why this is so and whether it is justified. In
other cases the opportunity is taken to illuminate lesser-known exhibitions
that have, nonetheless, suggested new paradigms and that can stake an equal
claim to historical importance.

This series is the result of a research project initiated by Afterall at Central

Saint Martins and it benefits from the collaboration of the Center for
Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Through archival study, interviews, sym-
posia and seminars, we have amassed the materials to allow us to select
exhibitions for examination and to give shape to the resulting books. The
findings, analyses and narratives we propose are by no means exhaustive; rather,
we see these books as a spur to further research into the exhibition form, and
ultimately as a contribution towards a better understanding of contemporary
art and its histories.
Front cover image: Distribution Cultural Anthropophagy
Laura Lima, Sem título (Untitled), 1997–98, Koenig Books, London
and Edgar de Souza, Sem título (Dois corpos) c/o Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 1998
(Untitled (Two bodies)), 1997, © the artists Ehrenstr. 4, 50672 Köln
and Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Tel. +49 (0) 221 / 20 59 6 53
Bienal de São Paulo; photography: Juan Guerra Fax +49 (0) 221 / 20 59 6 60
[email protected]
Back cover image:
Regina Silveira, Tropel (Throng), 1998, on the UK & Eire
façade of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Cornerhouse Publications
© the artist and Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo/ 2 Tony Wilson Place
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo; photography: Manchester, M1 5NH
Juan Guerra Tel. +44 (0) 161 200 15 03
Fax +44 (0) 161 200 15 04
Edited by Pablo Lafuente and Lisette Lagnado [email protected]

First published 2015 by Afterall Books in Outside Europe

association with the Center for Curatorial D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.
Studies, Bard College 155 6th Avenue, 2nd Floor
USA-New York, NY 10013
Exhibition Histories Series Editors Tel. +1 212 627 1999
Tom Eccles, Charles Esche, Pablo Lafuente, Fax +1 212 627 9484
Paul O’Neill and Lucy Steeds [email protected]

Managing Editor ISBN 978-3-86335-554-8 (Koenig Books, London)

David Morris ISBN 978-1-84638-149-5 (Afterall Books, London)

Associate Editor British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Line Ellegaard A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Research Interns
Rafa Barber, Alice Ciresola, Piotr Florczyk, ©2015 Afterall, Central Saint Martins, University
Ella Lewis-Williams and Irene Rossini of the Arts London, the artists and the authors

Afterall All rights reserved. No part of this publication

Central Saint Martins may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
University of the Arts London or transmitted in any form or by any means,
Granary Building electronic, mechanical, photocopying or
1 Granary Square otherwise, without the written permission
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The publishers have made every effort to contact
Editorial Directors the copyright holders of the material included
Charles Esche and Mark Lewis in this book. However, if there are omissions,
please let us know ([email protected]) and
Publishing Director future editions will be amended
Caroline Woodley
Exhibition Histories was initially developed with
Copy Editor Teresa Gleadowe as Research Consultant and
Deirdre O’Dwyer as a Series Editor with Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen
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Exhibition Histories
 Contents
248 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States:
Five Broadcasts on the 24th Bienal de São Paulo
8 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: — Andrea Fraser, 1998
The 24th Bienal de São Paulo
— Lisette Lagnado 268 Interviews
268 — Andrea Fraser in conversation with David Morris
63 The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 1998 272 — Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard
68 ‘Representações Nacionais’ (‘National Representations’)
78 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’ 280 Afterword: For What, For Whom
(‘Brazilian Contemporary Art: One and/among Other/s’) — Pablo Lafuente
100 ‘Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
Roteiros. Roteiros.’ (‘Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. 284 Authors’ biographies
Routes. Routes. Routes.’) 287 Selected bibliography
114 ‘Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos’ 290 Picture credits
(‘Historical Nucleus: Anthropophagy and Histories 292 Acknowledgements
of Cannibalisms’) 293 Index
174 Catalogue covers

176 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy

After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo
— Mirtes Marins de Oliveira

188 Out of the cantinho — Art Education at the 24th Bienal

de São Paulo
— Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz

206 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites: Reconnecting

Oswald de Andrade’s Proposal to Amerindian Art-Thought
— Renato Sztutman

222 Manifesto antropófago 

— Oswald de Andrade, 1928

226 Anthropophagite Manifesto

— Oswald de Andrade, 1928

230 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art

— Paulo Herkenhoff, 1993
 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: As time passes and memories of the exhibition as a whole fade, it is
The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Herkenhoff ’s ‘Núcleo Histórico’ (‘Historical Nucleus’) – which was subtitled pp.114–73

— Lisette Lagnado ‘Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos’ (‘Anthropophagy and Histories of

Cannibalisms’) and developed sophisticated art historical arguments from
an astute Brazilian perspective – that is confirmed as the high point of the
The analytical tools required for appraising art biennials are distinct from 24th Bienal; other sections are much less remembered. To what extent is this
those required by other international exhibitions. They involve extra-aesthetic retrospective evaluation contradictory for assessing the magnitude of a biennial
criteria, such as the relevance of theme, the sophistication of the display and a by its museological component (and particularly at a time when, elsewhere
consideration of the exhibition’s historical character: biennials have to consider in the world, biennials were increasingly focused on activities beyond the
what has been achieved (or not) by previous editions while giving an account exhibition display) rather than its display of contemporary work? Or should the
of history in the most contemporaneous mode – a contradiction in terms. content of contemporaneity be gauged by other signifieds inherent in the
Parallel activities, which have evolved to become central features of biennials, exhibition, given that this edition of the Bienal had, according to Julio
add a further set of complicating factors. To ensure the event’s singularity, Landmann, president of the Fundação Bienal at the time, a ‘clear political
there is now a general culture of seminars and films, artists’ residencies and project’ with its ‘point of departure’ specifically located in Brazil?3
workshops, interventions on a public-work scale, partnerships with schools
and universities, educational projects and publications, and so on. This trend This prompts another issue to be examined: since this biennial not only
has led to a decline in the significance of the sine qua non condition for plumped for a Brazilian perspective but also announced that its agenda would
exhibitions: the exhibition itself. At one event after another, the curators of revisit the colonial process and highlight Latin America more broadly, what
the more ambitious biennials pursue evermore elaborate aims, taking on the are its critical implications for the present? In particular, bearing in mind
ambiguous mission of upscaling their project in order to achieve the desired Herkenhoff’s ambition to rewrite art history, is it possible to verify in subse-
major event, while having to struggle against its dilution into the supply chain quent publications of art theory whether this edition of the Bienal transformed
of globalised cultural tourism. Few initiatives are able to withstand being the national narrative and international perspectives on Brazilian art?
ground down by the economic and bureaucratic force of this pounding
anti-Promethean machinery. The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ focused on establishing points of contact and
transference between artworks from the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth
It is in this context that Paulo Herkenhoff ’s curatorial plan for the 24th Bienal and nineteenth centuries, yet it also featured recent works that scrambled
de São Paulo in 1998 takes on the mythic proportions of an insurmountable the notion of chronological, linear artistic development. A shrewd adverti-
event. Such a phenomenon was observed only once before in the history of sing campaign had billboards printed with the figures of van Gogh and
the Bienal de São Paulo, the second oldest exhibition of its kind,1 when Pablo Tarsila do Amaral as spokespersons, beckoning visitors to ‘view historical
p.58 Picasso’s Guernica (1937) arrived in Brazil for the second Bienal in 1953.2 and contemporary dialogues between Brazil and the world’, posing blunt
questions such as ‘Are we all cannibals?’ or making categorical statements,
— for example, ‘Only anthropophagy unites us.’ 4 Press releases emphasised the fig.2–3
1
The first art biennial was the Venice Biennale, in 1895. In the genealogy of appeal to historical revisionism and contradicted the Bienal’s long-standing
international biennials, few studies have included the 1896 Carnegie Inter- commitment, since the 1950s, to keeping Brazil up to date with the latest
national, perhaps because its name, format and periodicity were altered several developments in art.
times in the second half of the twentieth century. Until the eleventh edition of
the Bienal de São Paulo, in 1971, the exhibition featured a section of architectural
designs as well as displaying artworks; the independent Bienal Internacional de
Arquitetura de São Paulo (BIA) was established in 1973. —
2
‘… since World War II had broken out in Europe at that time, the mural and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo: o prêmio melhor pintor nacional e o debate
studies remained at the artist’s suggestion on extended loan to the Museum [of em torno da abstração’, available at http://www.bibliotecadigital.unicamp.br/
Modern Art, New York]. In 1953 at Picasso’s request, the mural was sent to Milan document/?code=000236176&fd=y (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
and to São Paulo; in 1955 to Paris, Munich and Cologne; in 1956, to Brussels, 3
Julio Landmann, ‘Apresentação do Presidente da Fundação Bienal de São Paulo’ / 
Amsterdam and Stockholm.’ See ‘Guernica to go to Madrid’s Museo del Prado’ ‘Fundação Bienal de São Paulo President’s Foreword’ (trans. Veronica Cordeiro), in
[press release], Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 10 September 1981, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos
available at http://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5928/ (exh. cat.), São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1998, p.18.
releases/MOMA_1981_0059_60.pdf?2010 (last accessed on 4 March 2015). The 4
From the first paragraph of Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’: ‘Only anthro-
second edition of the Bienal, and particularly the inclusion of Guernica, had such a pophagy unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.’ O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto
strong impact on Brazilian cultural self-worth that it remains an exemplary horizon antropófago’ / ‘Anthropophagite Manifesto’ (1928, trans. Adriano Pedrosa and
for what an international exhibition can achieve. On this point, see the masters V. Cordeiro), in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias
dissertation by Ana Maria Pimenta Hoffmann, ‘A arte brasileira na II Bienal do de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.536, and this volume, pp.222–29.

8 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 9
 However, visitors to the much-publicised historical core of the Bienal in 1998 mission for this strange combination of historical and contemporary work?
were not greeted by art’s influential figures immediately upon entering the Would the 24th Bienal merely be a stage preceding an already announced
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, home to the Bienal de São future – a future aiming for pure contemporaneity? The argument that São
Paulo since 1957.5 To reach the top floor and the exhibition’s air-conditioned Paulo had no need for yet another ‘temporary museum’ hardly squared with an
pp.114–73 space, where the promised cultural banquet of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ was exhibition featuring Tarsila do Amaral, Gustave Moreau, Auguste Rodin,
waiting to be devoured, visitors had to climb the vast, swooping ramps of Joaquín Torres-García, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Maria Martins, Piero
the huge, 33,000-square-metre building designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and Manzoni, Yayoi Kusama and Robert Ryman, to name just a few of the selected
then pass through the other sections of the show, which presented installations artists. What, in 1998, was the contemporary dimension of these names?
by artists more likely unknown (as ever) to the general public.
These questions only redouble the oddity inherent in analysis of that year’s
The three sections complementing the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ were: ‘Arte Bienal – the oddity of judging the whole by a part, and of judging a
pp.78–99 Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’ (‘Brazilian Contemporary contemporary art project through the lens of a revisionary take on an
Art: One and/among Other/s’), curated by Herkenhoff and his associate academic discipline. Here we find a critical difference demarcated in relation
pp.100–13 curator Adriano Pedrosa; ‘Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. to the usual parameters for assessing the biennial as an exhibitionary mode.
Roteiros. Roteiros.’ (‘Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes.’),
an international show involving ten curators and arranged by continent; Until 1998, no reflection on the formation of Brazilian culture had been
pp.68–77 and the usual ‘Representações Nacionais’ (‘National Representations’), a considered worthy of such explicit engagement by the Fundação Bienal. An
selection of artists from 54 countries. In addition to the exhibition itself, elite bastion of São Paulo’s high society, the Fundação had been founded by
comprising these four sections, there were two further pillars supporting the Francisco ‘Ciccillo’ Matarazzo Sobrinho, a Brazilian businessman of Italian
curatorial design for the project overall: an educational programme headed descent who was behind several major cultural institutions established in
by Evelyn Ioschpe and a publications project coordinated by Pedrosa. It was Brazil between 1940 and 1960. 8 Oscar Landmann was Ciccillo Matarazzo’s
the first time that the Bienal de São Paulo had an editor in charge of its first successor as president of the Fundação, and his son Julio Landmann held
publications and a director exclusively for its educational programme.6 the position at the time of the 1998 Bienal. The profile of the Fundação –
privately run, but also public in the sense that in more recent years its
With the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, the Bienal was clearly mooting a rewrite of art funding has depended on tax breaks for its sponsors – can be understood in
history, indeed questioning the discipline as such. In the context of globalised light of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s classic account of national societal
biennials, what is to be expected of an iconology-related narrative tradition norms, Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil, 1936), and specifically in terms of
in art history? Given these issues, how are we to interpret the following the rise and power of the so-called ‘cordial man’. 9 Even today, the manage-
statement from the president of the Fundação Bienal at the time: ‘Perhaps ment of the Fundação holds to ‘gentlemen’s agreements’, with curators
the most important role for the Bienal of the future is to focus exclusively chosen on the basis of ‘their’ president’s particular interests, and with internal
on the present [and to be] a thermometer for the present once again. São teams dedicated to production, archiving, communication and education.
Paulo no longer needs a temporary museum’? 7 After all, what was the key To date, the institution consists of an honorary board of former presidents,
both living and deceased; lifelong and non-life members; a management
— board; and a supervisory board, over which Matarazzo continues to rule in
5
The first Bienal de São Paulo was held in 1951 in a makeshift building on the posterity as its ‘perpetual president’.10 In all his cultural ventures, from the
Avenida Paulista site where the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), designed by founding of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo in 1948 onwards,
the architect Lina Bo Bardi, would be erected between 1957 and 1968. With
pavilions designed by Oscar Niemeyer and landscaping by Roberto Burle Marx,
the Bienal building in Ibirapuera Park was inaugurated in 1954 for the city’s —
fourth centennial. Since its fourth edition in 1957, the Bienal has been held in where noted, texts originally in Portuguese have been translated for this volume.
the pavilion originally known as the ‘Pavilion of the Industries’, subsequently 8
Matarazzo (1898–1977) founded the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
renamed in honour of the Bienal’s founder. The use of this municipally owned (MAM SP) in 1948 and the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951. Indirectly, he was
building was transferred to the foundation under a loan arrangement. responsible for the creation of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade
6
The detailed report compiled for the ‘Public Education and the 24th Bienal’ project de São Paulo (MAC USP) in 1963, which he endowed with artworks and his
is now held by the Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. personal film collection dating from 1949. This film library ultimately led to the
7
J. Landmann, quoted in Vera de Sá, ‘O banquete antropófago’, Bravo, no.13, creation of the Cinemateca Brasileira. Matarazzo helped found a theatre, Teatro
October 1998, p.3. Landmann’s vision for the event’s future seemed to find a different Brasileiro de Comédia (TBC), in 1948, and supported the contruction of studios
echo in the institution’s official publications. Agnaldo Farias, for one, concluded for a film production company, Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz, in 1949.
that ‘the Bienal de São Paulo is a much needed museum’. See A. Farias, ‘Um Museu 9
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brasil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras,
no Tempo’ / ‘A Museum Inside Time’, in Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 /  2001, pp.139–51.
50 years of the São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 2001, p.38. Except 10
As he is listed in the Bienal catalogues, for instance.

10 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 11
Matarazzo demanded the upholding of so-called international standards.11 widely considered interchangeable. In short, anthropophagy refers to the
The political and economic alliance forged between Brazil and the United ritualised translation of a worldview through the act of ingestion, whereas
States in particular – given the former’s modernising project of the 1940s to cannibalism opposes this spiritual understanding, describing instead the
60s and its concomitant fascination with the latter’s new products and ‘materialistic and immoral interpretation of it by the Jesuits and colonisers’.15
hegemonic centres – forms the ideological context through which to understand As he further clarifies, cannibalism may be ‘anthropophagy due to gluttony
this internationalism. or anthropophagy due to hunger, as found in reports from besieged cities
and lost travellers’. 16 Andrade’s interest in the indigenous practice of
In light of this brief institutional summary, a biennial articulated around anthropophagy refers to its rule of selectiveness: not everything is eaten,
the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (1928) of modernist poet Oswald de Andrade only that which is lacking for the constitution of an ideal identity. Myth
was sure to have shock value.12 The choice of this text as a historical anchor accounts for a transfer of values from the one deceased, with refinements
proposed no less than a paradigm shift in relation to the birth of modernism that recall the Greeks choosing different words to describe ways of dying.17
in Brazil, specifically diverting attention away from the Semana de Arte In his curatorial take on anthropophagy, Herkenhoff attempted to present
Moderna (Week of Modern Art) held at São Paulo’s opera house in 1922 – intersections between approaches to the idea, crossing the lived under-
an international assembly that was conventionally hailed as responsible for standing of indigenous peoples, as studied and analysed by anthropologists,
the spread of European avant-garde Cubism, Dada and Surrealism to Brazil. and the allegorical sense found in Andrade’s artistic manifesto, not based
The notion of Brazil having to catch up culturally with Europe was, of on fieldwork.
course, troublesome, but it was long assumed inevitable. In the words of
Benedito Nunes, referring to the concept of anthropophagy in relation to Included as part of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ were texts, presented in display pp.114–73
the literary avant-garde: ‘European currents intervening in the development cases, offering a carefully selected syllabus on anthropophagy. Eduardo
of our modernism were seen as a necessary evil, or as a kind of rite of passage Viveiros de Castro’s experiences with the Araweté people and his idea of
that Brazilian literature had to go through before reaching the normality of ‘Amerindian perspectivism’ was represented in Araweté: os deuses canibais
adult life.’ 13 Making the ‘Manifesto’ definitive for Brazilian art at the (1986; its title literally translates as ‘Araweté: The Cannibalistic Gods’, though
expense of the Week of Modern Art represented a dramatic historicising it was published in English in 1992 as From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity
manoeuvre on the part of Herkenhoff. As he later reiterated, the early 1920s and Divinity in an Amazonian Society.) There were literary works by
had little to offer the idea of modern art in Brazil breaking away from the Andrade’s contemporary Mário de Andrade (no relation), as well as Feuilles de
art of the past: ‘The most curious paradox is that in the year of the Week of Route (1924) by the Swiss-born writer Blaise Cendrars, whose name is traditio-
Modern Art, there was not a single modern artist in São Paulo who was nally inseparable from Brazilian modernism. Also on display were: one of only
worthy of being included in the classification of “modern”, that is, within eight copies of the first edition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais (1580–95);
the framework of the Week of Modern Art.’14 Jean de Léry’s Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil (History of a Voyage fig.55–57
to the Land of Brazil, 1578); the Encyclopaedia Acephalica, which compiled
The subtitle for the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, ‘Antropofagia e Histórias de texts from the 1940s onwards by Georges Bataille and his contemporaries;
Canibalismos’, requires an additional understanding of the distinction that and a first edition, from 1955, of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques along
Andrade made between anthropophagy and cannibalism, words which are with three of his anthropological works. The bibliography then reached into
the 1990s with titles by Frank Lestringant and Emmanuel Ménard.
—
11
See Mario Cesar Carvalho, ‘Bye-bye, província’, Folha de S. Paulo, 20 May 2001, The curatorial agenda for the 24th Bienal proposed a symmetrical relation
available at http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/especial/bienal50anos/fj2005200101. between patriarchal norms in Brazilian society and the adoption of a Euro-
htm (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
12
Although the choice of this text coincided with its seventieth anniversary, none of
centric view of art history. Herkenhoff would later reflect that the ‘colonial
Herkenhoff’s declarations hinted that he was proposing a celebration around the date. process was a war between cannibalisms’, and further:
13
Benedito Nunes, ‘Antropofagia e vanguarda: Acerca do canibalismo literário’,
in Oswald Canibal, São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1979, p.8. The full logic of the colonial regime appears to be represented throughout
14
Paulo Herkenhoff, ‘1922, um ano sem arte moderna’, in Arte Brasileira na the process of the religious missions as an ideological preparation for
coleção Fadel: Da inquietação do moderno à autonomia da linguagem, Rio de Janeiro:
Andréa Jakobsson Estúdio, 2002, p.194. Herkenhoff relocates the emancipatory —
idea of Brazilian art from Tarsila do Amaral’s anthrophagistic painting to the writings 15
O. Andrade, ‘A crise da filosofia messiânica’, in A utopia antropofágica: Obras
of Andrade and Raul Bopp. See also P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e completas de Oswald de Andrade, São Paulo: Globo, Secretaria de Estado da Cultura,
processos’, in marcelina, vol.1, 2008, p.29. The magazine featured an edited 1990, pp.101–55.
version of a seminar given by Herkenhoff at Faculdade Santa Marcelina, São 16
Ibid., p.101.
Paulo, 12 March 2008, organised by the author. Some parts of this essay contain 17
See Jean-Pierre Vernant, L’individu, la mort, l’amour: Soi-même et l’autre en
excerpts from the unpublished transcript. Grèce ancienne, Paris: Gallimard, 1989.

12 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 13
 submission. […] Redemption signified rescuing the Indians from extreme Pedro Américo, Tiradentes esquartejado
(Tiradentes Dismembered), 1893,
‘barbarism’ – cannibalism – through their conversion to Christianity; oil on canvas, 270 × 165 cm:
in exchange, they were offered the Eucharist as consumption of the transub- Collection of Museu Mariano Procópio,
stantiated body of Christ per the doctrine of the Fourth Council of Juiz de Fora
the Lateran. 18

A vision such as this could only come punctuated with violence to convey
the murder scene’s digestive terminology and moral brutality, and so it did
in the Bienal, by way of juxtaposing heterogeneous imagery that disrupted
artistic and museological norms. In the development of his approach,
Herkenhoff revealed a profound familiarity with Andrade’s writings, from
the exaltation of native primitivism in his ‘Pau-Brasil’ poetry and his 1924
manifesto announcing this literary practice, to ‘A crise da filosofia messiânica’
(‘The Crisis of Messianic Philosophy’, 1950), the poet’s renowned thesis,
which, incidentally, was rejected in the process of a competition for the
chair of philosophy at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). 19 The
development of Andrade’s thought in this direction reflected his view that
the ‘civilised’ patriarchal system, transmitted by European culture, would
not allow for alterity and produced ‘false utopias’; whereas matriarchy –
identifiable with aspects of Brazilian culture such as hospitality, generosity
and solidarity – beckoned a form of civility far from the coercive system of
European organisation.20

In 1950, the same year that he was denied the professorship in São Paulo,
the poet drew on two key ideas in Buarque de Holanda’s aforementioned
study, Raízes do Brasil, in order to elaborate his definition of otherness in
terms of ‘dread of living with oneself ’ and ‘living in others’. 21 Expanding on the idea of anthropophagy in the ‘cordial man’, Andrade argued: ‘It all relates
to the existence of two cultural hemispheres dividing history into Matriarchy
— and Patriarchy. The former was the world of primitive man. The latter,
18
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Missions’, in P. Herkenhoff (ed.), Amazonia: Ciclos da
of civilised man. One produced an anthropophagous culture, the other, a
Modernidade (exh. cat.), Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2012,
p.160. Both Herkenhoff and Régis Michel, curator of the section of the ‘Núcleo messianic one.’ 22 The critical valency of the 24th Bienal, dubbed the
Histórico’ on nineteenth-century art, understood Christian communion as a ‘Anthropophagy Biennial’, was heightened by the realisation that the ideo-
stage (the ‘highest’, for Michel) of Western cannibalism. According to Herkenhoff, logical legacy of the colonial era had yet to disappear, and that it continued
Brazil’s cultural modernisation project (its Enlightenment and its emancipatory to exert a sly influence on social relations. At its close, Andrade’s ‘Manifesto
character) ‘came in through the Amazon region, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais’ antropófago’ addresses this sharply, in the author’s characteristically playful
(ibid., p.163). He would dismiss the importance of the 1922 Week of Modern yet challenging manner: ‘Our independence has not yet been proclaimed.’23
Art in São Paulo: ‘Sometimes we need to forget about the Modern Art Week. It was not by chance, then, that the exhibition set aside a prominent place
After all, it couldn’t bring itself to embrace Ismael Nery from Pará’ (ibid., p.183).
For the exhibition ‘Amazonia’, it is evident that the curator revisited and developed
for Tiradentes, the martyr of Brazil’s struggle for independence,24 portrayed
the strategies of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’. in Pedro Américo’s canvas Tiradentes esquartejado (Tiradentes Dismembered, fig.58
19
Herkenhoff ’s familiarity was demonstrated through his extensive quotation of 1893), which shows his decapitated body drawn and quartered, a crucifix set
different interpretations of Andrade’s work and Brazilian modernism in his curatorial next to his severed head. This violence signifies a precise and savage human
texts and in his many public statements to the press as well as in the guided visits reckoning that galvanised the logic of the curatorial design for the whole
he gave during the exhibition. of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’: ‘This Tiradentes ended up being a kind of symbolic pp.114–73
20
On the question of ‘false utopias’, Nunes notes that Andrade’s singular approach
borrows from Nietzsche and Freud to criticise orthodox Marxism. See B. Nunes, —
‘Antropofagia ao alcance de todos’, in O. Andrade, A utopia antropofágica, 22
Ibid., p.102.
op. cit., p.37. 23
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.537.
21
S. Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brasil, op. cit., pp.141–51; and O. Andrade, 24
Tiradentes (Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, 1746–92) was hanged for his role in
‘Um aspecto antropofágico da cultura brasileira: o homem cordial’, Anais do Primeiro plotting an uprising to bring in a republican regime and gain independence from
Congresso Brasileiro de Filosofia, vol.1, March 1950, pp.229–31. Portugal, an episode known as the Minas Gerais Conspiracy (Inconfidência mineira).

14 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 15
 provision for a society emerging from colonialism, resorting to a keen metaphor his small masterpiece Oswald Canibal (1979) would spot several of its
of colonisation as a cannibalising process – hence its crucial significance for referents featured in Herkenhoff’s curatorial selection and catalogue texts:
this exhibition.’25 Tristan Tzara’s Dada manifestos; Surrealism and the pataphysical wisdom of
Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896); Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913); and the
At the 24th Bienal, the display of museum artefacts itself became a writings of the Marquis de Sade. However, to introduce anthropophagy at
cannibalistic device, eliminating notions of evolution and influence typical the section entrance, the curator instead used text drawn from the writings
of the natural sciences without dispensing with historicising narratives. On of Mikhail Bakhtin:
the contrary, the curator assumed such narratives as the exhibition’s horizon
by writing about ‘histories’, ‘stories’ and ‘cannibalisms’, in the plural – The excess of my seeing is the bud in which slumbers form […]. But in order
hence, the tangible meaning conveyed by the flows mapped in the diagram that this bud should really unfold into the blossom of consummating form,
Herkenhoff produced for his installation plan, which was then posted on the excess of my seeing must ‘fill in’ the horizon of the other human being
walls within the exhibition. Since the assumption was that colonisation […] without at the same time forfeiting his distinctiveness. I must empathise
could not be ended merely by declaring the country’s independence, or project myself into this other human being, see his world axiologically
Américo’s painting functioned to integrate and activate a whole constellation from within as he sees his world; I must put myself in his place and then,
of mythic, real, programmatic and psychological images of cannibalism and after returning to my own place, ‘fill in’ his horizon through that excess of
enslavement. For Herkenhoff, the Law of the Father (Andrade’s patriarchal seeing which opens out from this, my own, place outside him. I must enframe
society) could be summarised as a multitude of repressive impulses issuing, him, create a consummating environment for him out of this excess of
for example, from the Catholic Church, colonisation, the State and Sigmund my own seeing, knowing, desiring and feeling. 29
Freud’s reality principle in psychoanalysis. Herkenhoff proposed a theory of
art articulated along three axes – interrogative, dialogic and erotic – while Why Bakhtin, a thinker still little studied in Brazil? One would have expected
referring to the exhibition as an ‘inventive and poetic interpretation of art’26 the voice of a Brazilian specialist to take up the issues of modernism and
and finding its avowal in the following line from Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’: anthropophagy. However, the pertinence of this choice transcended Bakhtin’s
‘The spirit refuses to conceive the spirit without body.’27 As such it becomes ‘foreign’ position. Bakhtin is not only the Russian literary critic who developed
evident that, in terms of hermeneutics, the curatorial strategy was to be a dialogue between sign systems, but also and in particular he was early to
scrupulously justified art historically, in its choice of works, while also take up the subject of dialogical relations based on otherness, an essential
allowing for extravagance. In this context, Jacques Lacan’s words from The Four concept for Herkenhoff’s programme.
Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1973) not only provide an epigraph
for the curatorial design – opening the curatorial essay in the catalogue – they For Bakhtin, a dialogic relation entails ‘not a dialogue in the narrative sense,
also expose the inevitability of the exhibition’s sensory component: ‘What nor in the abstract sense; rather it is a dialogue between points of view, each
value has my desire for you?’28 with its own concrete language that cannot be translated into the other’.30 Or,
to put it in terms even closer to the display strategies of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’
via Michael Holquist’s gloss on the centrality of dialogue and its various
1. A Dialogic Conception of History and the ‘Núcleo Histórico’: processes to Bakhtin’s theory: ‘A word, discourse, language or culture undergoes
Transversalities and Contaminations “dialogisation” when it becomes relativised, de-privileged, aware of competing
pp.114–73 Upon entering the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, visitors were met with an introductory definitions for the same things.’ 31
text, in the customary manner for a museum display. One would think that
a quote from Benedito Nunes, a celebrated interpreter of Andrade’s works,
would be the obvious choice to provide authoritative guidance. Readers of —
29
Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity’ (c.1920–23), in
— Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin (ed. Michael
25
Document signed by the curatorial team for the 24th Bienal, Arquivo Histórico Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, trans. V. Liapunov), Austin: University of Texas
Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. Press, 1990, pp.24–25. Emphasis mine. Bakhtin’s ideas were first published in
26
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’ (trans. V. Cordeiro), Brazil in the 1960s thanks to the professor and Russian translator Boris
in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, Schnaiderman at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). However, the regime
op. cit., p.37. installed by the 1964 military coup abruptly halted the circulation of Russian
27
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.537. authors in Brazil.
28
Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1973, trans. 30
M.M. Bakhtin, ‘From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse’ (1975), in The
Alan Sheridan), London: Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and
1977, p.192; quoted in P. Herkenhoff ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’, M. Holquist), Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981, p.76.
op. cit., p.22. 31
M. Holquist, ‘Glossary’, in ibid., p.427.

16 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 17
pp.114–73 The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ abandoned the closed framing structure of ‘special In keeping with the open and collective approach that Herkenhoff was
exhibitions’ that previous editions of the Bienal invariably organised to hoping to achieve at the 24th Bienal, sub-curation was a feature of the
separate historical from contemporary sections. A primary aim for this core ‘Núcleo Histórico’, with each artist or historical section assigned to a p.116
element of the 1998 exhibition project was to deconstruct hierarchical particular curator. The selection process highlighted certain Brazilian artists
relations between genres, dates, techniques and locations (systems of classifi- through contributions from curators specially commissioned on the strength
cation seen to be indebted to an Enlightenment conception of the world) of their academic standing; for example, the room for Tarsila was organised
and to bring elements from the past into the here and now. Herkenhoff spread by Sônia Salzstein, and Volpi’s room by Aracy Amaral – both showing a fig.83–91
an iconically powerful selection of works across the museological top-floor generous selection of works in the manner of museum retrospectives. In the
space to establish a tissue of dialogues, or what we might call ‘transvers- diagram, Oiticica was linked downwards to the section titled ‘Monocromos’
alities’ – developing a structure that recalled Aby Warburg’s strategies for (with Piero Manzoni, Robert Ryman, Lucio Fontana, Yayoi Kusama,
his unfinished Mnemosyne Atlas (begun in 1924). In the top corner of a Yves Klein and Oiticica again), which was linked downwards in turn to
wall in the ‘Dada and Surrealism’ display, for instance, Herkenhoff brazenly Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón, whose box reconnected with Tarsila’s
fig.70 hung Vik Muniz’s work Sigmund, from his 1997 series of ‘chocolate portraits’, central position. A line also extended from Tarsila towards van Gogh and
rather like an epigraph, or a few words isolated in the corner of a page. 32 Gauguin (whose names, in the top right of the diagram, would coincide
Somewhat similarly, other works were placed at ground level, on the edge of with the position of the sun in Tarsila’s painting Antropofagia (1929)). p.257
dividing screens: for example, Artur Barrio’s T.E. (trouxas ensangüentadas) Another central rectangle just above Tarsila contained Oswald de Andrade’s
(T.E. (bloody bundles), 1969) acted as marginalia for the Francis Bacon display. ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (Tarsila was Andrade’s wife at the time of his
Such dialogues between historical and contemporary works, and between writing the ‘Manifesto’), Mário de Andrade and Raul Bopp; from its top the
Western art and Brazilian culture, were viewed by some visitors as purely Dada and Surrealism section emerged: Picabia, Dalí, Masson, Freud, Bataille
arbitrary and authoritarian curatorial interventions. And it was precisely the and Caillois. Above that was a group including Goya, Géricault, Moreau
originality of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ that drew some of the 24th Bienal’s and Américo, linked from the aforementioned group headed by Montaigne.
severest criticisms.33
The uncanny character of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ was further accentuated by
The scope of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ also revealed the Brazilian curator’s the fact that, despite uniting many canonical works of art in a heritage-
knowledge of the diagrams of Alfred H. Barr, Jr, in particular his chart for listed building, this section of the exhibition was not held in a museum. 35
the exhibition ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’, held at the Museum of Modern To reinforce its undermining of established systems of museological display,
Art in New York in 1936. 34 In contrast to this influential US model for the a strategy of ‘contamination’ was employed throughout the exhibition.
history of modern painting, there are transversal lines in Herkenhoff ’s Herkenhoff and Adriano Pedrosa have described how ‘contamination is
aforementioned graphic chart – part installation plan, part conceptual connected to cannibalism, to its affliction insofar as human flesh contami-
mapping – and these afford a survey of a diversity of cultures posed by the nated human flesh. When a person doesn’t follow the rules as regards
fig.38 anthropophagous agenda. For his diagram he brought together such names consumption of the human body, he or she immediately becomes a diseased
as Montaigne, Staden, Léry, Thévet, de Bry, Eckhout, Aleijadinho and the person.’ 36 This approach opposed chronological histories of genres, and
Cuzco artistic tradition; all placed in the top-central rectangle, between deliberately spread anachronisms across the show like a virus taking over a
Cildo Meireles to the left and Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to the weakened body. A point to bear in mind here is that, by the mid-1990s,
right (a Gauguin-dedicated area within the exhibition ultimately failed to paranoia relating to the AIDS epidemic was at its peak in Brazil, so the term
materialise). Tarsila do Amaral appeared in the centre, with lines linking out ‘contamination’ added a further set of moral and political implications. While
to a left column listing Cildo Meireles, Alfredo Volpi and Hélio Oiticica, inventing a particular system of display to reflect an alternative historical
among others. narrative – anthropophagy – Herkenhoff conducted a practical test of a

— —
32
P. Herkenhoff uses the expression ‘revisionist vomit’ to explain Muniz’s chocolate 35
On opening night, the Matarazzo Pavilion was struck by a hailstorm that
image, see ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’, op. cit., p.43. caused leaks in the air-conditioned section. Press coverage of the incident queried
33
See, for instance, the critical comments in Ricardo Fabbrini, ‘As utopias e the state of the artworks on show and voiced fears of the institution’s international
o canibal’, Folha de S. Paulo, Jornal de Resenhas, 12 December 1998, available at image being affected. The museologist Margaret de Moraes ensured the integrity
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/resenha/rs12129805.htm (last accessed on of the works and the exhibition was closed to the public during the four days of
4 March 2015). Jornal de Resenhas was a monthly insert in the daily newpaper Folha emergency repair work.
de S. Paulo between 1995 and 2004, an initiative of the faculty of philosophy and 36
P. Herkenhoff and A. Pedrosa, ‘The Brazilian Curator Private / The Carioca
the human sciences at the USP, which tended to echo ‘scholarly’ opinion. Curator’, TRANS>, no.6, 1999, pp.6–15, available at http://transmag.org/nuevo_
34
‘Cubism and Abstract Art’, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, transmag/contents/vols.php?vista=issue&tipoproy=Cultural%20Conditioning&
2 March to 19 April 1936, curated by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. proyeccion=10 (last accessed on 4 March 2015).

18 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 19
 theory of art based on a porous process of dialogue /contamination between Installation view, ‘Princípio Potosí’
(‘The Potosí Principle’), Haus der
works, a theory meant to replace Hegel’s philosophy of (art) history as Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2010.
universal truth or Kant’s rigid aesthetic categories. Photography: Sebastian Bolesch  / HKW

A fine example of such contamination – and one that most scandalised

fig.54 patrolling modernist historians – was Tunga’s sculpture TaCaPe (1986  –  97),
leaning against the wall next to one of Eckhout’s five seventeenth-century
paintings of Amazonian indigenous peoples. This curatorial gesture prompted
protest on the grounds that there seemed to be an illustrative reflection
between the represented utilitarian object – the weapon depicted in the
painting – and the object formalised in Tunga’s sculpture. Yet, granted that
these pieces all belong to the symbolic register of art, how could this be an
illustrative reflection, if the ‘authentic’ object – the artefact/weapon itself –
was not in the exhibition room?

The juxtaposition of artworks highlighted aspects of nudity for Tupi and

Tarairiu Indian women; historical painted images of these women, presented
together with the phallic form of a contemporary sculpture, suggested a link and Soul’ (2001– 02), coordinated by BrasilConnects for the Guggenheim
between sexuality and violence, as Herkenhoff has since explained: museums in New York and Bilbao, 39 and ‘Princípio Potosí’ (‘The Potosí
Principle’, 2010 –11), curated by Alice Creischer, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz
One woman is dressed. On her head, she carries produce she has gathered and Andreas Siekmann for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
and her finely crafted basket is a sign of material culture. Her dress defines (MNCARS) in Madrid, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and the
a morality while the child at her breast shows that nudity is motherhood. Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore (MUSEF) and Museo Nacional de
The other woman carries a basket of human body parts and her nudity Arte (MNA) in La Paz.40 Irrespective of their differing ideological approaches,
indicates a sexual availability, a certain amorality; there is a dog instead both these later exhibitions raised ethical issues relating to the circulation of
of a child beside her and the Indians seen between her legs are going to war. their products and icons. In the case of ‘Brazil: Body and Soul’, it could
Neither demeaning nor usurping the place of the Indian, it enabled actually be argued that shipping an altar from the Basílica de São Bento de
correlation and indirectly evoked the cultural relativity noted by Michel Olinda to New York replicated the historical process of colonial violence
de Montaigne’s comparison of cannibalism in Brazil to torture perpetrated and command of the means of production. Thus, by showing Adriana
by European armies. 37 Varejão’s painting Proposta para uma catequese (Proposal for a Catechism, fig.56
1993) – a work which indicated colonialism as a form of (destructive)
Equally important for the curators was the fact that they would expose acts of cannibalism and utilised the forms of religious painting without importing
pillage without ‘benefitting’ from them: ‘The contamination of the contemp- actual historical artefacts – and Tunga’s TaCaPe, Herkenhoff was deftly fig.54
orary by the historical, or vice versa, allows us to act in another way. For this avoiding controversial issues over cultural property.
Bienal – where the anthropological and historical questions were so fundamental
for the present time – we never wanted to (and in fact never did) exhibit As well as recasting cultural histories in a Brazilian mould, the ‘Núcleo
ethnographic pieces that had been removed from a living culture.’38 Histórico’ sought to complicate notions of ‘Brazilian-ness’. 41 Exemplary in

This point brings to mind the looting of cultural heritages that characterised —
colonial ‘civilising’ processes and enriched museum holdings, and bears 39
‘Brazil: Body and Soul’, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,
comparison to more recent exhibition initiatives as diverse as ‘Brazil: Body 12 October 2001 to 27 January 2002, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 24 March
to 27 September 2002. The curatorial design was articulated between Guggenheim
— staff members, headed by Thomas Krens and curators Lisa Dennison and
37
P. Herkenhoff, unpublished transcript of seminar at Faculdade Santa Marcelina, Germano Celant, and the Brazilians Nelson Aguilar, Emanoel Araújo and Mari
12 March 2008; a summary of his presentation and the subsequent discussion Marino; Edward J. Sullivan led the curatorial team.
was published in marcelina as ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit. 40
‘Princípio Potosí’, MNCARS, Madrid, 12 May to 6 September 2010; HKW
This style of interpreting works prevailed during training tours that Herkenhoff Berlin, 7 October 2010 to 2 January 2011; MUSEF and MNA, La Paz, 22 February
led with art educators. to 30 April 2011.
38
P. Herkenhoff and A. Pedrosa, ‘The Brazilian Curator Private / The Carioca 41
The 24th Bienal was accompanied by a film programme on issues of identity,
Curator’, op. cit. and not just relating to Brazilian identity, curated by Catherine David. Some films

20 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 21
fig.49–51 this regard was the subsection titled ‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’ German expressionism, Goeldi could never be mistaken for a European artist.
(‘Colour in Brazilian Modernism’), which showed contradictions within the Neither [Edvard] Munch nor any […] German expressionist ever developed
national culture, using examples from Anita Malfatti, Vicente do Rêgo a method of colour construction that could compare to his.’ 45
Monteiro, Oswaldo Goeldi, Lasar Segall, Flávio de Carvalho, Di Cavalcanti
and Alberto da Veiga Guignard. This might sound like an academic approach Within this phenomenological problematisation of colour, and taking light
that prioritised a formalistic interpretation, but it raised pigment to the status as an inherent condition, curator Luis Pérez-Oramas presented a set of
of a national project (much as skin pigmentation refers to Brazil’s ethnic around twenty near-white landscapes by the Venezuelan painter Armando
miscegenation) and made an important connection to the work of Brazilian Reverón. Produced between 1925 and 1942, these oil paintings on canvas fig.64
fig.83–98 artists elsewhere in the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, notably Tarsila, Volpi, Oiticica and would subsequently impress a certain number of São Paulo painters in the
Meireles (the latter reassembled his Desvio para o vermelho (Red Shift, 1967– latter half of the century who were still clinging to the Greenbergian
84)). This was part of another strategic calculation: knowing that the symbol- model.46 Local critics and artists showed their enthusiasm for the brushwork
ism of colour was so dear to German Romanticism,42 the curators posed the in these paintings, but were not lured by the adventure of undermining the
question of whether Brazilian modernism would be able to free itself from a notion of formalist ‘influence’. Yet they showed interest in creating nuances
tropical vision. Herkenhoff explained in the accompanying publication: within the model of modernity, with equatorial America posing its own
‘We’d like to stress that if for Hegel the jungle was a space outside of history, for issues for historical revisionism, just as Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’ had put in
Brazilian artists it was the only way to stress an autochthonous history, prior question the centre-periphery interrelation (‘Without us Europe would not
to colonisation, in their modern political project of cultural emancipation.’43 even have its poor declaration of the rights of man’) and claims to precedence
(‘We already had communism. We already had the surrealist language. The
Concerning Tarsila’s work, Herkenhoff highlighted the local colour of its golden age.’).47 Seen in this light, did Reverón’s paintings point to a belated
rustic, wild, earthy, melancholy, silent and strident expressions; in Volpi’s, (almost anachronistic) impressionism, since he had, in Herkenhoff’s words,
the chromatic significance of the vernacular. There was consistency, but no ‘come back from Paris to live in the jungle’? Or did these paintings augur
commitment to uniformity. Forces were joined to discuss the idea of ‘a the monochromatic journey that would nourish generations of minimalists
single colour system’ in Brazilian art production. Far from being conventional and post-minimalists?
or equally laudatory for all, this reflection enabled Herkenhoff to follow
these artists in their constant shuttling back and forth between European Adjacent to the Reverón display was ‘Monocromos’ – a section entirely fig.64–68
and Brazilian geographies and influences. 44 The force of this curatorial devoted to monochromatic works – which prompted the curatorial team to
proposal was especially sharp in Herkenhoff’s placement of Goeldi’s woodcuts take another leap in their historicising trajectory. Extrapolating from the
on an equal footing with European paintings: ‘In spite of his affinities with internationalism that had been part of the Bienal since its inception in 1951,
Herkenhoff would later suggest that ‘art history no longer has an absolute
centre’;48 at the 24th Bienal, the ‘Monocromos’ prompted him to spell out a
—
were ethnographic classics that dealt directly with cannibalism, others concerned curatorial policy for working with this ‘de-centred world’, requiring a robust
more distant and yet related subjects such as terrorism and apartheid. The sense of context even when presenting works bereft of representation:
exhibition installation designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha had video monitors
on which footage articulated ‘attunements’ or ‘counterpoints’ with works on the There was the political intention of making history by giving people the very
building’s middle floor. finest of Brazilian art, as Oswald de Andrade had suggested. […] taking
42
The German heritage in Brazilian culture was problematised in an ironic line anthropophagy as a negotiating process on the one hand, and a strategy
from musician-writer Caetano Veloso’s song ‘Língua’ on his album Velô (1984): for autonomous production on the other. Thus the white monochromes were
‘What does this language want / What can it do? If you have an incredible idea
you better write a song / It is well known that you can only philosophise in
German.’ The writer Antônio Cícero notes the disguised presence of Heidegger —
in another line from the song – ‘Gosto de ser e de estar’ – as a ‘poetic-philosophical 45
P. Herkenhoff, ‘A cor no modernismo brasileiro – a navegação com muitas
privilege not shared by the German language’. Herkenhoff ’s commentary adds bússolas’ / ‘Color in Brazilian modernism – navigating with many compasses’,
Hegel and Kant to this list. See A. Cícero, ‘A filosofia e a língua alemã’, Folha de op. cit., p.352.
S. Paulo, ‘Ilustrada’ section, 5 May 2007, available at http://www1.folha.uol.com. 46
The best known example would be Paulo Pasta, an artist whose trajectory
br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0505200726.htm (last accessed on 4 March 2015). paralled the 1980s ‘return to painting’ and who avowed his debt to Reverón’s
43
P. Herkenhoff, ‘A cor no modernismo brasileiro – a navegação com muitas work in his own attempts to ‘paint the light’. See Sylvia R. Fernandes, ‘À luz da
bússolas’ / ‘Color in Brazilian modernism – navigating with many compasses’ criação: Sublimação e processo criativo’, Percurso, no.44, June 2010, available at
(trans. Odile Cisneros), in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo. Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia http://revistapercurso.uol.com.br/index.php?apg=artigo_view&ida=100&id_
e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.348. Translation revised for this volume. tema=56 (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
44
Tarsila travelled extensively in Europe and Russia and settled in São Paulo late 47
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.537.
in life; Volpi was born in Italy but spent most of his life in São Paulo. 48
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General Introduction’, op. cit., p.40.

22 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 23
 seen as this stage of autonomy based on a de-centred matrix. Malevich [The curatorial design] for this room is focused around the gathering of
was an eccentric working in Russia during the Soviet period under the mythological cannibalism (Gustave Moreau), eventual cannibalism among
initial revolutionary impulse. For me, this is producing history – history in Europeans (Géricault) and cannibalism by the other. If real cannibalism
the sense of developing a discourse on a social process.49 in America no longer caused the same impact, nonetheless Goya represents
it among the Iroquois. Régis Michel guides the display toward the issues of
Although aware of misgivings about the applicability of the ‘Manifesto’ in totem and taboo, the transgression and devourment of the sons by their
this context, Herkenhoff did not retreat – even faced with the reluctance of fathers and vice versa. He expands the spectrum to include Desprez, Füssli,
his associate curator. Pedrosa argued that the ‘Monocromos’ section was Blake or Munch. His analysis indicates the origining of the sources of
‘a very fine exhibition, but also the Achilles heel’ of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. European art readopts Dante’s literature
fig.64 that ‘despite its keen beauty and its articulating force (with Reverón and with the figure of Ugolino, the father who devours his children. Inscribed
fig.65 Oiticica)’, this section had only a ‘tenuous connection’ with anthropophagy by Rodin on the Door of Hell [La Porte de l’Enfer, 1880 –1917)], the theme
and histories of cannibalism.50 was explored by artists such as Carpeaux and Géricault.54

The resonances of the ‘Manifesto’ become stronger on revisiting Freud’s Wall texts in Michel’s section reflected upon practices relating to patricide and
Totem and Taboo, which condenses the history of civilisation and its totemic meals, presenting them as key to realising the notion of otherness.
transition from natural state to society, from nature to culture, in connection However, by this point in the visitor’s itinerary, references to Andrade’s
to the prohibition of incest (a process of internalisation). To substantiate original text were moving in several opposing directions; for example, in
Andrade’s call for ‘the permanent transformation of taboo into totem’, 51 contrast to Michel’s approach there was Pedrosa’s exploration of anthro-
fig.58–61 Régis Michel, curator of ‘Século XIX’, the nineteenth-century art section, pophagy as amorous fusion in his subsection of ‘Arte Contemporânea
unveiled a selection of works notable for their ferocity: while conjoining the Brasileira’ titled ‘Um e Outro’. As Pedrosa explains in the catalogue, this fig.20–26
Enlightenment crisis with cannibalism, Michel ushered in a crowd of reading of anthropophagy was ‘psychoanalytic and subjective’, focused on
monsters and executioners. He also encouraged the breakdown of the Law sexuality and the desire of lovers to fuse with or ingest one another,
of the Father (the Eucharistic rite) and the way in which this Father’s defeat ‘articulated with the double, symmetry, the mirror, the body in pieces and
led to chronological inversions. Thus, Michel was presenting a Goya that the pieces of the body, flesh, skin, the scar, birth, invagination, shelter, the
had read Freud, a Rodin who was unknowingly a ‘manifest expert in the ship, the surroundings.’55 Still, let us bear in mind that in cannibalism there
fig.58 theatre of drives’.52 His three-step ‘Modo de usar’ (‘User’s Guide’), which is no consensus between parties.
provided the titles for the three sections of ‘Século XIX’, was used as wall
text: ‘1. Taboo: the father eats the son’; ‘2. Transgression: the sons eat the Under the sign of ‘Manifesto antropófago’, a multiplicity of body-related
father’; ‘3. Totem: society eats its children.’53 As Herkenhoff explained: issues spread across the entire exhibition. A key example was the extensive
presentation of paintings by Francis Bacon at the physical centre of the fig.58, 62 and
—
49
P. Herkenhoff, unpublished transcript of seminar at Faculdade Santa Marcelina, ‘Núcleo Histórico’. In Herkenhoff’s words, Bacon synthesised ‘painting of the 73–74

12 March 2008, op. cit. human condition’, and Dawn Ades, who curated this section, avoided the
50
Letter from A. Pedrosa to P. Herkenhoff, 5 March 1998, Arquivo Histórico terms ‘quotation’ and ‘appropriation’ in referring to the repertoire of reworked
Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. In Pedrosa’s view, commissioning a images, revealing an explicit effort to incorporate his work within the
text for each artist in the ‘Monocromos’ section, based on the notion of the ‘Brazilian’ register: ‘Many crucial aspects of Bacon’s painting can be related to
biennial as a group show, would amount to excessive emphasis on individual [the theme of anthropophagy]: the physical fact of the human body, the
artists. He also argued for the inclusion of a Felix Gonzalez-Torres drawing and reality of the flesh and the violence of sensation, which he continually reworks
Derek Jarman’s film Blue (1993) to impart ‘latent and urgent content – body,
disease’ to a historical room.
through paint; fragmentation of the body, the fusion of bodies in desire, their
51
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.537. tension in the extremity of sensations, bodies revealed through X-ray and
52
Régis Michel, ‘A síndrome de Saturno ou a Lei do Pai: máquinas canibais da stripped for sacrifice (as in the Oresteia triptych [1981]).’56
modernidade’ / ‘The Saturn syndrome or the Law of the Father: cannibal
machines of modernity’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia —
e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.138. Translation revised for this volume. Louis-Jean Desprez and Johann Heinrich Fuseli.
The last sentences of the essay read: ‘Neither totem nor taboo. The desire (of the 54
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’, op. cit., p.41.
other) always ends up by exceeding the law (of the father). Thus – at last – breaks 55
A. Pedrosa, ‘Um e Outro’ / ‘One and Other’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo:
the chain of metaphors: the desire alone is cannibal…’ (p.133). Notable terms Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s (exh. cat.), São Paulo: Fundação
elsewhere in the essay include: ‘schizophrenic machine’, ‘phallic woman’, ‘body Bienal, 1998, p.100.
without organs’. 56
Dawn Ades, ‘Francis Bacon: As fronteiras do corpo’ / ‘Boundaries of the body’
53
See ibid., pp.120 –  4 7. For his analysis of cannibalism, Michel referenced (trans. Claudio Frederico da Silva Ramos), in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo
Moreau, Géricault, Goya, Munch, Rodin, William Blake, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.416.

24 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 25
fig.40, 46–48, A selection of works by Maria Martins, Lygia Clark and Louise Bourgeois In these two exhibitions, the curatorial approach took certain terminological
p.131 and p.156 were shown on the same floor of the Matarazzo Pavilion, at the entrance to precautions. Both exhibitions eschewed thematisation in order to safeguard
the air-conditioned section of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’; the works were all against literal or poor metaphors. In ‘L’Informe’, a particular aim was to
charged with violence (in this case, the violence of cannibalistic voracity), stand against the fetishisation of the abject that was in vogue in the US at
from Martins’s O Impossível (Impossible, 1945) to Bourgeois’s The Destruction the time. In addition to a system of ‘porous classification’ to replace aesthetic
of the Father (1974), which relates to family gatherings at the dining table. categories, Bois invoked ‘ease in relation to style’ as well as to chronology. 61
The presentation of Clark’s works was essential to actualise the psychoanalytic Similar characteristics governed the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, not to mention that
dimension of the ‘Manifesto’, particularly her proposition of ‘anthropophagic ‘a user’s guide’ – the subtitle for ‘L’Informe’ – also appeared in the wall text in
drool’ in Baba antropofágica (Anthropophagic drool, 1973). Into this scenario, Michel’s ‘Século XIX’ room – perhaps coincidentally, or merely anticipating fig.58–61
in which the mouth and orality exerted full power over the visitor’s a difficult reception (the expression had already gained literary recognition
experience, Herkenhoff was able to add, nearby, Bruce Nauman’s Anthro/ in Georges Perec’s 1978 novel La Vie mode d’emploi (Life: A User’s Manual)).
Socio (1992), with its refrain ‘feed me … eat me … anthropology’.57 Nevertheless, it is interesting to note the heterology of formlessness and
anthropophagy with regard to life – as well as the parallel importation of
In short, arguing for the historical core as the high point of the 24th Bienal these concepts, from avant-garde histories, to be used as critical tools for
requires endorsing anthropophagy as strategy, theory and cultural critique – exhibition-making. (Although similarities with the work of the editors of
indeed as a philosophical system for life, or, as Viveiros de Castro would put October end here.)
it, a cosmovisão (worldview).58
During the process of reflection prior to his appointment, Herkenhoff
The attempt to turn a concept into a critical operation can be seen in another considered and ruled out some other possible concepts as themes, such as
exhibition more or less contemporaneous with the 24th Bienal. In 1996, ‘baroque’, ‘Neoconcrete’ and ‘unruly counterculture’, before arriving at
Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss employed a notion from Bataille to anthropophagy and Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’. At the time it was often argued
organise ‘L’Informe: mode d’emploi’ (‘Formless: A User’s Guide’) at the that curators, particularly those from the southern hemisphere, were using
Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, thus broadening their understanding of the term ‘anthropophagy’ to designate the recycling of European languages;
modernist art practices.59 The rotating signs at the 24th Bienal and ‘L’Informe’ however, in such readings the term was never given the multiplicity of
belong to the same historical period and evince converging interests: meanings that Herkenhoff sought to impart. The open and collective
‘Manifesto antropófago’ was issued in 1928 and ‘L’Informe’ appeared in approach to curatorial design led to dozens of interlocutors being asked to
1929 (as part of the ‘critical dictionary’ that Bataille published in the journal update the modernist manifesto, and a list of 165 definitions was produced
Documents, which he ran between 1929 and 1930). As it transpired, the for the catalogue.62 This list – deliberately open-ended, as stated in the
re-fertilising of these sources would provide narrative solutions to formalist catalogue – produced a polysemy of concepts and took anthropophagy in
interpretations of modernism.60 The two muses, Andrade and Bataille, shared countless contradictory directions.
other concerns, including political engagement with unorthodox Marxism
and a taste for art permeated by ethnology and psychoanalysis. Had the scope of anthropophagy perhaps prompted excessive use of
metaphors and slipped toward an entropic loss of meaning? An inevitable
— question arises from the speculative exercise that launched anthropophagy
57
‘Nauman explores the real human condition, from sex to our permanent need toward multiple meanings beyond those Andrade had anticipated: how might
to manifest ourselves. […] His installation Anthro/Socio indicates that this Bienal polyphony and dilution be combined? While polyphony brought some
introduces five “ethnographies”: Jean de Léry, whose book Lévi-Strauss denominated less-than-persuasive resonances for the ‘Manifesto’ (such as ‘evil eye’ or
“ethnography breviary”, the “Manifesto antropófago”, Siqueiros’s “Ethnography”
and the figure of Lévi-Strauss, among others. “Help-me/Hurt-me, Sociology. Feed-
‘connectivity’), 63 some curatorial proposals for the exhibition were, in fact,
me/Eat-me, Anthropology” cries out once in the void.’ P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução rejected for the sake of precision and rigour. Among several such cases,
geral’ / ‘General introduction’, op. cit., p.47.
58
For Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, anthropology must be made into an ongoing —
exercise of decolonisation of thought. See his Métaphysiques cannibales: Lignes 61
See Y.-A. Bois, ‘The Use Value of “Formless”’, op. cit., pp.16–21. Bois also uses a
d’anthropologie post-structurale, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009. very interesting expression to qualify their curatorial methodology based on Bataille:
59
‘L’Informe: mode d’emploi’, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 22 May to ‘taxinomie volatile’.
26 August 1996. 62
See ‘165, entre 1000, formas de antropofagia e canibalismo (um pequeno
60
Yve-Alain Bois, ‘The Use Value of “Formless”’, in Y.-A. Bois and Rosalind exercício crítico, interpretativo, poético e especulativo)’ / ‘165, among 1000, forms
Krauss (ed.), Formless: A User’s Guide, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997, of antropofagia and cannibalism (a small, critical, interpretative, poetic, and
p.13. Krauss’s text ‘The Destiny of the Informe’ mentions that this presentation speculative exercise)’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia
was scheduled while another institution was preparing a similar show, ‘From e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., inside covers.
Formless to Abject’, which was subsequently cancelled (ibid., p.235). 63
To quote just two of the 165 selections in ibid.

26 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 27
Herkenhoff’s letter to Alanna Heiss, the executive director of P.S.1 in Queens, influenced Herkenhoff in developing the Bienal’s educational programme
New York, rejecting the project ‘Flaming Creature: The Art and Times of Jack and in particular its emphasis on visual engagement and the artistic experience
Smith’, curated by Edward Leffingwell, deserves special mention: ‘We are of images. Herkenhoff and the Bienal team also adopted Lyotard’s épaisseur
dealing with very specific issues here at the 24th Biennial concerning in an expanded sense, to evoke an accumulation of meaning – historical,
antropofagia, and the presence of the artists selected is extremely punctual and cultural, visual, iconographic – explaining that they were pursuing a ‘dense’
has been thought out in a tightly articulated way.’64 As previously noted, this period in the history of art in Brazil to build their programme, and that
‘tight articulation’ was not necessarily evident to visitors of the Bienal. The anthropophagy represented this ‘occurrence of extreme density’.70
curatorial approach was a ‘process of temporarily projecting senses and
meanings on the work, its contextualisation. One of the projection modes In 1998, a turn towards Lyotard risked appearing anachronistic. Establishing
would be defamiliarisation’, in Herkenhoff’s description. ‘Curatorial practice a transversal dialogue between Andrade’s anthropophagic devouring and
therefore involves submitting an artwork to a hermeneutic hypothesis that is at Lyotard’s philosophical writings – for instance, his well-known The Postmodern
the same time problematising.’65 This would be one of the basic distinctions Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979) – meant returning to the quarrel
between anthropophagy as concept and as theme: working in a thematic between moderns and postmoderns, between supporters of a desirable but
way would imply a narrower selection of works, those easily identifiable incomplete Enlightenment project and the proponents of ‘postmodernism’,
with reference to anthropophagy, in a straightforward correspondence in both its philosophical and more popularised forms. Hence, adopting
between the ‘theme’ of the exhibition and its manifest content. Herkenhoff Lyotard implicitly raised questions around a ‘new subjectivity’ expressed in
argued that curatorial designs should not denote any kind of convenience, art and architecture (especially by the eclectic or hybrid style that led to the
otherwise they might lead to works’ instrumentalisation (as mere illustrations cynicism of ‘citationism’) as well as in 1980s appropriationism, the ‘return
of anthropophagy, for example); instead, he emphasised that the curator’s and to painting’ of the Italian Transvanguardia artists and German Neo-
visitor’s ‘criterion of truth’ must be in the eye alone, following Jean-François Expressionism, as represented at the 1985 Bienal curated by Sheila Leirner.
Lyotard: ‘Reading is hearing [understanding], not seeing.’ 66 Employing Why, then, embrace the French author mercilessly criticised in the philo-
anthropophagy as a concept required that the visual character of the exhibition sophical battle waged by Jürgen Habermas in The Philosophical Discourse of
should supervene on any secondary conceptualisations or thematisations. Or, Modernity: Twelve Lectures (1985)?71 What place would there be for Lyotard at
in the words of André Breton, there was a need to invest in the eye in its wild a Bienal reaffirming its Brazilian national identity?
state (‘l’oeil à l’état sauvage’) 67 as a way of invoking the plasticity of a desire
that the tongue, or language, never attains. Yet Lyotard’s vision of postmodernism – in its critique of the ‘grand
narratives’ of European modernity such as those given by Hegel and Kant,
An important guiding principle for the Bienal’s curatorial team was ‘the for example – can also be read as a manifestation of the crisis of the
thickness of the gaze’, a notion derived from Lyotard’s account of épaisseur, Eurocentric perspective. Let us return to the ‘Manifesto’ of 1928, wherein
of thickness or density, 68 to designate a quality more than a concept; in Andrade posed an idea that was more complex than the forms of hybridity
Lyotard’s Discourse, Figure, the term is used in relation to features of the or acculturation discussed by postmodernists. And let us return to a work in
world neither linguistic nor discursive but nonetheless meaningful, conveying the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ that amplifies this idea: Tarsila’s painting A Negra fig.83
what he describes at one point as ‘silent meaning’. 69 Discourse, Figure (The Negress, 1923). This classic example of the Brazilian ingestion of codes
learned from the Europeans Fernand Léger, André Lhote and Albert Gleizes
— shows a flair for synthesis – the body’s metabolic and psychic processes for
64
Letter from P. Herkenhoff to Alanna Heiss, date unknown, Arquivo Histórico working through issues – as translated by Andrade: ‘I am interested only in
Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. what is not mine. Law of man. Law of the anthropophagite.’72
65
P. Herkenhoff, unpublished transcript of seminar at Faculdade Santa Marcelina,
12 March 2008, op. cit. Exemplary cases of ‘defamiliarisation’ were spread around
the exhibition layout, thus boosting its ‘contamination’ strategy. It was a ‘dialogic —
gesture, like placing an impressive piece by a Brazilian artist in the room of a 70
See XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de
European or US artist’; this gesture ‘has the function of showing historicity, such Canibalismos, op. cit., inside cover. Herkenhoff would later reflect that ‘the Bienal
as Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel facing Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois, brought would be examining an issue related to Brazilian art that awaited historical reflection
together in the same venue, for the first time.’ Ibid., p.36. and an assessment of its impact on contemporary culture.’ P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal
66
Jean-François Lyotard, Discourse, Figure (1971, trans. Antony Hudek), 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit., p.27.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011, p.211. 71
The attempt to reconstruct the philosophical discourse of modernity was made
67
Noting that vision precedes language, André Breton’s Surrealism and Painting after Lyotard’s La Condition postmoderne and the reception of French neo-
(1928) begins: ‘The eye exists in its savage state.’ See A. Breton, Surrealism and structuralism in Germany. In addition to Hegel’s concept of modernity, the
Painting, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Boston Publications, 2002, p.1. Habermas lectures examine the views of Nietzsche, Horkheimer and Adorno,
68
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’, op. cit., p.35. Heidegger, Derrida, Bataille and Foucault.
69
J.-F. Lyotard, Discourse, Figure, op. cit., p.103. 72
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.536.

28 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 29
 More than rejecting Eurocentrism, the ‘Manifesto’ condemns both ethno- Caracas Declaration of 1954 and rejected changes underway in Guatemala on
centrism and logocentrism. As curator of the 24th Bienal, Herkenhoff was the grounds of their instigating land reform and leading the country towards
not pursuing philosophical or anthropological recognition, but taking up a communism. A few months later, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the
position ‘vis-à-vis the discipline of art history’. 73 Thickness and density are Guatemalan government in support of the brazenly pro-US administration
assessed by the eye, and not by reading, a proposition which resounded in of Carlos Castillo Armas.76
pp.114–73 the visual stimulus provided by the teeming imagery of the ‘Núcleo
Histórico’. From this perspective, we may say that the curator’s strategy Problematic international relations have played a role well beyond the first
worked, for the memory of the 24th Bienal remains tied to one single three editions of the Bienal, and indeed throughout its history. Episodes
component of the show as a whole: to quote Andrade, it is the ‘proof of the like this prompted much-needed political reassessment of the underlying
pudding’ of its legacy.74 logic of countries sending delegations to São Paulo biennials, which
persisted until the 27th event, in 2006. 77 While some nations acted in an
amateurish manner, sending friends or family members as representatives,
2. Latin American and Brazilian Narratives in the Bienal de São Paulo others placed delegations at the service of foreign policy. The symbolic
and Exhibitions Beyond role assigned to Latin American countries as part of an ambitious plan to
The Bienal de São Paulo was conceived to foster artistic contacts between hold a regular art exhibition in São Paulo along the lines of the Venice
countries, taking into account a global economic system polarised between Biennale is a history that deserves further investigation. From its earliest
so-called developed nations and those described as underdeveloped or years, the mission of the Bienal de São Paulo, particularly in light of the
developing. Although its organisers did not say so explicitly, the first Bienal political and economic interests of Ciccillo Matarazzo, resembled that of the
in 1951 showed an understanding of the relationship between modernity Expositions Universelles, in terms of pursuing industrial and developmental
and industrial modernisation and therefore sought to be receptive to US aims. Indeed, certain clauses in official cooperation agreements between
capital. In the face of ideological conflict pitting the rival models of capitalism participating countries throw into relief the stated aim that the Bienal
and state socialism against each other, São Paulo’s economic vigour showed constitute a ‘permanent body for artistic and cultural exchange between
that the city had the potential to play a strategic role (with its witch-hunting the continents’. 78
campaigns to spot communist agents ‘infiltrating’ the cultural world).
Both the structure of national delegations and the internationalist approach, —
as present in the origins of the Bienal de São Paulo, reflected the foreign 75
‘Military Assistance Agreement Between the United States of America and the
policy of a country with an eye on association with Europe and the Republic of the United States of Brazil, 15 March 1952’, in United States Treaties
United States. and Other International Agreements, vol.4, part 1, Washington DC: US Government
Printing Office, 1955, pp.170–83, Portuguese version available at http://www.
cnen.gov.br/Doc/pdf/Tratados/ACOR0021.pdf (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
Brazil’s drive towards internationalisation was already discernible in the 76
I am indebted to the collection of research articles on Brazil during the second
foreign policy of Getúlio Vargas’s first presidential administration (1930– administration of Getúlio Vargas assembled by the Centro de Pesquisa e
45), and became still more so in his second term of office (from 1951–54), Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC) for this account.
which coincided with the inauguration of the Bienal. The Tenth Inter- See http://cpdoc.fgv.br/producao/dossies/AEraVargas2/artigos (last accessed on 4
American Conference, in 1954, led to a sharpening of discords between March 2015); see also ‘Tenth Inter-American Conference’, The American Journal
Brazil and its neighbouring countries. Guatemala’s elected government was of International Law, vol.48, no.3, Supplement: Official Documents (July 1954),
about to initiate a new social process by expropriating some 255,000 acres pp.123–32, and ‘Latin America and United States Military Assistance’ (20 June
owned by the United Fruit Company, a US-based multinational company in 1960), available at http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/
latinAmerica/613.pdf (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
operation from 1899 to 1970 and the largest planter of tropical fruit for 77
Prior to 2006, Venice had dictated the dates and the Bienal de São Paulo had
export in Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Panama, among been held alternately on even- and odd-number years. There was a financial side
other countries. The Guatemalan measure sought to divide the bigger land to the argument: the international agencies charged with fostering cultural develop-
holdings. However, Brazil had signed a military aid agreement with the US ment got their budgetary allocations in alternate years to fund the ‘Western’
in 1952; bound to Washington by this, the Inter-American Treaty of world’s ‘only’ two ‘international’ exhibitions based on delegations from the
Reciprocal Assistance, and other international agreements that obliged the different countries. For the 2006 edition – directed by myself – the Bienal had
country to ‘act jointly in the common defense and maintenance of peace requested, for the first time in its history, that an international board (Aracy
Amaral, Manuel Borja-Villel, João Fernandes, Paulo Herkenhoff and Lynn
and security of the Western Hemisphere’, 75 Brazil additionally ratified the
Zelevansky) appoint the head curator. The cessation of national delegations
happened in 2006 solely due to the fact that it was one of the premises of the
— curatorial project.
73
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’, op. cit., p.35. 78
Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial,
74
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.536. op. cit., p.264.

30 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 31
In the discourse of São Paulo’s elite and leading post-War intellectuals, architecture. The reception of works by these participants indicated that
international cultural exchange was supported as a means of freeing the local artists identified with the geometric lines and constructivism of the
country from provincialism. 79 Their ambition was for a Brazil updated with Ulm School of Design as the successor to the Bauhaus, and with the archi-
established Western canons, as if these values were beyond scrutiny. Thus, tectural rationalism of modernist urban planning in Europe. The award to Le
instead of the explosive identity issues posed by the law of anthropophagy, Corbusier consolidated the impact of his travels and lectures in Brazil in 1929
the drive to be modern was oriented to the so-called universal values of civil and 1936, and further endorsed his influence on the design of the Ministry of
society. Confined to the domain of the literary avant-garde, the programmatic Education and Health Building (now renamed Palácio Gustavo Capanema) in
content of Andrade’s theses was neutralised. Seen as a mere flight of fancy downtown Rio de Janeiro. This building, viewed as an icon of modern
coming from a writer, its power remained latent for nearly forty years, until architecture in Brazil, was designed in the 1930s by a team of young architects
the rise of Tropicalismo in the late 1960s, which made a claim for the rescue that included Oscar Niemeyer working under Lúcio Costa. Niemeyer would
of anthropophagite consciousness.80 work with Costa again in the design and construction of the capital city of
Brasília, commissioned by President Juscelino Kubitschek.83
Nevertheless, Andrade had noted that Brazil’s subjection dated back to its
colonisation: ‘Our independence has not yet been proclaimed.’81 The Brazilian Aracy Amaral has noted the significance of the first Bienal on the basis of
reality was a gradually maturing and necessarily controversial process because the special room it dedicated to the thought and legacy of Uruguayan artist
of its aspirations towards internationalisation. A summary by critic and curator Joaquín Torres-García (1874–1949). Torres-García spent 43 years in Europe,
Aracy Amaral identifies certain key actors and precursors in Parisian institu- with a brief stay in the US, before returning to his homeland to devise a
tions such as the Maison de l’Amérique Latine, which was founded in 1923, utopian theory of ‘constructive universalism’ specifically designed for South
and the Musée Galliéra, founded in 1924.82 (Paris drew modernists who wanted America. According to Amaral:
both an artistic education and to engage with its avant-garde effervescence.)
Since that time, in Brazil, Concrete art and constructivism have signified
The inaugural Bienal de São Paulo is remembered for contributions by Max an integration with the developed [world], an aspiration to identify with
Bill, including Tripartite Unity (1948–49), which won the sculpture prize, the most advanced industrialisation, and this implies a desire for self-
and Le Corbusier, who was awarded the international grand prize for affirmation in terms of identity by fiercely rejecting the troubled reality
that has always shaped our socio-economic or cultural environment. […]
— This line has invariably been followed since the 50s by a large part of
79
For a summary of precursors for Brazilian cultural internationalism, see Aracy so-called experimental art in the major centres such as Rio de Janeiro and
Amaral, ‘Brasil: Commemorative Exhibitions – or, Notes on the Presence of São Paulo, in a conflict opposing conceptual and constructive artists on
Brazilian Modernists in International Exhibitions’, paper given at the conference the one hand, and figurative and magical ones on the other.84
‘Grand Expositions: Iberian and Latin American Modernisms in the Museum’,
Yale University, New Haven, 26 to 27 October 2001, available at http://www.
lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v08/amaral.html (last accessed on 4 March 2015). Alexander Calder is another key figure in the development of abstract art in
80
This neo-anthrophagism arose in the creative process of a significant set of Brazil: he visited in 1948 and his work was a highlight of the second Bienal,85
artists, such as musicians and composers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil and an event still remembered for having brought in Picasso’s Guernica. Organised p.58
dramatist José Celso Martinez. With Tropicalismo, the anthropophagic interplay as part of São Paulo’s fourth-centennial celebrations, the Bienal of 1953
between national roots and cultural importation was given new life, which saw was held in two pavilions in Ibirapuera Park, to which it drew no fewer than
the audacity and values of the ‘Manifesto’ amplified by the culture industry. Again, 717 foreign artists from 33 countries, including 189 from Brazil.
a conflict erupted, opposing the left-wing messages of the Brazilian intelligentsia and
the mainstream acceptance of a movement without any real project or promise –
worst of all, Tropicalismo declared that it endorsed mass media penetration. Celso
Favaretto’s important study tropicália alegoria alegria (1976) explains how elements —
such as ‘the grotesque, erotic, obscene and ridiculous’ fueled both cultural move- 83
Designed by urban planner Costa and architect Niemeyer, the new capital was
ments. See C. Favaretto, tropicália alegoria alegria, São Paulo: ateliê editorial, inaugurated in 1960. Settling the central area of Brazil’s vast territory had been a
1996, pp.48–49. long-standing ambition since the colonial period.
81
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.539. 84
A. Amaral, ‘Modernidade e identidade: as duas Américas Latinas ou três, fora
82
See A. Amaral, ‘Brasil: Commemorative Exhibitions or: Notes on the presence do tempo’, in Ana Maria Belluzzo (ed.), Modernidade: vanguardas artísticas na
of Brazilian Modernists in International Exhibitions’, op. cit. This brief report América Latina, São Paulo: Unesp, 1990, p.181.
also lists the anthological exhibition ‘Art of Latin America since Independence’ at 85
Calder visited Brazil in 1948, 1959 and 1960, and had a special room at the
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven from 27 January to 13 March 1966, second Bienal de São Paulo in 1953. The critic Mário Pedrosa, who had been
curated by Terence Grieder and Stanton Catlin; it travelled to University of Texas following Calder’s output since 1948, wrote several pieces on his work, see for
Art Museum, Austin, San Francisco Museum of Art, La Jolla Museum of Art, San instance, M. Pedrosa, ‘Calder and Brasília’, Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro,
Diego and Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans. 9 March 1960.

32 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 33
The characteristics of a Brazilian art practice that ‘devoured’ and metabolised the ideological context of post-War international relations, and specifically
foreign influences showed no signs of a collective articulation until the Brazil’s reputation for being a future trading ally of the United States, which
emergence of Concrete art in Brazil in the 1950s. In 1955, the third Bienal had committed to integration with the southern continent, claiming to promote
featured Concrete works by Milton Dacosta, Franz Weissmann and Ivan a modern style in order to consolidate the culture of the Western bloc.
Serpa, whilst one particular room showcased prints by the Mexican muralists Based on an agenda of major exhibitions – MoMA also hosted ‘Portinari of
José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo and David Alfaro Brazil’ in 1940 and ‘Latin American Architecture since 1945’ in 1955 92 –
Siqueiros. Siqueiros was to return for the Anthropophagy Biennial, with a this discourse in favour of closer relations would actually pave the way for
selection curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez. His ‘political project for cultural subsequent US hegemony. 93
emancipation’, to quote Herkenhoff on the work of contemporaneous
Brazilian artists,86 may be related to the contradictions and irreverence to be The 1960s took on a different hue. As a businessman, Ciccillo Matarazzo
found in Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’. was at this time facing financial difficulties. Not wanting to lose the benefits
of remaining in circles of international influence, he took the strategic
Meanwhile, far from these South American developments, the first documenta decision to restructure the management system of the Bienal de São Paulo,
exhibition was being held in Kassel, Germany at the initiative of artist, maintaining his overall control but reorganising it as a foundation eligible
curator and professor Arnold Bode, to rehabilitate the modernism of artists for state and municipal funding. 94 In 1963, he put an end to the activities
banned by the Nazi regime. 87 In 1959, documenta 2 drew on more recent of the São Paulo Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM SP), the museum he had
art while still emphasising chronological and aesthetic continuity. 88 In the founded in 1948, gifting the holdings, as acquired through exhibition
same year, Jornal do Brasil’s Sunday supplement published the ‘Manifesto awards, and also his personal art collection, to the Universidade de São
Neoconcreto’ (‘Neoconcrete Manifesto’), taking its stand against art being Paulo. 95 This episode points towards a problematic cultural lack of appre-
driven to ‘a dangerously rationalist exacerbation’.89 ciation for tradition: sacrificing an institution responsible for what have
been described as ‘more permanent and profound’ activities,96 namely the
In the US at this time, the CIA was using its influence to consolidate an MAM SP, and leaving its collection to an uncertain fate in order to focus
international modern art movement, harnessing the reputation of a genera- energies on a temporary event to be held every two years.
tion of US abstract painters for European consumption, particularly German.90
During the 1940s, Nelson A. Rockefeller simultaneously held positions as But then the 1964 military coup plunged Brazil into a period of authori-
president of the board of trustees for New York’s MoMA and as head of the tarianism and changed its course. A mass rally held on 3 March 1963 at
Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), responsible Central do Brasil, a large square in Rio de Janeiro, mobilised over 200,000
for promoting the Good Neighbor Policy (US foreign policy towards Latin
America at the time). An interest in Brazilian culture was evident in the —
New York from 13 January to 28 February 1943. It ran in parallel with another
1943 MoMA exhibition ‘Brazil Builds’, which helped establish the internatio-
show at MoMA with the same national focus: ‘Faces and Places in Brazil: Photo-
nal prestige of Brazilian modernist architecture.91 Here it is worth reiterating graphs by Genevieve Naylor’. Naylor had been sent to Brazil in 1940 by Rockfeller’s
agency to provide photographs that would support its needs for propaganda.
— 92
‘Portinari of Brazil’ was held from 9 October to 17 November 1940 and ‘Latin
86
P. Herkenhoff, ‘A cor no modernismo brasileiro – a navegação com muitas American Architecture since 1945’, curated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, from
bússolas’ / ‘Color in Brazilian modernism – navigating with many compasses’, 23 November 1955 to 19 February 1956, both at MoMA, New York.
op. cit., p.348. 93
See Patricio del Real, ‘Building a Continent: The Idea of Latin American
87
Documenta, curated by Arnold Bode, took place at the Museum Fridericianum, Architecture in the Early Postwar’, unpublished doctoral thesis, New York: Columbia
Kassel, 16 July to 18 September 1955. University, 2012. Contrary to established interpretations of these exhibitions as
88
See essays by Roland Nachtigäller, Philipp Gutbrod and others in Michael creating national narratives, del Real investigates the strategic role played by Nelson
Glasmeier and Karin Stengel (ed.), 50 Jahre / Years documenta: Archive in Motion, Rockefeller as he shaped a certain style to be imposed from outside.
Göttingen: Documenta, Museum Fridericianum Veranstaltungs GmbH and Steidl 94
See ‘6ª Bienal de São Paulo’, in Bienal 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São
Verlag, 2005. Paulo Biennial, op. cit., p.112.
89
Amílcar de Castro, Lygia Clark, Ferreira Gullar, Reynaldo Jardim, Lygia Pape, 95
There is extensive literature on Ciccillo Matarazzo’s endowment of his personal
Theon Spanúdis and Franz Weissmann, ‘Manifesto Neoconcreto’, Jornal do Brasil, collection to the USP, which used it to set up its Museu de Arte Contemporânea
23 March 1959. See A. Amaral (ed.), Arte construtiva no Brasil: Coleção Adolpho (MAC-USP) in 1963. See, for example, Annateresa Fabris, ‘Um “fogo de palha
Leirner / Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, São Paulo: DBA, aceso”: considerações sobre o primeiro momento do Museu de Arte Moderna de
1998, p.270. São Paulo’ / ‘A “a flash in the pan that is really gold”: considerations on the inception
90
See Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo’, in MAM 60 (exh. cat.), São Paulo:
Cold War, London: Granta Books, 2000. Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 2008.
91
‘Brazil Builds’, a project by Philip L. Goodwin with the collaboration of photo- 96
M. Pedrosa, ‘Depoimento sobre o MAM’, in Otília Arantes (ed.), Política das
grapher and architect G.E. Kidder Smith and Alice Carson, took place at MoMA, artes, São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, Textos Escolhidos I, 1995.

34 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 35
 Installation view, ‘Mitos e Magia’ biennials – such as the 1970 I Bienal Nacional São Paulo – whose purpose
(‘Myths and Magic’), I Bienal
Latino-Americana de São Paulo,
was to present a national selection for the next international event. 98 She
Pavilhão Engenheiro Armando later reflected:
Arruda Pereira, 1978, with work
by Colorindo Testa and Jorge We Latin Americans were there [at the Bienal de São Paulo] as ‘hangers
González Mir, Grupo de los Trece on’, so to speak … We were constantly looking at what was going on in
and Vicente Marotta
© the artists; Arquivo Histórico
Europe, and then in the United States, never seeing ourselves as possible
Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal points of departure or critical revision of [art in] the metropolis. […]
São Paulo In the early 1970s, […] the complaints we frequently heard in Latin
America were to the effect that the Bienal de São Paulo was subserviently
bound to European critics and unaware of Latin American art; it was
betraying its vocation that ought to have been – due to its own location –
disseminating and studying the art of countries in our continent, and
projecting them internationally. 99

Amaral’s project to establish a Latin American biennial in São Paulo, bringing

people. At the rally, President João Goulart thanked the trade unions for together critics from the entire continent for ongoing meetings, ultimately
turning out and advocated agrarian reform against private monopolies. The failed. There would be no subsequent editions.
speech hastened his deposition and triggered a series of tragic events: on
assuming power following the coup, Marshal Castelo Branco imposed In the 1980s, after a decade in which the Bienal de São Paulo’s international
censorship restrictions and suspended direct elections and existing political prestige dropped, Fundação Bienal President Luiz Diederichsen Villares
parties. In 1968, Congress was shut down and the military regime promul- engaged the assistance of historian Walter Zanini, since 1963 the first director
gated Institutional Act Number 5 (AI–5) to revoke political rights and of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC
persecute trade unions and universities. The tenth Bienal, in 1969, known USP). Zanini curated the sixteen and seventeenth editions of the Bienal, in p.38
as the ‘boycott Bienal’, was held at the same time as a new, political police 1981 and 1983, and attempted to mitigate the policy of national delegations
force was organised; the government meanwhile prohibited a section of through the installation plan for the sixteenth edition. His strategy, which was
Brazilian artists at the sixth Paris Biennale that year. After that, the quality met with local resistance, consisted of distributing works around the notion
of the Bienal de São Paulo became uneven, showing both a lack of unity and of ‘language relations and analogies’ 100 – in other words, on the basis of
a dependence on funding from Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get visual or conceptual affinity – instead of by nationality.
delegations from abroad to attend.
Those in the Brazilian artistic milieu were eager for their work to be appreciated
Throughout the early period of the Bienal de São Paulo, the art of South regardless of narratives involving national or regional identities, which were
America was given only minor status. Yet there were later moves by the thought to be based on misplaced premises. Exemplary in their minds was
Fundação Bienal to address this through cultivating a new forum:97 in 1978 the curator Kynaston McShine’s exhibition ‘Information’ (1970), for MoMA
Aracy Amaral collaborated on the first Bienal Latino-Americana in São in New York, which provided an international overview of Conceptual art
Paulo with Juan Acha, a Peruvian-born art theorist then based in Mexico, and included four Brazilian artists: Oiticica, Meireles, Barrio and Guilherme
among others. Amaral was proposing a substitute to the idea of national Vaz. 101 Its curatorial framework suited their need to be acknowledged
—
beyond their homeland in a highly visible context; bypassing the absence of
97
As articulated in the exhibition catalogue for the first Bienal Latino-Americana an established art circuit in Brazil, they could show experimental works.
of 1978: ‘With the creation of Latin American biennial exhibitions, the Fundação Establishing relations with Conceptual art and bolstering its attempt to set
Bienal de São Paulo aims to provide artists and intellectuals from Latin America
with a meeting point and a chance to jointly research, discuss and, if possible, —
determine what may be called Latin American art.’ I Bienal Latino-Americana de 98
The I Bienal Nacional de São Paulo was also known as Pré-Bienal. Its last
São Paulo, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1978, p.19. The foundation’s vice-president edition happened in 1976, before being substituted in 1978 by the I Bienal
Oscar Landmann decisively influenced arrangements for this exhibition. See Latino-Americana.
http://www.unicamp.br/chaa/eha/atas/2012/Gabriela%20Lodo.pdf (last accessed 99
A. Amaral, Arte e meio artístico: entre a feijoada e o x-burguer (1961–1981),
on 4 March 2015). Only one edition of the Bienal Latino-Americana happened, São Paulo: Nobel, 1983, pp.297 and 299.
and while Ciccillo Matarazzo was still alive, titled ‘Mitos e Magia’ (‘Myths 100
W. Zanini, ‘Introduction’, in Catálogo da 16 ª Bienal de São Paulo (exh. cat.),
and Magic’), at the Pavilhão Engenheiro Armando Arruda Pereira, 3 November São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1981, p.21.
to 17 December 1978. 101
‘Information’, MoMA, New York, 2 July to 20 September 1970.

36 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 37
Installation view, 16th Bienal a world standard – a system and rationality anchored in the US – did not at
de São Paulo, Ciccillo Matarazzo
Pavilion, 1981
first present problems of principle. 102 On the contrary, it made sense: the
©  Agência Estado theoretical scope of Conceptualism legitimised a nobler vision than the
‘national identity’ claimed by the military regime since 1964.
Installation view, 17th Bienal
de São Paulo, Ciccillo Matarazzo Conceptual art’s internationalism allowed for an apolitical and ambiguous
Pavilion, 1983, section on
Fluxus International & Co.
diversity absent from the art of neighbouring countries such as Chile and
©  Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Argentina. It neither attached importance to a specific context nor made
Fundação Bienal São Paulo concessions to the institutionalised and stigmatised Hispanic American ghetto
in the US. 103 Its strictness – its objectivity, so to speak – authorised artistic
production to disconnect from local idiosyncrasies. For the sake of a rigorous
formal organisation, intellectuals and artists strained to get rid of ideological
signifiers. They made claims for an intelligence which would later slide into
formalist appreciation of the intrinsic issues raised by artistic practice.
McShine’s exhibition allowed Brazilian artists safe conduct to exhibit
abroad freely, without risk of being manipulated by political interests from
within Brazil. Both Oiticica and Meireles insisted on decoupling their
participation from their nationality, as clearly expressed by the former in the
exhibition catalogue for ‘Information’: ‘I am not here representing Brazil;
or representing anything else: the ideas of representing-representation-etc.
are over.’104

The retrospective interpretations of this historical moment that have been

developed by Latin American curators prove more concerned with the
differing contexts of art’s production. In particular, Mari Carmen Ramírez,
as curator and director of the International Center for the Arts of the
Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, has advocated for the study
of Conceptualism under Latin America’s authoritarian regimes, leading to
discussion of a ‘political conceptualism.’105

It is notable how few artists attained international visibility during the

1970s and 80s, when military dictatorships prevailed on the South
American continent. The English art critic Guy Brett, closely associated
with Signals Gallery in London and with a background interest in kinetic art,

—
102
It is worth noting that Oiticica rejected both the production of art objects to
be displayed in commercial galleries and the ‘Conceptual art’ designation.
103
The Guggenheim study grant that took Oiticica to New York in 1970 is
awarded on the basis of two separate competitions, one for the US and Canada
and the other for residents of Latin America and the Caribbean. Mexico was first to
enter the competition, in 1930, followed by Argentina, Chile, Cuba and Puerto
Rico; Brazil joined in 1940.
104
Quoted in Information (exh. cat.), New York: MoMA, 1970, p.105. And
compare Meireles’s comment in the same publication: ‘I am here, in this exhibition,
to defend neither a career nor any nationality’ (p.85).
105
Mari Carmen Ramírez, ‘Tactics for Thriving on Adversity: Conceptualism in
Latin America 1960–1980’, in M.C. Ramírez, Héctor Olea et al., Inverted Utopias:
Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, New Haven and Houston: Yale University
Press and The Museum of Fine Arts, 2004, pp.425–36.

38 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 39
 organised the first solo exhibitions outside of Brazil for Clark and Oiticica, Installation view, ‘America,
Bride of the Sun: 500 Years Latin
among others. 106 The 1980s accelerated a neocolonial process of cannibali- America and the Low Countries’,
sation in reverse, once travel became easier and more affordable.107 Although Royal Museum of Fine Art,
aware of the often-problematic framing of their work, artists typically found Antwerp, 1992. In foreground:
themselves unable to resist the siren call to show on an international work by Waltercio Caldas
© the artist; Archives Royal
platform. An emblematic example is ‘Magiciens de la Terre’, at the Centre
Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
Georges Pompidou and the Grande Halle de La Villette in Paris in 1989, for
which curator Jean-Hubert Martin selected Meireles, Ronaldo Pereira Rego
and Mestre Didi from Brazil as ‘magicians’ or ‘wizards’ rather than artists. 108
Another exhibition that stood out in this context was ‘Art in Latin America’,
at London’s Hayward Gallery in the same year, curated by Dawn Ades. 109
fig.70–72 Later asked to address the ‘anthropophagic dimensions of Dada and
Surrealism’ for the 24th Bienal’s ‘Núcleo Histórico’, 110 Ades acknowledged
‘Latin America’ as being ‘clearly a cultural and political designation, as
opposed to a neutrally geographical one’.111 Yet for the Hayward show, despite
her awareness of the ‘unreal unity’ of a ‘continental approach’, Ades called
upon identity factors as a common denominator rather than exploiting the
specificities of each country or region. Similarly, the catalogue asserted a exhibition of Latin American art held until that time. 113 In anticipation of
‘Latin American aesthetic’,112 with special emphasis on the Mexican artists the inevitable clichés, an essay by the show’s organiser, Paul Vandenbroeck,
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera began with an epigraph in Quechuan, then set out to deconstruct prevailing
and Joaquín Torres-García. historical narratives, from the alleged ‘discovery’ of the Americas by Spanish
conquistadores to the use of imagery to propagate an exoticism based on
In 1992, to coincide with the anniversary of ‘the discovery of America’, the human and territorial geography.
Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp staged ‘America: Bride of the Sun,
500 Years Latin America and the Low Countries’; arguably, the most audacious The difficulties and implications of the processes of the institutionalisation
of Latin American art were the subject of ‘Cartographies’, a project started p.42
— by Ivo Mesquita in 1989.114 In discursive terms, he questioned the assumption
106
Guy Brett, ‘A Radical Leap’, in D. Ades (ed.), Art in Latin America: The Modern of continental integration and engaged with Marta Traba’s classification of
Era, 1820–1980, New Haven and London: Yale University Press and South Bank Latin American art according to ‘open areas’, ‘closed areas’ and ‘islands’,
Centre, 1989, pp.253–83. Brett raised some relevant issues in relation to the
further positing additional subdivisions within these categories. 115 Mesquita’s
terminology used (‘Latin American’) and introduced the following artists: Lucio
Fontana, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Lygia Clark, Hélio proposal was based on his observations as a traveller, relating to topography,
Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Sergio Camargo, Mira Schendel and Mathias Goeritz. climatic conditions and behaviour:
107
The story is familiar: weary of its own mythologies, Western civilisation
ventured to far-off lands (hence the etymological origin of exotic) to draw on Latin America does not exist under a single identity. Generally speaking,
fresh images. The European cannibal embodies the reversal of anthropophagy there are at least six different cultural areas: the Amazon and the Caribbean
and originates in this journey to a place outside itself. area (Venezuela, Northern Brazil, Eastern Colombia, [the Guianas] and
108
‘Magiciens de la Terre’, Centre Georges Pompidou and the Grande Halle de La
Villette, Paris, 18 May to 14 August 1989. For more on this fraught exhibition,
see Lucy Steeds et al., Making Art Global (Part 2): ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ 1989, —
London: Afterall Books, 2013. 113
‘America: Bride of the Sun, 500 Years Latin America and the Low Countries’,
109
‘Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980’, Hayward Gallery, London, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, 1 February to 31 May 1992.
18 May to 6 August 1989. 114
The exhibition ‘Cartographies’ was held at Winnipeg Art Gallery, 19 March to
110
D. Ades ‘As dimensões antropofágicas do dadá e do surrealismo’ / ‘The anthro- 6 June 1993. It travelled to Museo de Artes Visuales Alejandro Otero, Caracas, 12
pophagic dimensions of dada and surrealism’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo August to 19 September 1993; Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá, 21 October
Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., pp.235–45. to 12 December 1993; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 18 February to
111
‘It originated in the context of French foreign policy of the 1850s, to cover 1 May 1994; and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, 10 June 1994 to 22
both those lands that were former Spanish and Portuguese colonies from the January 1995. See Ivo Mesquita, P. Herkenhoff and Justo Pastor Mellado (ed.),
Rio Grande in North America south to Cape Horn, and the French- and Spanish- Cartographies (exh. cat.), Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1993.
speaking Caribbean.’ D. Ades, ‘Introduction’, in D. Ades (ed.), Art in Latin 115
Marta Traba, ‘La década de la entrega: 1960–1970’, in Dos décadas vulnerables
America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980, op. cit., pp.1–2. en las artes plásticas latinoamericanas, 1950–1970, Buenos Aires and Mexico City:
112
D. Ades, ‘Foreword’, in ibid., p.ix. Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2005, pp.141–204.

40 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 41
 Installation view, ‘Cartographies’, into which the curator is placed by globalisation, regardless of their
Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1993.
From left to right: Julio Galán:
nationality. In other words, the act of deciding what deserves ‘to be on the
Niño posando como Egipcio, 1984, global map’ constitutes the real power relationship.
Secreto Eterno, 1987, Retrato de
Luisa, 1990. On the floor: Germán The catalogue for ‘Cartographies’ contains a large network of terms by
Botero: Alqumia, 1992, Maguare, Herkenhoff under the title ‘Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American
1988, Crisol, 1992, Piel Plana, 1989
© the artists; DACS 2015
Art’. 120 These short but dense notes deploy quotations and characters to
Courtesy Winnipeg Art Gallery deconstruct prevailing clichés; not only to dismantle an established discourse
but to erect something in its place, since Brazil’s social-cultural reality
remained sequestered within a European and US historiography based on
reiterating the canon.121 However, for a South American curator, moving
beyond national borders was synonymous with political exile or joining the
diaspora, at least until the military dictatorship ended and democracy was
reintroduced in the mid-1980s. At that time, very few critics succeeded in
combining a regional institutional influence with connections on a continental
scale, two notable exceptions being Amaral and Traba. Indeed, Rina Carvajal,
the Caribbean); the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay the Venezuelan curator selected by Herkenhoff for the ‘Latin American’
and Southern Brazil); the Andean Group (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and section of ‘Roteiros…’, was actually living in New York at the time of the
Colombia); Mexico; Central America; and Northeast Brazil.116 24th Bienal.

The author presented a rapid summary of the modernity-postmodernity The point here is to ask how the 24th Bienal could avoid being confounded
debate, reducing Western thought to a pursuit of ‘truth’ and claiming a with a certain fad for ‘margins’, triggered by ‘Magiciens de la Terre’, without
‘postmodern’ perspective in order to propose an alternative cartography getting caught up in nationalistic snares. It is significant, in this regard, that
open to other ‘systems of perception’.117 Mesquita’s association of a curatorial for the main exhibition Herkenhoff sought to address two further predicates:
strategy with its ability to produce ‘imaginary maps’ feeds the belief in travel- ethnography and modernity.122 In the same way as ‘America: Bride of the p.41
ling as a transformative experience, as if the traveller’s eye could suspend his Sun’, the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ showed landscapes and ethnic portraits by pp.114–73
or her systems of reference: European travellers, colonial ‘caste paintings’ and allegorical imagery from
different continents. 123 Herkenhoff called on Ana Maria Belluzzo, of USP,
Thus, the concept of cartography serves the need for a working method to curate the Eckhout display, and on the French historian Jean-François fig.52–55
that involves the curator gazing over the artistic production of the Chougnet for the section devoted to art from the sixteenth to the eighteenth fig.55–57
present, preserving a sensitive eye to the internal confrontations that art centuries. The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ distinguished itself, and in comparison to
sets up for itself in an effort to constitute a contemporary visuality. This is ‘America: Bride of the Sun’, through the legitimacy afforded by its context:
why the curator does not follow any sort of set protocol or any a priori
definition, for his work is born from the observation of transformations he —
perceives in the territories he traverses.118 120
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art’,
in Cartographies, op. cit., pp.7–85 and 169–91, and this volume, pp.230–47.
Catherine de Zegher, who selected twentieth-century works for ‘America:
121
‘… the Cartographies exhibition has two objectives: first, to present a sample
of the production of contemporary Latin American art and participate in the
p.41 Bride of the Sun’, admitted that being unable to produce an egalitarian current debate about this alleged category of art; second, to propose a curatorial
discourse is an inseparable part of the survey travel method: ‘Only the fact methodology capable of approaching the production of contemporary art,
of visiting as a curator from the “centre” to the “periphery” and already by critically standing up to institutionalised tradition and preserving the specificity
merely praising their work, you are involuntarily showing the “undeclared of the plastic discourses.’ I. Mesquita, ‘Cartographies’, op. cit, p.13.
notion of the European superiority”.’119 Her response illuminates the hierarchy 122
The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ lost a room that would have been devoted to
anthropology when sponsors withdrew at the last minute. Herkenhoff had asked
— anthropologist Manuela Carneiro da Cunha to curate the room.
116
I. Mesquita, ‘Cartographies’, in Cartographies, op. cit., p.31. 123
Soon after the 24th Bienal, two of its curators, Ivo Mesquita and Adriano
117
Ibid., p.23. Pedrosa, organized ‘F[r]icciones’ (2000 – 01) at the Museo Nacional Centro de
118
Ibid., p.21. Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, the same institution that would host
119
Benjamin Buchloh & Catherine de Zegher, ‘Ver America: A written exchange’, in ‘Princípio Potosí’ a decade later, in 2010. Both exhibitions took on the laborious
America: Bride of the Sun, 500 Years Latin America and the Low Countries (exh. cat), task of gathering religious paintings and sculptures from the colonial period to
Antwerp and Ghent: Royal Museum of Fine Arts and Imschoot Books, 1991, p.232. contextualise contemporary output from South America.

42 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 43
the ideological ballast of its narrative could be interwoven with the historical located the nub of the problem in Brazil’s colonial legacy. It is an over-
conditions of the host institution and its place of origin. simplification to interpret the international reputation of the 24th Bienal
based solely on the fact that the concept of anthropophagy was adaptable to
The phenomenon of Western exhibitions commemorating the anniversaries global agendas.
of the discovery and the independence of the continent was also significant
in that it triggered shared feelings for artists. Many aspired to exhibit at In rounding off this narrative, a decision made in 1998 should be mentioned:
so-called ‘first-world’ museums and knew it was a strategic step toward the removal of the letter I, for ‘International’, from the Bienal’s formal title,
internationalisation. In this respect, being selected for the celebrated if thus altering the Portuguese acronym from BISP to BSP. Normally this
controversial exhibition ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ was acknowledged as a would suggest a more local perspective, yet it was a very different gesture
beneficial process towards greater visibility. Curatorial criteria mattered less from Amaral’s attempt, in the late 1970s, to give visibility to Latin American
than the prestige of showing work at Centre Pompidou. countries. In 1998, the act of abolishing I was more ambitious, since it
operated from the status of the institution to ‘correct’ the stream of the
Although uncomfortable, the exotic notion of a ‘Latin American’ aesthetic canon of art history – the idea being that international revealed an unsolved
has very seldom stopped artists from accepting invitations to show abroad. inferiority complex in relation to the hegemonic centres.128 Thus, the removal
The struggle to break out of such a framing reached a new turning point in of the letter should be seen together with other organisational measures to
1996, when Gerardo Mosquera, a key member of the curatorial team for the turn the Bienal de São Paulo into a regular art event unhindered by the
first three Bienales de La Habana, stated that Latin America and Africa were machinations of foreign powers. The curator accomplished this same process
‘colonial inventions to be reinvented’.124 After 1989, other critics preferred of asserting independence, but within the context of art history. The
to use the expression ‘art coming from South America’, as a new attempt to power of the turnaround resided precisely in the attempt to expand artistic
bypass ill-considered notions of cultural identity; this expression not only internationalism beyond hegemonic parameters.129
includes the alterity of the foreigner but is also intended to voice the reality
of several migrations.125 In 1997, the year before the 24th Bienal, the first
edition of the Mercosul Biennial was held in Porto Alegre to strengthen a 3. Beyond the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ in 1998
free-trade agreement between five South American countries: Argentina, Paulo Herkenhoff was commissioned to curate the 24th Bienal early in
Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. (Although, in this case, signing an 1997. As already noted, Bienal curators are appointed each time by the president
economic protocol was hardly likely to foster a channel of communication of the Fundação Bienal, a precedent that resulted in a valuable alliance for
capable of working with the region’s identity issues.)126 the 24th edition between Herkenhoff and then-president Julio Landmann;
the two men’s ideas and principles were well attuned. The two Bienals preceding
The fact that art departments at Brazilian universities still align the 24th the 1998 iteration had been headed by Edemar Cid Ferreira, as president,
Bienal with multicultural studies rather than, say, postcolonial studies with overall strategic planning by chief curator Nelson Aguilar, an art historian
indicates that the debate is still immature. Theses and dissertations referen- and professor at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). More
cing the 24th Bienal often demonstrate some prejudice in relation to the even than a structure, Landmann and Herkenhoff were left with the legacy
curator’s intellectual stance, ignoring that Herkenhoff had specifically rejected of a widespread mentality among Fundação Bienal board members, to repeat
‘the ideology of multiculturalism, with its system of ethnic classification the same formula as previous editions. The expectation was that they would
developed by North American society’, 127 and failing to acknowledge that he continue working along the same lines: ‘According to its new formalised goals,
the Bienal was supposed to invite the largest number of countries possible
while also bringing artists of renown, besides presenting a heavyweight
—
124
G. Mosquera, ‘El arte latinoamericano deja de serlo’, in ARCO Latino (exh.
histori-cal module. Composed as much as possible by names known to the
cat.), Madrid: ARCO, 1996, pp.7–10. A reader of Lévi-Strauss, the Cuban curator general public and, therefore, able to attract the public to the event and,
posed diffuse lines of disagreement with Herkenhoff ’s interpretive model.
125
See, for instance, Jesús Fuenmayor, Arte da América do Sul: Ponto de viragem 1989, —
Porto: Fundação de Serralves / Jornal Público, Colecção de Arte Contemporânea, 128
Adriano Pedrosa notes that ‘the curatorship found it unnecessary, and in fact
2006. Still, the fall of the Berlin Wall remains ground zero for a contemporary rather provincial, to name a feature which the exhibition and the city so eloquently
reality yet to be deciphered. affirm’. A. Pedrosa, ‘Editor’s Note’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico:
126
In this biennial’s more recent iterations, its initial role has been reshaped: it Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.551.
has become yet another international forum discussing the circulation of art in 129
See V. Spricigo, ‘Contribuições para uma reflexão crítica sobre a Bienal de
the age of globalisation. São Paulo no contexto da globalização cultural’, available at http://www.
127
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Ir e vir’ / ‘To come and go’ (trans. V. Cordeiro), in XXIV Bienal forumpermanente.org/revista/numero-1/discussao-bissexta/vinicius-spricigo/
de São Paulo: Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros., contribuicoes-para-uma-reflexao-critica-sobre-a-bienal-de-sao-paulo-no-contexto-
op. cit., p.27. da-globalizacao-cultural (last accessed on 4 March 2015).

44 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 45
indirectly, to contemporary art.’130 Ferreira’s ‘bigger is better’ motto also São Paulo, including the Museu de Arte Sacra and the Museu de Arqueologia
sought to justify a project for building a permanent museum space in the Bienal e Etnologia and Museu de Arte Contemporânea at USP. 135
pavilion: ‘This was the only way through which the Brazilian public would
really perceive the importance of the link between precursors and renewers Soon after taking over in 1997, Herkenhoff asked Adriano Pedrosa to join
and would have the rare opportunity to ascertain that art does not mean him as associate curator, and after that both took all decisions concerning
fashion, but intuition of the unique instant only grasped by real creators.’ 131 their edition of the Bienal. 136 Herkenhoff defined his curatorial strategy in
Fabio Cypriano, art critic for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, characterised opposition to the divisions he had seen in the previous edition curated by
the era of Ferreira as privileging ‘an event-based culture to the detriment Aguilar: national delegations, a section called ‘Universalis’ (divided into seven
of its heritage; a concern to ensure massive visitation; lending the exhi- geographical regions with six representatives each) and individual rooms
bitions a spectacular air; using art as entertainment; Brazil’s engagement showing special exhibitions. As stated in an internal memo circulated at the
in the global art system; the notion of art as a business; an approach based time: ‘In all segments we are planning a more integrated exhibition and thus
on personal influence or charisma; leveraging the fragile nature of art discouraging curators and artists to think in terms of closed-off “rooms”.’137
institutions in Brazil’.132 Ferreira exerted his power and influence over board
members even when removed from his duties, talking of investment in the But how would the Bienal’s guiding principle of density be preserved at the
millions to back a Brazilian national narrative. Hence his investing in scale of a biennial exhibition that covered more than 30,000 square metres?
pharaonic set designs rather than museological criteria when showing art Together with Pedrosa and the ten curators invited to work on ‘Roteiros…’, pp.100–13
historical heritage pieces.133 Herkenhoff refined his exhibition strategy, asking them to collaborate
regarding their guest artists by doing away with individual rooms and
To make matters worse, Ferreira’s reputation migrated from the cultural pursuing ‘articulations and juxtapositions in the context of a collective
sections of the press to the crime pages when his business, Banco Santos, exhibition’.138 The mission of translating the curatorial concept into spatial
went bankrupt and faced money laundering charges. Whereas Ciccillo terms was entrusted to the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, a standout
Matarazzo’s personal fortune helped build a public art collection, Ferreira’s figure of the ‘São Paulo school’ of modernist architecture. Mendes da Rocha,
financial activities were denounced as benefitting his private collection of an who had also worked on the previous Bienal, was given the task of providing
estimated 9,000 works. Criminal charges snowballed and led to his personal open and transparent areas without demarcating territories or building
property being confiscated;134 ironically, today much of the former Banco walls. The curators explained their démarche as follows:
Santos Cid Ferreira Collection is held in escrow by several institutions in
Most of our public come just once to the Bienal, thus the challenge is to
— make an exhibition which is conceptually complex and spatially light.
130
Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial, […] Of course we understand specific needs for rooms and walls, silence
op. cit., p.240. The figures were always impressive under Ferreira’s leadership: the
and isolation, yet we would like to limit those, as we are doing in other
22nd Biennial had 27 special rooms, and 87 countries were represented at the 23rd.
131
E.C. Ferreira, ‘A 22 a Bienal Internacional de São Paulo: Honrar e renovar a segments of the XXIV Bienal, to instances when it is strictly necessary.
tradição’ / ‘The 22nd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo: Honoring and renewing In short we would like to reverse the assumption that one nation = one
tradition’, in 22ª Bienal de São Paulo - Salas Especiais I (exh. cat.), São Paulo: artist = one room. 139
Fundação Bienal, 1994, p.22.
132
F. Cypriano, ‘A era Edemar Cid Ferreira em quatro movimentos’, lesson plan —
for class at Escola São Paulo, 2013.
135
To understand the many lawsuits brought against the banker and businessman,
133
To stage ambitious exhibitions commemorating ‘the discovery of America’, and his 21-year prison sentence for leaving behind a R$2.2 billion shortfall (more
Ferreira, alleging a need to fill a gap in academic literature, commissioned illustrious than US$1 billion at the current exchange rate), see Mario Cesar Carvalho’s reports
individuals to draw up a temporal arc stretching from prehistory to the contemp- for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, ‘Ilustrada’ section, available at http://www1.
orary period. He then created a dissident wing of the Fundação Bienal, called folha.uol.com.br/fsp/mercado/me2701201114.htm (last accessed on 4 March 2015).
BrasilConnects, and an association named Brasil 500 Anos (Brazil 500 Years). In May 2015 a mistrial was declared due to a procedural error – at the time of
Thus, Ibirapuera Park became the epicentre of the ‘discovery’ of Brazil. An writing, the case continues.
operation on this scale could not ignore the coveted showcase in Venice. The
136
During the aforementioned presentation given at Faculdade Santa Marcelina
exhibition ‘Brazil in Venice’ (2001), on the occasion of the 49th Venice Biennale, on the 12 March 2008, Herkenhoff mentioned an exhibition curated by Pedrosa
sought to rewrite history by using icons replete with powerful exotic appeal. he had seen and that had been decisive in his selection of the associate curator:
134
See, for instance, the account by Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice, available at ‘Pequenas Mãos’, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, 1996.
http://stj.jus.br/portal_stj/publicacao/engine.wsp?tmp.area=398&tmp.
137
‘Newsletter: To all curators and institutions responsible for National Represen-
texto=91950 (last accessed on 4 March 2015). See also ‘StAR – Stolen Asset tations’, 9 January 1998, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de
Recovery Initiative – Corruption Cases – Edemar Cid Ferreira / Banco Santos, São Paulo.
S.A. Art Repatriation Case’, available at http://star.worldbank.org/corruption-
138
Fax from A. Pedrosa to P. Herkenhoff, 5 March 1998, Arquivo Histórico Wanda
cases/node/18495 (last accessed on 4 March 2015). Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
139
‘Newsletter: To all curators and institutions responsible for National
Representations’, op. cit.

46 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 47
 Raul Loureiro and Rodrigo Cerviño The emphatic presence of Brazilian artists in every section of the 24th
Lopez, poster for the 24th Bienal
de São Paulo, 1998, inspired by
Bienal far exceeded the space initially allocated for their ‘national represen-
a work by Leonilson tation’ and strengthened Herkenhoff’s proposed Brazilian narrative. Compared
© Raul Loureiro and to the previous edition, which featured the smallest proportion of Brazilian
Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez artists in the Bienal’s history, the numbers for the 1998 edition were significant:
271 artists showed work, of whom 71 were Brazilian.143 In addition to some
thirty names in the section ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre pp.78–99
Outro/s’, other Brazilian artists were scattered around the ‘Núcleo Histórico’,
for example in the so-called ‘colour axis’ and ‘Monochromos’, as well as the fig.83–98 and 64–68
Latin American segment of ‘Roteiros…’. Thanks to the device of ‘contami- fig.28 and 36
nation’, Herkenhoff was able to place specific artists, very often Brazilian, in
various curators’ rooms, preventing the consolidation of individualism and
clear national identities. Thus, Oiticica’s B33 Bólide Caixa 18, poema caixa
02 ‘Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo’ (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02 ‘Homage fig.76–77
to Horse Face’, 1965–66) was moved around during the exhibition (included
within ‘Monochromos’ and the David Alfaro Siqueiros space, for example) and fig.75–76
the two performers of a work by Laura Lima, Untitled (1998), constantly moved fig.20, 25 and 43
throughout the floors.144 Alongside the concept of contamination, Herkenhoff
proposed that single works could function with a certain ‘magnetic’ force,
producing fields of interaction within the space, in order to annul the
premise that an artist has to be represented by a great number of works. 145
Compared to the ‘great disputes’ of previous editions, Herkenhoff had a For example, a single piece such as Barrio’s T.E. (trouxas ensangüentadas), fig.74
different approach to this ‘central’ space on the ground floor of the pavilion: which was inserted into Bacon’s room had, according to this logic, the power
‘In the past, the space has been used to exhibit works by Anish Kapoor, Richard to unleash a debate about the ‘nature of painting’. 146 In the curator’s words:
Long and Joseph Beuys. It is a very marked space, charged with an intense ‘Take, for example, the notion of “magnetised space”. [Waltercio] Caldas
architectural drama. I did not want to significantly exercise power over it.’140 wanted to magnetise the entire biennial, he explained that there should be
In terms of the ‘public front’ of the Bienal, on the north-east façade of the no space where things were hidden, all places were worthy of attention,
fig.1–3 Bienal pavilion Regina Silveira presented her Tropel (Throng, 1998), which ideas which are also present in the conception of Lygia Pape’s work.’ 147
showed the paw prints of various animal species. The exhibition’s iconic
poster featured a Leonilson drawing, a figure with open arms stepping along a
—
tightrope. Although this showed no obvious relationship with anthropophagy, 143
For the 23rd edition, 135 artists were featured, of whom only 11 were Brazilian.
the image can be seen to reflect the difficulty of finding an upright position With a few exceptions, the percentage of Brazilian artists at each Bienal has
and a measure for balance – challenging harmony and stability – whilst also tended to be around twenty to thirty per cent. See Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos,
suggesting the plurality of history: Herkenhoff has repeatedly noted 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial, op. cit.
Leonilson as an artist whose work questions the notion of univocal truth. 141 144
In addition, Herkenhoff introduced Anna Bella Geiger into ‘Colour in Brazilian
The design of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo logo was also inspired by one of Modernism’; Barrio’s T.E. (trouxas ensangüentadas) was placed beside the Bacon
Leonilson’s works,142 acting as a tribute to this Brazilian artist who died as a display and his Livro de carne (Book of meat, 1979/1998) in the ‘Literature’ section;
Meireles was combined with van Gogh; Ernesto Neto and Vik Muniz were inserted
result of AIDS in 1993. into the ‘Surrealism and Dada’ space; a Mira Schendel Droguinha was placed next to
works by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson; Tunga’s work appeared in both ‘Colour in
— Brazilian Modernism’ and the Eckhout room; the work by Laura Lima (Untitled,
140
See P. Herkenhoff and A. Pedrosa, ‘The Brazilian Curator Private’ / ‘The Carioca 1998) constantly moved through the floors; the display of Alberto Giacometti’s and
Curator’, op. cit. Maria Martins’s sculptures in close proximity had unprecedented visual impact; and
141
See my Leonilson: São tantas as verdades, São Paulo: Projeto Leonilson, Adriana Varejão made a strong appearance across the entire exhibition, in the ‘Núcleo
SESI, 1995. Histórico’ as a point of articulation for various exhibits, with her painting Mapa de Lopo
142
‘A fragment of his sculpture was selected for the logo because the globe Homem (1992) in dialogue with the ‘Roteiros…’ section, and her graphic project Luta
represents the international character of the Bienal de São Paulo. What is more, de guerreiro nus (Nude warriors’ fight, 1998), which was published in the catalogue.
the work was featured at the nineteenth Bienal, in 1987. The choice then rescues 145
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit., p.36.
a fragment of this Foundation’s memory (and history) to make it contemporary 146
Ibid.
and meaningful.’ Document signed by Raul Loureiro (designer) and A. Pedrosa, 147
P. Herkenhoff and A. Pedrosa, ‘The Brazilian Curator Private / The Carioca
Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, date unknown. Curator’, op. cit.

48 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 49
 Contamination through magnetism, contact, contagion and porosity – this Nonetheless, as with Venice, the general concept of the biennial was typically
curatorial tool was used beyond its specific meaning in the ‘Manifesto’ to treated very loosely by the curators assigned to represent their respective
work around the problem of putting together a cohesive exhibition when countries. In 1998, even though an effort was made to spread the ‘Manifesto’
the Fundação Bienal’s regulations still delegated the selection of foreign amongst them, these curators had fewer chances to get committed to the
artists to their respective embassies, consulates and international cultural general concept, and thus the least interesting part of the 24th Bienal was
agencies.148 According to Julio Landmann, national delegations were part of still to be found in the ‘Representações Nacionais’. pp.68–77
a political mechanism that seemed insurmountable for the Fundação Bienal
in view of its historical relations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: With one exception: in a unique event in the history of the Fundação Bienal,
‘Itamaraty [the foreign ministry] is the oldest official partner of the Bienal, the Central American and Caribbean countries were given special attention.
offering a secure support in our institution’s lifetime of almost half a Based on his previous contacts in the region, Herkenhoff asked Virginia
century.’149 Lengthy customs procedures for temporary imports meant that Pérez-Ratton, then with Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa
in many instances the Fundação Bienal had to open exhibitions before Rica (MADC), ‘to travel to the area’s countries in order to coordinate
works from foreign countries could be installed. Historically, the curator of curatorial decisions when choosing country representatives, thus aiming for
the Bienal had little leeway to turn down international referrals based on the joint participation by following certain conceptual parameters. However,
argument that the show would not enjoy financial health without official the 24th Bienal was set to heighten the visibility of the event as a whole in
support from those countries responding to the call for participation. Yet the the exhibition space and book. Far from being ghettoised, this grouping
experience of the 26th edition proved that disadvantaged countries were unable arrangement was the articulated sum of symbolic production in the region.’151
to sponsor their artists, leaving them reliant on the minimal means offered
at the venue (basic installation, labels and lighting) whereas rich countries The relationships developed with Central America and the Caribbean were
would even send their own technical teams to ensure the high standard of extended within the ‘Roteiros…’ section, which was intended to send anthro- pp.100–13
their displays. With the way these huge differences in display budget were pophagy beyond Brazilian territory. Although ‘Roteiros…’ was equivalent
managed by the Bienal, the pavilion often had dreary areas reflecting the to the ‘Universalis’ section of the 23rd Bienal, the difference in tone was
power of hegemonic centres. Given this context, how to establish a parity palpable. The team of ten curators from various countries, assembled by
between centre and periphery? Herkenhoff and Pedrosa, actively examined Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’ before
arguing for their selections of artists.152 After all, with the Cold War and the
In his public statements, Herkenhoff has mentioned several attempts to old dichotomy between East and West at an end, the international situation
circumvent a design subordinated to the ‘festival of nations’ (66 countries seemed favourable for the 24th Bienal to make the ‘periphery’ stand out.153
were represented in the 24th Bienal overall). 150 First of all, the theoretical
pp.114–73 foundation of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ allowed juxtapositions of works An extract from Marco Polo’s thirteenth-century travelogue was selected to
irrespective of geopolitical criteria. But what about the countries that were open up the ‘Roteiros…’ catalogue, under the aegis of postcolonial debate.
still being asked to participate on an official basis? According to the rules In his foreword, Herkenhoff states that the strategy of displacing hegemonic
established in 1996, national representation had been limited to one artist centres began with the commission of two curators – one Belgian, Bart de
per country, a measure to increase direct requests from the Brazilian curators. Baere, and one Finnish, Maaretta Jaukkuri – to reflect a different Europe. 154
Without a doubt, a more traditional configuration would have invested in
—
148
This worked in reverse, too, when foreign embassies or consulates asked the —
Fundação Bienal for names of Brazilian artists to show at other international 151
J. Landmann, ‘Apresentação do Presidente da Fundação Bienal de São Paulo’ / 
events – and not only in the Venice Biennale but also, for instance, in the second ‘Fundação Bienal de São Paulo President’s Foreword’, op. cit., p.19. Landmann
Johannesburg Biennale of 1997 (as confirmed in a letter written by Peter Tjabbes, added: ‘This project was presented by Herkenhoff and Pérez-Ratton to the assembly
10 July 1997, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo). at the seventeenth meeting of the Central-American Cultural and Educational
It should be noted that from the 1970s onwards the curator of the Bienal was able Coordination in San José, in 1998, with the presence of representatives from Costa
to make a few direct invitations to artists from outside of Brazil. See, for instance, Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama [and the] Dominican
all those from Germany who were additionally involved over the years, beyond Republic, who praised the Bienal’s initiative.’
those nationally nominated, as meticulously recorded in Ulrike Groos and 152
Symptomatic of the increasing use of the internet within professional networks,
Sebastian Preuss, German Art in São Paulo, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2013. Pedrosa coordinated an online chat platform for the contributing curators.
149
J. Landmann, ‘Apresentação do Presidente da Fundação Bienal de São Paulo’ /  153
It is worth mentioning that the Bienal de La Habana, which had similar aims,
‘Fundação Bienal de São Paulo President’s Foreword’ (trans. V. Cordeiro), in was by that time facing internal and international difficulties as globalisation
XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Representações Nacionais, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, accelerated. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Communist bloc leveraged the creation
1998, p.18. of Manifesta as a roving biennial focusing on European issues, within Europe but
150
See Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial, not restricted to European artists.
op. cit., p.258. 154
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Ir e vir’ / ‘To come and go’, op. cit., p.26.

50 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 51
 those countries that usually had the ‘best’ rooms as result of their cultural (read In many ways, the 24th Bienal denoted a paradigm shift for the Fundação
‘diplomatic’) relations with Brazil – in particular, Germany, France and Bienal’s publishing concepts. Pedrosa devised the editorial approach, and each
Britain. Whereas in the ‘Manifesto’ the notion of otherness signifies the component of the exhibition was given its own dedicated volume. From the fig.99–102
devouring of foreign references, the curatorial strategy was to complicate outset, there was clearly an aim for this iteration of the Bienal to be appreciated
and disrupt hegemonic alliances and relations (the ‘capitalist modus vivendi’, as a rewriting of history. In other words, its publications, as discursive instru-
in Andrade’s words). Here, again, the term most often used to define the ments that would outlast the biennial, took on an academic rigour far beyond
pp.100–13 curatorial design in the ‘Roteiros…’ was ‘cartography’, with curators who the standard documentary function of an exhibition catalogue. The release
specialised in breaking down borders, from Africa (Lorna Ferguson and Awa of these accompanying volumes introduced an entirely new perspective for
Meité), Latin America (Carvajal), Asia (Apinan Poshyananda), Canada and the Bienal, producing literature without having to observe the tradition of
the US (Mesquita), Oceania (Louise Neri), Europe (Baere and Jaukkuri) and mirroring the works shown. As Pedrosa commented: ‘There are works in the
the Middle East (Ami Steinitz and Vasif Kortun).155 exhibition that do not appear in the books, as there are artists who develop
specific projects for the publications, yet are not in the pavilion.’158
For Canada and the US, the change in procedure reached a radical pitch,
since the designated curator of the region was from Brazil rather than North In addition to requesting the usual institutional and curatorial texts, the
America. Moreover, Mesquita opted not to group his selection within a specific editors commissioned more academic essays and reprinted extracts from histor-
area, instead spreading his artists throughout the pavilion. His contribution ical works. These excerpts wove a transversality of reference points well beyond
might be remembered as the most significant of the ‘Roteiros…’, as a compel- the specific boundaries of art theory. Their horizon was encyclopaedic, with the
ling reflection on end-of-millennium disillusionment. Mesquita brought to ‘Núcleo Histórico’ volume alone running to 560 pages.159 That book begins with
fig.34 Brazil impressive works by Andrea Fraser, General Idea (AA Bronson, Felix an excerpt from François Rabelais’s Pantagruel (c.1532) and ends with a few
fig.17–18 and 63 Partz and Jorge Zontal), Janet Cardiff, Jeff Wall, Michael Asher and Sherrie lines from Roland Barthes: ‘Union. Dream of total union with the loved being.’160
Levine. The ‘Roteiros…’ section devoted to Africa featured the most artists, Throughout, the publication features extracts from a multitude of voices,
thirteen, compared to Europe’s ten. Latin America, too, was represented by ten including Freud, Bakhtin, Bataille, Lacan, Jorge Luis Borges, Pierre Fédida,
artists – an unprecedented development in view of the distance that Brazil was Sara Maitland and Tennessee Williams. In turn, the 336-page Roteiros… includes
keeping from its southern neighbours on the continent at the time.156 excerpts from Italo Calvino, Manthia Diawara, Jamaica Kincaid, Marco Polo
— and Borges again. Texts were printed in Portuguese and English, with the except-
ion of Carvajal’s ‘Roteiros América Latina’ essay, which appeared in English
The role played by the 24th Bienal publications and their singularity in and Spanish, ‘acknowledging the primacy of [Spanish] on the subcontinent’.161
comparison with previous editions also deserves close attention. Catalogues
for the Bienal de São Paulo were usually plain affairs consisting of a bare However, the abundant Western references in the catalogues stand out against
institutional report, a curatorial statement, installation plans and humdrum the relative absence of Brazilian authors. 162 The catalogue’s privileging of
information on the artists and works involved – useful only as basic sources Western rather than Brazilian modernities seems in direct contradiction with
of reference. These publications were designed to supply a bibliography to —
the local art communities, since tax incentives and other subsidies made it 158
A. Pedrosa, ‘Editor’s Note’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico:
possible for the Fundação Bienal to set affordable prices on the volumes and Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., pp.550–51. The note was printed
to distribute them free to libraries across Brazil.157 at the back of each of the four volumes. In this volume, two double spreads were
devoted to Varejão’s Luta de guerreiros nus. In Roteiros…, one double spread features
— Olafur Eliasson’s work and three double spreads featured Rosangela Rennó’s work.
155
In the case of ‘the Arab world’, the combination of Israeli and Turkish curators 159
As Pedrosa explained to Herkenhoff in a fax, ‘this historic tome is now quite
gave rise to some conflict; regarding the ‘Roteiros…’ selection overall, Herkenhoff voluminous, encyclopedic’ (5 March 1998, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / 
wrote: ‘For fear or indignation to work with curators from the “enemy’s side”, some Fundação Bienal de São Paulo).
artists preferred not to participate in these Roteiros.’ P. Herkenhoff, ‘Ir e vir’ / 160
Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments (trans. Richard Howard),
 ‘To come and go’, op. cit., p.29. New York: Farrar, Straus and Girard, 2001, p.226.
156
For full details on the ‘Roteiros…’ section, see pp.100–13. ‘Roteiros…’ was 161
A. Pedrosa, ‘Editor’s Note’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico:
also designed to include a web art segment for the first time at a biennial, with Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit., p.551.
contributions from Ricardo Ribenboim and Ricardo Anderáos. Curators’ fees for 162
Herkenhoff’s bibliographical orientation changes in the catalogue for another
the ‘Roteiros…’ were US$4,000–10,000. exhibition he curated, ‘Amazonia: Cycles of Modernity’, in the context of the
157
The Fundação Bienal had a long-standing commitment to displaying the conference ‘Rio+20’, 20 to 22 June 2012, across ten locations, including the Museu
works submitted by different nations and featuring them in the exhibition catalogue. de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro. In this project, Western authors made way for
Even so, national representatives often produced leaflets and sometimes even the voices of Brazilian novelists Mário de Andrade, Milton Hatoum and Dalcídio
hardcover books to publicise their official guests, regardless of the institution’s lack Jurandir, and his conception of the Enlightenment becomes clearer with excerpts
of financial resources. from Antonio Vieira’s ‘Sermão do Espírito Santo’ (Sermon of the Holy Spirit).

52 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 53
 Herkenhoff ’s ambition for an exhibition that would mark the Bienal’s who were grouped by their specific training (most had no artistic background).
‘coming of age’, a Kantian reference to evoke a ‘modern political project of Herkenhoff then arranged to lead sessions for each teacher group, followed
cultural emancipation’.163 Herkenhoff meticulously associated the choice of by questions and discussion.167
Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’ with a curatorial strategy of greater reach than the mere
expectation of a list of artists: the ambition was to engender the Bienal’s A key issue in producing the educational materials offered by the exhibition
ability to have the courage to think for itself as an institution, and to confront was to ensure the lasting effect of its content, to aim for its continued
the influence of Western ‘paternalism’. So, when the curator announced the circulation in schools even after the exhibition had ended. These materials,
urgency of this ‘coming of age’, the talk of anthropophagy established a in addition to the catalogues, not only released visitors from any obligation
correspondence with the intellectual autonomy that Kant discussed in his to follow a fixed itinerary, but stood its ground in the absence of the event
essay asking ‘What is Enlightenment?’. The curatorial strategy imparted to itself. The project of the ‘Núcleo Educação’ was to encompass ‘all segments
Andrade a timbre from Kant – that one should think for oneself, without of the public education system, not just those teaching art’ – not least
being led by others. Hence, it is striking that in the case of the catalogues because teaching visual art and culture through images was a relatively
the Western canon remains so present. recent practice in the Brazilian curriculum.168

fig.102 The publication for ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’ The dialectical relationship between ‘modern art’ and art production from
was postponed in order to be able to document and highlight the spatial outside industrialised centres could no longer be overlooked. Herkenhoff’s
relations established in the exhibition space. In addition to in situ images of curatorial tactic focused on formulating general questions rather than
works, other devices were introduced, in particular the use of footnote-style providing answers; and alongside images reproduced in the educational
smaller images, since the list of technical data for the works would not charts, blunt questions were posed: What is photography? What is racism?
reflect the dialogues provided by their display. In short, there were graphic What is anthropophagy at the social level? 169 Conceptual though this may
and editorial measures to ensure that future appreciation of the Bienal seem, Herkenhoff sought to focus on ‘interpreting works of art’ – a gap he
would grasp its dialogic value. 164 had spotted in Brazil’s education system. His use of Lyotard’s concept of
épaisseur, of density or thickness, was not restricted to a discursive report,
As already mentioned, the majority of the wall texts were overloaded with nor to a formal debate, but applied to the very act of seeing – hence a
concepts derived from Marxism and psychoanalysis.165 As a kind of counter- curatorial selection based on strong visual analysis was developed especially
balance, the curatorial rhetoric frequently expressed its investment in public to stimulate students’ learning about the key works in the 24th Bienal.
education, consistent with the Bienal’s long-standing commitments and Seth Siegelaub’s motto brings an irreplaceable truth: ‘Figures don’t lie…’170
complemented by Herkenhoff’s understanding of the curator’s social role. The
‘Núcleo Educação’, the educational programme of the Bienal developed by —
167
According to Herkenhoff, 200,000 elementary school students, in the state
Evelyn Ioschpe, can be understood as the third strand of the 24th Bienal,
sector, visited the exhibition. The Núcleo Educação report submitted to the Wanda
alongside the exhibition and the publications. 166 The programme produced Svevo Archive at the Fundação Bienal specifies that people ‘came from 231 cities
content that was distributed to 15,000 classrooms to help train 1,000 teachers, located in 18 states in Brazil, and from 14 other countries’. Producing educational
content on this scale is now part of the São Paulo Bienal’s institutional programme:
— each iteration distributes specific educational material free of charge for Brazil’s
163
Immanuel Kant, ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?’ (‘An Answer schools and libraries, besides offering teacher-training programmes. Shortcomings
to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’), 1784. in children’s art education in Brazil have historical roots; few major initiatives or
164
Raul Loureiro and Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez did the graphic design for the authors have focused on this type of learning. In this context, critic Mário Pedrosa
publications. would emphasise Ivan Serpa’s ‘little school’ and children’s art exhibitions at Rio de
165
This is how Herkenhoff defended Régis Michel’s theoretically complex curatorial Janeiro’s Museu de Arte Moderna, as well as the occupational therapy section dev-
approach, for example: ‘The room organised by Régis Michel offered a matrix that eloped by Dr Nise da Silveira at the Engenho de Dentro Psychiatric Centre. Pedrosa
in some ways ran parallel to the development of Marxism and preceded the himself wrote several pieces on two ‘new’ worlds that emerged almost simultaneously
emergence of psychoanalysis. He was criticised for his having “too many texts on in the social sciences. As well as warning against the ‘notion of white superiority over
the walls”, for instance, but this was part of Michel’s curatorial method. Eight years other peoples from the economic and cultural periphery’, his understanding of the
later, he was asked to lead a seminar for a USP graduate program … Imagine if they place of a child’s imagination in the perspective of a freer society includes Freud’s
had recognised his erudition to discuss the Goyas, Géricaults and Rodins at the ‘discovery’ of the unconscious world that was ‘neglected or ignored by the intellect-
biennial. […] Ten years later, masters and doctoral students have written more ualist rationalist prejudices of this same bourgeois culture.’ See M. Pedrosa, ‘A Bienal
theses on the 24th Bienal than there are analytical texts produced in the city.’ de cá para lá’, in O.B.F. Arantes (ed.), Política das Artes, São Paulo: Edusp, 1995, p.286.
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit., p.34. 168
Núcleo Educação report submitted to the Wanda Svevo Archive, op. cit.
166
For more on the educational programme, see Carmen Mörsch and Catrin 169
From P. Herkenhoff, unpublished transcript of seminar at Faculdade Santa
Seefranz, ‘Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo’, Marcelina, 12 March 2008, op. cit.
in this volume, pp.188–204. 170
See Seth Siegelaub, ‘On Exhibitions and the World at Large: In Conversation with

54 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 55
Paradoxically, the 24th Bienal has become important for its ability to not only 1990s, ‘biennial culture’ has become widespread enough to prompt an interest
put forward Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’ but also to transcend it. Its logic was so in historicising its own growth. The scale of this complexity led to a forum
intrinsically derived from the exhibition that it cannot be used as a model.171 held at the 2009 Bergen Biennial Conference that endorsed ‘biennialogy’
It remains unique in its genre because it was oriented toward the comprehension (a history of biennials) and coined the verb ‘biennialise’. 173
of an ‘international present’. 172 Of course, it would be an odd comparison to
link Andrade with a transnational discourse. Nonetheless, it is true that the All these details take on a new relevance when we assess the customary
Bienal broke new ground in terms of understanding the perspective of the historical rooms that give the Bienal de São Paulo its local reputation. The
South (the adage of many curators, less or more relevant, after 1998) and problem is that the Bienal continues to emphasise the goal of public education,
marked a distinction among previous editions. The Bienal de São Paulo success- ignoring that São Paulo’s reality has dramatically changed – and under-
fully broke out of its peripheral position in its 24th edition by reassessing the standings of the Bienal’s ‘public’ with it – and that the city has now to address
type of modernity introduced by Western narratives. By combining past and its own periphery. How to encourage the integration of a population that
future, this emancipatory struggle fused with the educational project. As in does not even have the right to mobility, having to deal every day with the
Ciccillo Matarazzo’s lifetime, it was a tour de force to raise quality to first- urban chaos of public transport? Behind a calculated blindness, there obviously
world standards and to develop institutional diplomacy; except that, this time, remains a ‘civilising’ mission, conveying an ideal, ‘universal’ canon (the wealthy
Western civilisation and related issues of modernity gained a critical framing. industrialised countries’ culture and democracy) intended to ‘enlighten’ a
Today, Herkenhoff’s curatorial selection of high-powered iconic works continues context that, paradoxically, has other cultural priorities. The arrival of Picasso’s
to fuel a powerful imaginary for new generations of curators. Guernica at the second Bienal in 1953 is a cultural ‘myth’ that has yet to be p.58
surpassed – most of all by the Fundação’s board of directors.

4. The Anthropophagy Biennial in the Brazilian Art System Today For a biennial that was originally attached to a modern art museum,174 success
To bring out São Paulo’s strategic position in relation to the biennial model cannot be equated with that of other, later, global exhibitions. To be attached
one has to go back to the 1950s, when Venice and Kassel alone vied within to a modern art museum reflected the aim of interweaving a promising
Europe for prestige among contemporary art specialists, quite unlike the collection with an educational programme built on the premise of escorting
current situation. The art traveller’s route is now extended to take in, for the megalopolis to it. But the mid- or long-term rationale – that this model
example, Sydney (which avoided national delegations from the start, in 1973), is necessary to structure an art circuit in connection with schools, cultural
Havana (since 1984), Istanbul (since 1987) and numerous others – notably centres, galleries and collectors – is a stage that has already been reached.This
Lyon, Gwangju, Dakar, Berlin, Mercosul, Shanghai and Taipei in the 1990s – parallels Herkenhoff ’s more-or-less modernist goal that an ‘art exhibition
clearly showing that the advance of the biennial model will not be deterred means building citizenship, in which education is fundamental and the
by territorial or ideological limits. Despite periodic claims that they are curator is an agent of this process’. 175
founded on civil uprisings or social interventions, all these events bear an
uncomfortable resemblance to art fairs. This can be understood as a result In Brazil, São Paulo is not only the dominant city of Brazilian academia 176
of recent factors, for example the emergence of a professionalised network of and of art history, but also a challenge for urban anthropology, Herkenhoff
curatorial agents not directly working in the art market (commercial galleries) —
but helping to set criteria for collecting, primarily for corporate groups rather 173
The call for contributions from critics was headed: ‘To biennial or not to
than museums, foundations or cultural centres. biennial?’. Bergen Kunsthall organised an international conference in 2009 to
compile a critical review of the biennial model before moving forward with plans to
Given late capitalism’s cultural logic, the dizzying numbers of new venues are design its ‘Scandinavia’s key-city’ image. See Elena Filipovic, Marieke van Hal and
Solveig Øvstebø (ed.), The Biennial Reader: An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial
marketed so astutely that artists and visitors are still presented as the principal Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, Bergen: Hatje Cantz & Bergen Kunsthall, 2010.
beneficiaries of the staging of biennials. Each city is potentially a headquarters, 174
As part of the slow but sure institutionalisation process, Wanda Svevo established
even at the ‘end of the world’ (The End of the World Biennial was created in contemporary art archives in 1955 at MAM-SP, which hosted the first five editions
2007 in Ushuaia, capital of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego Province). Since the of the Bienal. By classifying and archiving documents (press clippings, photographs,
letters and so forth) pertaining to the institution’s activities, the event’s organisers were
— quick to show their grasp of its vocation for the next generation of art researchers.
Charles Harrison, 1969’, in L. Steeds (ed.), Exhibition: Documents of Contemporary 175
M.H. Carvalhaes, ‘Dez anos depois: um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff ’,
Art, London and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, 2014, op. cit., p.39.
p.36. The full sentence is: ‘Figures don’t lie; accountants do.’ 176
The Universidade de São Paulo – USP has been hailed as South America’s best
171
See Maria Helena Carvalhaes, ‘Dez anos depois: um debate com Paulo public university by at least one ranking system. See Times Higher Education university
Herkenhoff ’, marcelina, vol.1, 2008, p.41. rankings 2013–14, available at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-
172
L. Steeds, ‘Introduction // Contemporary Exhibitions: Art at Large in the World’ university-rankings/2013-14/world-ranking/region/south-america (last accessed
in L. Steeds (ed.), Exhibition: Documents of Contemporary Art, op. cit., p.13. on 4 March 2015).

56 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 57
 Installation view, II Bienal do of how Brazil’s image would be projected internationally. In eschewing the
Museu de Arte Moderna,
Pavilhão das Nações, 1953–54.
belief that the Week of Modern Art in 1922 had established a ‘foundational
©  Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo /  myth’, the curator showed his talent as a strategist. 180 As earlier detailed, the
Fundação Bienal São Paulo ‘Núcleo Histórico’ had a complicated, almost paradoxical status as a ‘museum’
within a temporary exhibition format. Biennials lack a permanent collection
of their own for interchanges with other institutions, making the value of
establishing relationships for institutional loans comparable to that of the
works themselves. The 24th Bienal spared no effort in arranging the logistics
(packing, transport, insurance) required to ship works from 110 museums
around the world. A brief glance of a single item of correspondence – picked
at random from the archives – suffices to gauge the scale of this operation: the
list of Régis Michel’s requests alone shows unprecedented complexity in terms
of the usual models for contemporary art biennials.181 Each step taken by the
curatorial team was orchestrated for institutional purposes, to ensure
repercussions with the international community while boosting the Fundação
Bienal’s image internationally. Developing closer relations for the Bienal de
São Paulo to tap international cooperation inevitably brings to mind Ciccillo
Matarazzo’s diplomatic manoeuvres of the 1950s;182 the extensive negotiations
has affirmed. 177 The city is an accumulation of superlatives: the world’s undertaken by Herkenhoff and the curatorial team were part of a remarkable
fourth-largest urban agglomeration; South America’s most influential financial vision to establish a network for the future.
centre, hosting seventeen of the world’s twenty largest banks; socially, a
melting pot of Japanese, Italian, Bolivian, Korean, north-eastern Brazilian,
—
Jewish, Arab and other immigrant communities; and with high levels of Francis Bacon room alone cost R$500,000. The estimated budget for the 31st
social inequality and crime. Its social and economic configuration has always Bienal was R$22 million (approximately US$8.1 million).
and inevitably challenged each Bienal curator’s logic, but Herkenhoff pondered 180
Philosopher Marilena Chauí has written an excellent study on how several
São Paulo in comparison with two very different cities that periodically host Brazilian myths have validated authoritarian processes. See M. Chauí, Brasil:
major exhibitions, Kassel and Venice: Mito fundador e sociedade autoritária, São Paulo: Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2000.
181
The list mentioned four Carpeaux drawings, a Chassériau, a de Chevanard, two
Kassel retains its position as an event for reflection. This status is not reached Delacroix, a Goya, a Luc-Olivier Merson and a Raffet from the Louvre’s graphic arts
department. It also included two of Géricault’s sketches for The Raft of the Medusa
by showing artists A, B or C, Richard Serra or Anselm Kiefer. A potentially
(1818–19) from the Louvre’s painting department, which had also been requested by
more interesting difference between São Paulo, Venice and Kassel is that the another exhibition due to open at the same time. Herkenhoff’s ‘Solomonic solution’
Bienal de São Paulo has a lively and productive metropolis backing it; Kassel had each event receiving one of the sketches. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris was asked
is a small town and Venice, a heritage-listed tourist monument. What to lend two Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier oil paintings (or, alternatively, a water-
I proposed to do was move São Paulo away from Venice and closer to Kassel. colour); Musée Rodin, eleven drawings; Musée Gustave Moreau, two watercolours
In other words, switch from Venice’s political model to Kassel’s intellectual and three drawings; École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, three drawings
one. I did so secretively to avoid alarming Ciccillo Matarazzo’s heirs.178 by Carpeaux and one by Géricault; Bibliothèque Nationale, four Desprez prints;
Besançon’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, a Géricault drawing and two Goya paintings on
wood; Marseilles’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, three Bernard Valere prints; Musée d’Art
Yet this intellectual character had to be compatible with targeting a wider et d’Histoire of Metz, a Moreau painting; Musée Fabre of Montpellier, a Géricault
audience, rather than São Paulo professionals alone. Different agreements were painting and a Chevanard; and Musée des Beaux-Arts of Rouen, four Géricault draw-
articulated in an arrangement of balance and diplomacy: Herkenhoff’s outline ings and a Moreau painting. In addition to works from several French provinces,
for an event that cost over US$15 million kept one foot in each camp as it Michel listed other European cities to complete his selection: Hamburg, Leipzig, Neuss,
successfully mastered the dialectic of international relations and local Weimar, Oxford, Cambridge, Linz, Brussels, Amsterdam, Oslo and Stockholm.
sovereignty,179 in a process of fine-tuning identity issues with an understanding 182
Note the major change in terms of the person currently filling this role: the
curator, rather than the Fundação Bienal president. Historically, the São Paulo
— Bienal’s curator has had limited independence and has been subject to interference
177
See P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit., pp.26–27. from Fundação Bienal officers and directors when selecting artists and rooms.
178
Ibid., p.22. The São Paulo population, numbering 2.5 million at the time of Herkenhoff’s review of the 24th Bienial lists seven principles or practices that must
its first biennial, had grown to nearly 20 million by 2014. be met with a ‘no’: interference, accomplished facts, opportunism, failing to submit
179
On its opening date, the press reported a total budget of R$15 million. At that records, letting things go on until somebody gives up, ‘democratism’ and yielding to
time, the Brazilian currency was on a par with the US dollar. Sponsoring the pressure. See P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit., pp.26–27.

58 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 59
The project overall sought to reverse the flow of interpretations that had Installation view, 28th Bienal
de São Paulo, Ciccillo Matarazzo
previously placed Brazil in a minor position. Perhaps more ambitiously still, Pavilion, 2008.
it set out to steer around the trap of multiculturalism. This task was even In foreground: Maurício Ianês,
thornier in consideration of another of Herkenhoff ’s curatorial aims, thus Untitled (The Kindness of
defined: ‘The exhibition was to be aimed at the Brazilian public.’ 183 After Strangers), 2008
© the artist; Amilcar Packer
visiting the ‘empty’ Johannesburg Biennale in 1997, Herkenhoff realised that
‘the biennial must not be made for the international scene. […] Rather than
something curators do for themselves and their professional project, a
biennial is clearly a collective social project.’ 184

Herkenhoff ’s appointment, given his status as a curator from Rio, may well
have hurt the local pride of certain people in São Paulo. After all, the
Modern Art Week preceding Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’ was itself
launched in São Paulo’s municipal theatre! A comparison of the modernist
poet’s letters with the reception that art critics subsequently afforded the
exhibition may show minor sentimental coincidences between Andrade and
Herkenhoff, as if the latter personified the controversy between the former and subsequent president Manoel Pires da Costa, who was elected in 2002, 189
the intelligentsia of his day.185 Both men showed confidence in the revolu- Edemar Cid Ferreira was reinstated to the board despite having been charged
tionary power of ideas. Andrade wrote: ‘The masses, dear fellow, will have with fraudulent activities. The news of his renewed position revealed an
to rise to the level of the finest quality material, which is what I make. […] ethical crisis on top of the financial one, and prompted Cildo Meireles to
To doubt the masses’ ability to understand is to doubt revolutionary progress withdraw from participating as an artist in the 27th Bienal. 190 Financial
itself.’ 186 Likewise, Herkenhoff always insisted on upholding the complexity accounts submitted during Pires da Costa’s mandate were rejected, thus
of his own project, rather than diluting it for the perceived requirements of a exacerbating the institutional crisis and revealing a lack of administrative
mass audience.187 Yet there was also a distinct lack of understanding in the 24th transparency. With debts building up, 191 and time running short to organise
Bienal’s critical and intellectual reception, as Herkenhoff would reflect ten years the 28th Bienal, curator Ivo Mesquita and associate curator Ana Paula
later: ‘Paradoxically, at the Anthropophagy Biennial an antithetical reaction was Cohen decide to leave the pavilion’s middle floor dramatically empty as a
observed – an absolute refusal to discuss the art on show. According to Claude basis for re-examining the biennial model.
Lévi-Strauss, anthropoemic culture, unlike anthropophagy, is one that does
not assimilate any exchange with the other, ultimately it involves vomit.’188 In this dystopian scenario, the 1998 Bienal stands out as a rare instance of the
— institution attempting to professionalise its management and, further, to make
a break from the cronyism typical of the hereditary captaincies of Brazil’s
An institutional crisis was to grip the Fundação Bienal after the 24th edition colonial period. The 24th Bienal was inarguably a watershed moment between
due to reports of financial irregularities under the chairmanship of the architect European and US exhibitions. In an interview given in 2001, curator Catherine
Carlos Bratke, Landmann’s appointed successor. Alfons Hug curated the David stated it was the best edition of the Bienal de São Paulo’s history, and
25th and 26th editions, in 2002 and 2004. Through a manoeuvre by the that, compared to the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo institution held
much more potential to mirror social and contemporary issues.192
—
183
Herkenhoff had statistics showing that ‘40% of the public were visiting the —
exhibition for the first time’, which meant that ‘certain physical barriers symbolising 189
Manoel Pires da Costa was elected president of the Fundação Bienal after
social exclusion’ had to be tackled. See ibid., p.27. being condemned for irregularities in the financial market during his mandate as
184
P. Herkenhoff, unpublished transcript of seminar at Faculdade Santa president of the BM&F (Futures and Commodities Exchange). See http://www.
Marcelina, 12 March 2008, op. cit. istoe.com.br/reportagens/30739_TESTEMUNHAS+CHAVE (last accessed on 4
185
Andrade and Herkenhoff also resemble each other in their repeated attacks on March 2015). Nevertheless, he was appointed by the Board to preside the Fundação
academic circles, within which their work has been disparaged as inadequate by for three mandates, despite allegations concerning accounting practices under his
academic standards. management, from 2002 to 2010, in power during the curatorships of Alfons Hug
186
O. Andrade, ‘Carta a Afrânio Zuccolotto’, Ritmo, November 1935. (2004), Lisette Lagnado (2006) and Ivo Mesquita and Ana Paula Cohen (2008).
187
Herkenhoff has also refuted the pertinence of the term ‘blockbuster’ to 190
Ferreira still holds a seat on the Fundação Bienal Board. Despite the incident
describe any edition of the Bienal, since the admission tickets could never cover the involving him and Meireles, the latter showed work at the 29th Bienal, curated
budget of producing the exhibition. See P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios by Moacir dos Anjos and Agnaldo Farias in 2010.
e processos’, op. cit., p.21. 191
In 2012, the press reported a shortfall of R$75 million.
188
Ibid., p.34. 192
Catherine David, interviewed in F. Cypriano, ‘Curadora critica Guggenheim

60 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo Lisette Lagnado 61
 The 24th Bienal
The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ turned out to be much more than a structural support The 24th Bienal de São Paulo
in Herkenhoff ’s curatorial design for the 24th Bienal. From the outset, it Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo
overshadowed the other sections and was perceived as an attempt to bring 3 October–13 December 1998
together several disciplines in support of a ‘cultural strategy’, as Andrade

de São Paulo 1998

would have wished. It is true that official statements emphasised the existence
of multiple assumptions and strategies to avoid the event’s scale and scope ‘Representações Nacionais’ (‘National Representations’)
being confused with the identity of a museum. Nevertheless, boundaries or Ground floor (across two levels connected by a ramp)
demarcations between excluding territories were often blurred. The very real
complexity of the operation lay in devising a different narrative – forming ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’
the basis for, in the long term, a different international agenda. Not even the (‘Brazilian Contemporary Art: One and/among Other/s’)
hailstorm that hit the building on the opening night, causing leaks in the
top-floor exhibition area where the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ was located, could Primarily on the first floor (north-east side)
detract from the work that had been done.
‘Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
Well over a decade since the Anthropophagy Biennial, some of the event’s Roteiros. Roteiros.’ (‘Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes.
successes may be said to lie in its internationalising Brazilian artists (although Routes. Routes. Routes.’)
it did not do this for other Latin American artists to the same extent). Despite Primarily on the first floor (south-west side)
more recent biennials joining the region’s art circuit – Havana and Mercosul in
particular – São Paulo remains relevant for more than its historical precedent
within the South American continent, with participation still enjoying a ‘Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos’
high level of prestige. Whilst São Paulo may have outshone Venice (as the (‘Historical Nucleus: Anthropophagy and Histories
Son kills the Father) and elevated recognition of Brazilian art to a new level, of Cannibalisms’)
a different order of problems has emerged in connection with its international Second (top) floor
prestige. The São Paulo event is at an unexpected crossroads: how to cope
with higher expectations from the international system than from its local
audience? Assessed in terms of critical pedagogy and analysing the gap
between an event and its academic reflection, as well as between an event and
the masses, we find that the Bienal has yet to imprint an ethical standard for
its curatorial strategy that demonstrates its independence from the metropolis
or any force that expresses power. 193 Regrettably, even the abolishment of
national representations would not constitute the desired horizon of autonomy:
today market imperatives threaten to drown contributions, including the most
radical works, in ever-murkier waters.

Translated from Portuguese by Izabel Burbridge.

—
no Brasil’, Folha de S. Paulo, ‘Ilustrada’ section, 6 February 2001, available at
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0602200121.htm (last accessed on
4 March 2015). Agnaldo Farias would also declare the 24th Bienal the ‘best
exhibition of its kind’ in Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the
São Paulo Biennial, op. cit., p.254.
193
One cannot forget the growth of the art fair SP Arte, which takes place in the
same pavilion as the Bienal and shares the modernist aura of the architecture. This
cohabitation represents a compelling challenge ahead if the Bienal really wants to
distinguish itself as a different category of art show.

62 Anthropophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo

fig.1

Outside the Bienal building, Regina Silveira’s vinyl Tropel

(Throng, 1998), part of the ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira’ section
curated by Paulo Herkenhoff and Adriano Pedrosa, appeared
on the façade of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera
Park, alongside Bienal billboards stating ‘Só a antropofagia
nos une’ (‘Only antropophagia unites us’), a phrase taken from
Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto antropófago’.

fig.2 and 3

64 The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 65

fig.4

The exhibition box office was located

outside the Pavilion.

The entrance to the Bienal, via the Rua de Serviços (Street of Services),
housed a number of stands by corporate sponsors, such as Kodak,
Sudameris Bank and the financial newspaper Gazeta Mercantil, and
was the home of the Sala Educação (educational centre), sponsored
by HSBC Bank. There was a text on the windowpane that read: ‘Teacher,
this room is for you! Use this space of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo to fig.5 and 6
search for guided tours and projects’.

The website for the Bienal – accessible at the exhibition at a dedicated

‘Web Bienal’ station – also made available a range of teaching materials,
as well as exhibition maps, interactive documentation and ‘Webarte’,
an online exhibition. According to the catalogue, ‘Webarte’ was curated
by Mark van de Walle, and featured the artists Dennis Balk, Sue de
Beer, Erik and Heather ChanSchatz and John Simon, among others;
it also included a section titled ‘seja antropofágico: webcanibalize!’
(‘be anthropophagic: cannibalise the web!’), which was curated by
Ricardo Ribenboim and Ricardo Anderáos, with projects by Fabiana
de Barros (Vulnerables, 1998–99), Gisela Domschke and Fabio Itapura
(The Buzzing Diary, n.d.) and Kiko Goifman and Jurandir Müller
(Valetes em Slow Motion, 1998).

66 The 24th Bienal de São Paulo 67

Representações
‘Representações Nacionais’ (‘National Representations’) Kimsooja (South Korea, curated by Young-Ho Kim)
William Kentridge (South Africa, curated by Lorna Ferguson)
The national representations were installed across the Abdoulaye Konaté (Mali, curated by Awa Meité)
ground floor of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, with Elke Krystufek (Austria, curated by Brigitte Huck)

Nacionais
artists from 54 different countries. A section focusing
on Central America and the Caribbean was curated by
Virginia Pérez-Ratton.
Mischa Kuball (Germany, curated by Karin Stempel)
Oleg Kulik (Russia, curated by Constantin Bokhorov)
Toshihiro Kuno (Japan, curated by Kazuzo Yamawaki)
Martin López (Dominican Republic, curated by
Mario Abreu (Venezuela, curated by Anita Tapias) Virginia Pérez-Ratton)
Regina Aguilar (Honduras, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Geoff Lowe (Australia, curated by Louise Neri)
Carlos Aguirre (Mexico, curated by Carlos Aranda, Ken Lum (Canada, curated by Jon Tupper)
Rita Eder and Sylvia Pandolfi Elliman) Leena Luostarinen (Finland, curated by Kuutti Lavonen)
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (Turkey, curated by Vasif Kortun) Brian Maguire (Ireland, curated by Fiach Mac Conghail)
Allora & Calzadilla (Puerto Rico, curated by Mark Manders (The Netherlands, curated by Saskia Bos)
Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Jenny Marketou (Greece, curated by Sania Papa)
Fernando Alvim (Angola) Živko Marušič (Slovenia, curated by Lilijana Stepančič)
Mirosław Bałka (Poland, curated by Anda Rottenberg) Maurizio Mochetti (Italy, curated by Anna Mattirolo)
Moisés Barrios (Guatemala, curated by Priscilla Monge (Costa Rica, curated by
Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Virginia Pérez-Ratton)
Mario Benjamin (Haiti, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Johan Muyle (Belgium, curated by Catherine De Croës)
Ernest Breleur (Martinique, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Luis Paredes (Republic of El Salvador, curated by
Carlos Capelán (Uruguay) Virginia Pérez-Ratton)
Valia Carvalho (Bolivia, curated by Pedro Querejazu) Judy Pfaff (United States, curated by Miranda McClintic)
Lourdes Castro and Francisco Tropa (Portugal, curated Raul Quintanilla (Nicaragua, curated by
by João Fernandes) Virginia Pérez-Ratton)
Albert Chong (Jamaica, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Khalil Rabah (Palestine, curated by Jack Persekian)
Nicola Costantino (Argentina, curated by Edward Shaw) Ann-Sofi Sidén (Sweden, curated by Maria Lind)
Michael Craig-Martin (Great Britain, curated by Antoni Socías (Spain, curated by Santiago B. Olmo)
Andrea Rose and Clairrie Rudrum) Pierrick Sorin (France, curated by Hervé Chandès)
Arturo Duclos (Chile, curated by Gaspar Galaz and Manit Sriwanichpoom (Thailand, curated by
Justo Pastor Mellado) Apinan Poshyananda)
Sandra Eleta (Panama, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Cecilio Thompson (Paraguay, curated by
Olafur Eliasson (Denmark, curated by Osvaldo González Real)
Marianne Krogh Jensen) Diego Veintimilla (Ecuador)
Sylvie Fleury (Switzerland, curated by Pierre-André Lienhard) Moico Yaker (Peru, curated by Gustavo Buntinx)
Hilmar Fredriksen (Norway, curated by Velaug Bollingmo)
Carlos Garaicoa (Cuba, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton) Countries in brackets are those attributed in the Bienal
Zvi Goldstein (Israel, curated by Sergio Edelsztein) catalogue. Also on this floor was work by Choi Jeong-Hwa
Pan Gongkai (China, curated by Xu Jiang) as part of the ‘Roteiros Asia’ section and Bruce Nauman
Abigail Hadeed (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, as part of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’.
curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton)
Elias Helm (Colombia, curated by Miguel L. Rojas-Sotelo) Artists are identified on the plans by their initials (pp.70–71).
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo E S

Ground floor (first floor according to Brazilian convention)

N W

LC MawM
EK TK and JM PS MA
FT JM AS NC OE
HBA
KL AK
PG
KR

CJH MK EH
BN AD ZG JP
VC

RA MarM CA
FA AH BM ŽM
K LL HF OK SF
MoB SE AL ML A and C
MaB CG PM EB LP RQ MY MiB

These and following plans are based on floor plans pr epared for
the 24th Bienal de São Paulo by the exhibition’s architecture team:
Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Martin Corullon and Joana Fernandes Elito.

70 ‘Representações Nacionais’ 71
fig.7

Visitors could enter the ‘Representações Nacionais’ through two possible

entrances on the ground floor of the pavilion. Olafur Eliasson’s The Very
Large Ice Floor (1998, representing Denmark) appeared in the south-west
corner of the ground floor, as did Judy Pfaff’s installation Coroa De Espinhos
(Crown of Thorns, 1998, representing the US), which is seen in the background
here, and stretched across the entire width of the building.

72 'Representações Nacionais' 73
fig.8

View of the west-side corner of the ‘Representações Nacionais’

segment. From left: a sculpture by Mirosław Bałka titled
a, e, i, o, u (1997, representing Poland), work by Sylvie Fleury
(representing Switzerland) and Judy Pfaff’s Coroa De Espinhos
(1998, representing the US).

74 'Representações Nacionais' 75
fig.9 fig.10

At the bottom of the slope connecting the lower half of Placed in the atrium space next to the building’s swirling
the ground floor to the upper half was a two-ton truck ramp, Choi Jeong-Hwa’s Encore, Encore, Encore (1997),
loaded with bungee cords and bottaris (traditional part of the ‘Roteiros…’ section, was an inflated plastic gold
Korean wrapping cloths) that had made its way from column extending upwards through all three floors, with an
Seoul to São Paulo via road and boat – a work by the angel with moving wings at the top. Making Sense (1998),
artist Kimsooja titled Cities on the Move – 11633 miles a work by Michael Craig-Martin (representating Great
Bottari Truck (1998, representing South Korea). Britain), took up the entire background wall on the first floor.

76 'Representações Nacionais' 77
‘Arte
‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’ This area also featured work by Michael Craig-Martin as
(‘Brazilian Contemporary Art: One and/among Other/s’) part of ‘Representações Nacionais’ and Michael Asher
(with Andrew Freeman) as part of ‘Roteiros Canada and US’.
This section occupied part of the first floor and consisted

Contemporânea
of two halves that were exhibited in parallel on either
side of the atrium: ‘Um e Outro’ (‘One and Other’),
curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and ‘Um entre Outros’
Artists are identified on the plans by their initials (pp.80–81).

Brasileira:
(‘One and among Others’), curated by Paulo Herkenhoff.

Claudia Andujar
Artur Barrio

Um e/entre Outro/s’
Lenora de Barros
Sandra Cinto
Lygia Clark
Rochelle Costi
Dias & Riedweg (Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg)
Iole de Freitas
Edgard de Souza
Anna Bella Geiger
Rubem Grilo
Carmela Gross
Wesley Duke Lee
Leonilson (José Leonilson Bezerra Dias)
Laura Lima
Ivens Machado
Antonio Manuel
Cildo Meireles
Beatriz Milhazes
Vik Muniz
Emmanuel Nassar
Ernesto Neto
Rivane Neuenschwander
Arthur Omar
Nazareth Pacheco
Lygia Pape
Rosângela Rennó
José Resende
Miguel Rio Branco
Daniel Senise
Regina Silveira
Courtney Smith
Valeska Soares
Tunga
Adriana Varejão
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo E S

First floor (second floor according to Brazilian convention)

N W

T EdS T IdF EN ND
JR SC
LC SC RN
VS L
IdF MBR EdS EN
CM AB AV
DS EN
L EdS
RR
MA CS

MCM MA MA MA MA MA

AD

MA MA MA MA
MA
RS MA
CA RC
RG AM D&R
IM VM
EM
ABG

80 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 81

fig.11

Arriving at the first floor via the internal ramp, visitors were met by Michael
Craig-Martin’s mural Making Sense (1998), part of ‘Representações Nacionais’.
Regina Silveira’s Quebra-cabeça da América Latina (Latin American Puzzle,
1998) is on the left (as part of ‘Um entre Outros’, the half of the exhibition
curated by Paulo Herkenhoff), with Daniel Senise’s painting O Beijo do Elo
Perdido (We Look at the Kiss of the Missing Link, 1991) on the right (as part
of ‘Um e Outro’, curated by Adriano Pedrosa). Visible above, on the top floor,
is Carmela Gross’s A Negra (The Black Woman, 1997), part of the ‘Núcleo
Histórico’. Also visible are two photographs from South Texas Colonias (1998),
a work by Michael Asher (with Andrew Freeman) (fig.18) that was part of
Ivo Mesquita’s curatorial contribution to ‘Roteiros…’.

fig.12

82 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 83

fig.13

Turning left, into the ‘Um entre Outros’ section, and entering
an enclosed space, was a selection of work by Rubem Grilo:
26 woodcuts; 16 notebooks containing miniature sketches,
displayed on tables; and the enlarged woodcut print No cais
à espera do barco (On the Pier, Waiting for the Boat, 1998).

fig.14

In an adjoining room Antonio Manuel’s work

Fantasma (Phantom, 1994/98), consisting of coal,
thread, flashlight and photograph, was installed.

84 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 85

fig.15 fig.16

On the wall facing the outer windows of the space, Emmanuel This was followed by a stand-alone space for a multimedia work
Nassar’s Bandeiras (Flags, 1998) hung, composed of flags from by Dias & Riedweg, Os Raimundos, os Severinos e os Franciscos
the municipalities of the artist’s home state Pará, in Northern (The Raimundos, the Severinos and the Franciscos, 1998), a project
Brazil. A version of this work was also featured in the catalogue produced with doormen from residential buildings in São Paulo
for the ‘Representações Nacionais’ section. (see the interview with the artists in this volume, p.272–79). Visitors
can be seen listening to the work’s audio component, which played
through intercom devices hung on the wall. In front, on white plinths,
are three metal file drawers with reconfigured maps by Anna Bella
Geiger, from her series Fronteiriços (Borderlines, 1995–ongoing).

86 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 87

Past an installation of photographs by Claudia Andujar (see fig.27),
on a free-standing wall hung photographs from Vik Muniz’s Consequência
(Aftermath, 1998), a series of portraits of children formed from dirt
and waste that was collected from the streets in Rio de Janeiro.
On the far wall, from left, Consequência (Aparecida), Consequência
(Socrates), Consequência (Angélica) and Consequência (Madalena).
Muniz’s series Crianças de Açucar (Sugar Children, 1996) was also
exhibited (not pictured). On the left, a partial view of the photographic
series Quartos – São Paulo (Bedrooms – São Paulo, 1998) by Rochelle
Costi; on the right, wrapped on the column, a photograph from South
Texas Colonias (1998) by Michael Asher (with Andrew Freeman).

fig.18

South Texas Colonias (1998) by Michael Asher (with Andrew

Freeman), a series of fourteen photographs showing makeshift
settlements in South Texas, was glued to pillars of the
building, with labels describing where each picture was taken.
The work formed part of the ‘Roteiros Canada and US’ section.

fig.17

88 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 89

fig.19 fig.20

Near to Vik Muniz’s contribution, Rochelle Costi’s Quartos – Past Arthur Omar’s work and going into the ‘Um e Outro’ half,
São Paulo (Bedrooms – São Paulo, 1998) was on view. On the a small self-contained space held Rivane Neuenschwander’s
far wall behind, Arthur Omar’s Antropologia da Face Gloriosa O trabalho dos dias (Work of Days, 1998), an installation of
(Anthropology of the Glorious Face, 1973–97), a series dust gathered onto squares of adhesive vinyl. In front here,
of 99 photographs. On the opposite side of the wall from Laura Lima’s performative sculpture Sem título (Untitled, 1997–98),
Omar’s hanging was the ‘Roteiros…’ exhibition. which moved throughout all three floors, is seen alongside
Tunga’s Eixo exógeno (Exogenous Axis, 1986).

90 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 91

fig.21

‘Um e Outro’ included several sculptural works and a photograph

by Edgard de Souza. From foreground to background: a photograph
from the series South Texas Colonias (1998) by Michael Asher
(with Andrew Freeman); Edgard de Souza’s Sem título (Untitled, 1997);
Ernesto Neto’s Nave Deusa (Goddess Nave, 1998); a selection of
untitled works by Nazareth Pacheco; the space containing Rivane
Neuenschwander’s O trabalho dos dias (1998) and Arthur Omar’s
Antropologia da Face Gloriosa (1973–97).
fig.22

Following the works by Ernesto Neto and Edgard de Souza,

in a self-contained space, was Adriana Varejão’s installation
of over twenty oil paintings: Reflexo de sonhos no sonho de
outro espelho (Estudo sobre o Tiradentes de Pedro Américo)
(Reflection of dreams in the dream of another mirror
(Study after Pedro Américo’s Tiradentes), 1998).

92 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 93

fig.23

Set at an angle parallel to the curved railing of the open space,

works from Courtney Smith’s series Cor de Rosa (Rose Colour, 1997);
on the columns, photographs from the series South Texas Colonias
(1998) by Michael Asher (with Andrew Freeman); and in the distance,
works by Arthur Omar and Rochelle Costi.

fig.24

Drawings by Sandra Cinto covered an entire free-standing wall,

enveloping a column, positioned in parallel with the outer windows
of the space. On the wall in the background to the left, a work by
Miguel Rio Branco titled Díptico inferno (Hell´s Diptych, 1993–94),
and to the right, Untitled (1998), a photographic work by Cinto.

94 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 95

fig.25 fig.26

Further along, towards the main ramp, was the sculpture Facing the opposite direction, on a wall next to Edgard de Souza’s sculpture
Sem título (Dois corpos) (Untitled (Two Bodies), 1997) Sem título (Dois corpos) (Untitled (Two Bodies), 1997), hung works by Leonilson,
by Edgard de Souza, here with the two performers of from left to right: four works on paper, Longo caminho de um rapaz apaixonado
Laura Lima’s Sem título (Untitled, 1997–98). (Long Way of a Passionate Guy, 1989), Extreme Necessity Between Two People
(1990), Sem título (Untitled, 1985) and Protected, Crossing Fires (1990); followed
by four works of acrylic on canvas, Sem título (Untitled, 1990), Rios De palavras
(Rivers of Words, 1987), Rapaz dividido (Divided Guy, c.1991), Noite turquesa
com números (Turquoise night with numbers, 1988). Returning to Daniel Senise’s
painting (see fig.11), this corner of ‘Um entre Outros’ featured works by
Iole de Freitas, Leonilson, Cildo Meireles, José Resende and Tunga, relating
to the theme of mirroring, and a plinth with Valeska Soares’s work Sem título
(Untitled, 1996) (not pictured) from her dos emaranhados (Entanglement) series.

96 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 97

fig.27

View of the ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira’ section, showing, on

the right, Claudia Andujar’s installation of the photographic work
Yanomami – na sombra das luzes (Yanomami – in the Light’s Shadow,
1998), in a circular maze. Clockwise from left, work by Michael Asher
(with Andrew Freeman), Edgard de Souza, Ernesto Neto, Rivane
Neuenschwander, Arthur Omar, Rochelle Costi, Vik Muniz, Choi
Jeong-Hwa and Andujar. Visible on the ground floor, Private Light/
Public Light (1998), a work by Mischa Kuball (representing Germany).

98 ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira' 99

‘Roteiros.
‘Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.’ Geoff Lowe
(‘Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes.’) Tracey Moffatt

For ‘Roteiros…’ seven geographic regions (i.e. continent, Roteiros Latin America

Roteiros.
economic bloc or cultural region) were assigned to ten curators,
individually or in pairs, from which to make a ‘route’.
(curated by Rina Carvajal):
Francis Alÿs
Juan Dávila

Roteiros.
Roteiros Africa Víctor Grippo
(curated by Lorna Ferguson and Awa Meité): Anna Maria Maiolino
Georges AdéagboFernando Alvim Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Candice Breitz Gabriel Orozco

Roteiros.
Soly Cissé
Touhami Ennadre
Ahmed Makki Kante
Miguel Rio Branco
Doris Salcedo
José Antonio Suárez

Roteiros.
Seydou Keïta Meyer Vaisman
William Kentridge
Abdoulaye Konaté Roteiros Middle East
Joseph Kpobly and Thomas Mulcaire (curated by Ami Steinitz and Vasif Kortun):

Roteiros.
Moshekwa Langa
Malick Sidibé
Halil Altındere
Shuka Yehoshua Glotman
Khalil Rabah

Roteiros.’
Roteiros Asia Bülent Şangar
(curated by Apinan Poshyananda):
Nobuyoshi Araki Roteiros Europe
Chien-Jen Chen (curated by Bart de Baere and Maaretta Jaukkuri):
Dadang Christanto Rineke Dijkstra
Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi Roza El-Hassan
Choi Jeong-Hwa Honoré d’O
Ing K Esko Männikkö
Luo Brothers (Luo Wei Bing, Luo Wei Goo and Luo Wei Guo) Bjarne Melgaard
Maurice O’Connell
Roteiros Canada and US Markus Raetz
(curated by Ivo Mesquita): Pedro Cabrita Reis
Michael Asher (with Andrew Freeman) Milica Tomić
Janet Cardiff Franz West
Andrea Fraser
General Idea (AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal) This area also featured a film and video programme curated
Sherrie Levine by Catherine David as part of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, including
Jeff Wall films by Júlio Bressane, Charles Burnett, Pedro Costa, Adriano
Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro, Jorge Furtado, Víctor Gaviria,
Roteiros Oceania Johan Grimonprez, Michael Haneke, Kazuo Hara, William
(curated by Louise Neri): Kentridge, Thierry Knauff, Chris Marker, Raoul Peck, Glauber
Mark Adams Rocha, Jean Rouch, Elia Suleiman and Zhou Xiaowen.
Mutlu Çerkez
Francis Jupurrurla Kelly Artists are identified on the plans by their initials (pp.102–03)
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo E S

First floor (second floor according to Brazilian convention)

N W

GO JC AMM FA
EM
NA
HdO MR CJH FA
HA
BM
SG
SL
Film
Programme JAS
RD MT GL
REH ML IMO JD DS MRB I and ED LB Gl
Reading JW
WK CB
Room GL
GA FW CJH
MA
PCR AB
EM EM
SL DG IK
SK AMK MS MÇ TM
TE VG
KR
BS CJC JW

102 'Roteiros…' 103

fig.28 fig.29

Moving past Arthur Omar’s Antropologia da Face Gloriosa (1973–97) In the work Anasztázia (Anastacia, 1998) by Roza El-Hassan,
and entering the ‘Roteiros…’ component of the Bienal, there was a plaster cast of Brazilian slave saint Anastacia faces an
Gabriel Orozco’s reconfigured car LA DS (1993). Partly visible in the enlarged print of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
background, an installation by Honoré d’O titled Carousselle Eternelle
(Eternal Carousel, 1998) and a work by Roza El-Hassan, Anasztázia
(Anastacia, 1998).

104 'Roteiros…' 105

 fig.31

In the foreground, the installation Reinterpretation on

Crystal Meth II (1998) by Bjarne Melgaard; partly visible
to the left, Choi Jeong-Hwa’s large mechanised sculpture
Dangerous Relationship (Touch Me) (1998).

fig.30

Further along in the ‘Roteiros…’ section (looking back

towards Honoré d’O’s work), photographic work by
Esko Männikkö was installed in several hanging structures.

106 'Roteiros…' 107

fig.32

From left to right: work by Tracey Moffatt; the Luo Brothers’

series of photographs Welcome to the World’s Most Famous
Brands (1997); the entrance to Power of Love (1998) by
Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi; and Choi Jeong-Hwa’s sculpture
Dangerous Relationship (Touch Me) (1998).

108 'Roteiros…' 109

fig.33

Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi, Power of Love, 1998.

fig.34

To the right, General Idea’s installation Fin de Siècle

(1990), consisting of three stuffed harp seal pups and
sheets of polystyrene; in the background, to the left,
photographs by Nobuyoshi Araki, including Erotos (1993)
and Flower Rondeau (1997).

110 'Roteiros…' 111

 fig.37

Moving back towards the internal ramp and the

‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira’ section, an installation
by Georges Adéagbo, Le Cannibalisme (1998), took up
the space alongside the central row of galleries.

fig.35 and 36

Moving to the other side of the building, Dadang Christanto’s

They Give Evidence (1996–97) formed a diagonal line across the space.
Work by Ing K appears in the background, and Choi Jeong-Hwa’s
Dangerous Relationship (Touch Me) is to the left (fig.35). In one of the
gallery spaces at the centre of the building was a sculptural installation
by Doris Salcedo, part of her Untitled series of 1998 (fig.36).

112 'Roteiros…' 113

Núcleo Histórico:
‘Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de René Magritte
Canibalismos’ (‘Historical Nucleus: Anthropophagy Maria Martins
and Histories of Cannibalisms’) Roberto Matta
Cildo Meireles*

Antropofagia
The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ took up the entirety of the top floor,
including the enclosed museum-like structure at its centre.
Several of the historical rooms (‘Históricos’) within the
Beatriz Milhazes
‘Monocromos’ (‘Monochromes’): Josef Albers, Hans Arp,
Hércules Barsotti, Max Bill, Waltercio Caldas, Willys de

e Histórias de
‘Núcleo Histórico’ featured ‘contaminações’; single works Castro, Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias, Theo van Doesburg,
by Brazilian artists strategically inserted to ‘contaminate’ Lucio Fontana, Mona Hatoum, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama,
other displays. Contemporary and modernist works Glenn Ligon, Richard Paul Lohse, Manabu Mabe,
by Brazilian artists were also arranged in a so-called Kazimir Malevich, Piero Manzoni, Piet Mondrian,

Canibalismos
‘Eixo da Cor’, or ‘Colour Axis’, on this floor, as part of the
‘Núcleo Histórico’.

Tarsila do Amaral




Tomie Ohtake, Hélio Oiticica, Alejandro Otero, Robert
Rauschenberg, Robert Ryman, Mira Schendel, Katie van
Scherpenberg, Jesús Rafael Soto, Joaquín Torres-García,
Nigel Rolfe, Georges Vantongerloo and Friedrich
Francis Bacon Vordemberge-Gildewart
Artur Barrio* Vik Muniz*
Louise Bourgeois Bruce Nauman
Waltercio Caldas Ernesto Neto*
Lygia Clark* Hélio Oiticica*
CoBrA: Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Ejler Bille, Dennis Oppenheim
Eugene Brands, Constant, Corneille, Karl Otto Götz, Tony Oursler
Egill Jacobsen, Asger Jorn, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Lygia Pape
Anton Rooskens and Theo Wolvecamp ‘Poesia Contemporânea’ (‘Contemporary Poetry’):
‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’ (‘Colour in Brazilian Arnaldo Antunes, Lenora de Barros and Walter Silveira
Modernism’): Raul Bopp, Victor Brecheret, Flávio de Sigmar Polke
Carvalho, Blaise Cendrars, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, José Resende
Oswaldo Goeldi, Anita Malfatti, Ismael Néry, Armando Reverón
Hans Nöbauer, Vicente do Rêgo Monteiro, Lasar Segall Gerhard Richter
and Alberto da Veiga Guignard ‘Século XIX’ (‘Nineteenth Century’): Pedro Américo,
‘Dada e Surrealismo’ (‘Dada and Surrealism’): Valère Bernard, William Blake, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux,
Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Masson, Francis Picabia Paul Chenavard, Eugéne Delacroix, Paul Delaroche,
and Wolfgang Paalen Louis-Jean Desprez, Théodore Géricault, Francisco de
Antonio Dias Goya, Ernest Meissonier, Gustave Moreau, Henry Fuseli,
Albert Eckhout Edvard Munch, Auguste Raffet, Félicien Rops, Auguste
Iole de Freitas Rodin, Pierre Subleyras, Thomas Struth and others
Anna Bella Geiger* ‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’ (‘Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries’):
Alberto Giacometti Vicente Albán, Aleijadinho (Antônio Francisco Lisboa),
Vincent van Gogh Ignácio Maria Barreda, Francisco das Chagas, Manuel
Carmela Gross Inácio da Costa, Theodore de Bry, José Teófilo de Jesús,
Eva Hesse Jean de Léry, José Joaquín Magón, Michel de Montaigne,
Guillermo Kuitca Frans Post, Hans Staden, André Thévet, Ferdinand van
Wesley Duke Lee* Kessel, Jan van Kessel
‘Literatura Modernista e Antropologia’ Mira Schendel*
(‘Modernist Literature and Anthropology’) David Alfaro Siqueiros
Robert Smithson
'Teatro' ('Theatre'): Hélio Eichbauer
Tunga*
Delson Uchôa
Adriana Varejão*
Alfredo Volpi

Curators:
Dawn Ades (‘Dada e Surrealismo’ and Francis Bacon)
Aracy Amaral (Alfredo Volpi)
Ana Maria Belluzzo (Albert Eckhout and ‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’)
Yannick Bourguignon (Cildo Meireles)
Daniela Bousso (Dennis Oppenheim and Tony Oursler)
Katia Canton (Maria Martins)
Manuela Carneiro da Cunha (section not realised)
Jean-François Chougnet (Eckhout and ‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’)
Catherine David (film programme) **
Veit Görner (Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter)
Jorge S. Helft (Guillermo Kuitca)
Per Hovdenakk (CoBrA)
Mary Jane Jacob (Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson)
Pedro Corrêa do Lago (‘Teatro’)
Régis Michel (‘Século XIX’)
Luis Pérez-Oramas (Armando Reverón)
Didier Ottinger (‘Dada e Surrealismo’ and René Magritte)
Justo Pastor Mellado (Roberto Matta)
Valéria Piccoli ('Monocromos’, co-curated with Paulo Herkenhoff)
Jean-Louis Prat (Alberto Giacometti)
Mari Carmen Ramírez (David Alfaro Siqueiros)
Sônia Salzstein (Tarsila do Amaral)
Robert Storr (Bruce Nauman)
Pieter Tjabbes (Vincent van Gogh)

Also on this floor were works by Franz West as part of

‘Roteiros Europe’ and Sherrie Levine as part of ‘Roteiros
Canada and US’.

Artists are identified on the plans by their initials (pp.118–19).

* identified as ‘contaminações’ (contaminations)

in the Bienal catalogue XXIV Bienal de São Paulo:
Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s

** presented on the first floor (pp.80–81)

Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo E S

Second floor (third floor according to Brazilian convention)

N W

MB MB MB LS PC
LS

LMcA BN FH RS EN DAS
IdF LS
MS TdA DU BM
MM MM RM
AD
LB RM EN
CG T E FB FB D & S
AV FW
AG AB VM

AG
AD JR
GK Séc XVI–XVIII AV HO CM
VG M M
Séc XIX AR

DO SP M
C HO HO
BN TO GR SL
Séc XVI–XVIII'

118 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 119

 fig.39

Coming up the central ramp to the top floor, visitors were met
by Carmela Gross’s sculpture A Negra (The Black Woman, 1997)
(not pictured, see fig.11); turning left, Antonio Dias’s The Illustration
of Art/One & Three/Stretchers (1971–74) was displayed on the wall.

fig.38

Reproduction of the diagram made by Paulo Herkenhoff

as part of the conception of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’,
which also informed the installation plan.

120 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 121

 fig.41

Turning to the left, in an open space, an untitled wood-and-steel

sculpture (1970–97) by José Resende, with works by Alberto
Giacometti behind it, including Femme de Venise VII (Woman from
Venice VII, 1956), Grande Femme I (Tall Woman I, 1960), L’Homme qui
marche II (Walking Man II, 1960) and Femme cuillère (Spoon Woman,
fig.40 1926–27). Visible in the background are the glass doors to the
central, enclosed part of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’.
View from the top floor of Choi Jeong-Hwa’s Encore, Encore,
Encore (1997), part of the ‘Roteiros…’ section; in the background,
sculptures by Maria Martins also on the top floor (see fig.46),
and a series of works by Courtney Smith on the first floor, part of
the ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira’ section (see fig.23).

122 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 123

fig.42 fig.43

Past José Resende’s sculpture was work by Guillermo Entering the Alberto Giacometti section, curated by Jean-Louis Prat, the top
Kuitca, including Marienplatz (1991), on the left. part of Choi Jeong-Hwa’s sculpture Encore, Encore, Encore (1997), which had
Antonio Dias’s The Illustration of Art/One & Three/ moving wings, came into view. Works included Giacometti’s Femme couchée
Stretchers (1971) can be seen in the background. qui rêve (Reclining Woman Who Dreams, 1929), Objet désagréable à jetér
(Disagreeable Object to Be Thrown Away, 1931) and Femme cuillère (Spoon
Woman, 1926–27), seen in the foreground, and Grande Femme I (Tall Woman I,
1960) and L’Homme qui marche II (Walking Man II, 1960) further back; in the
centre is Laura Lima’s performative sculpture Sem título (Untitled, 1997–98),
which moved throughout the exhibition space.

124 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 125

Turning right, the side galleries included a room with works by
Bruce Nauman, curated by Robert Storr; a shared space with
works by Dennis Oppenheim and Tony Oursler, curated by Daniela
Bousso; and one with works by Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter,
curated by Veit Görner, including Richter’s 48 Portraits (1971–72),
pictured here on the right.

fig.45

A room dedicated to CoBrA paintings and curated by Per Hovdenakk

followed. Works included, from left to right: Egill Jacobsen, Orange
objekt II (Orange Object II, 1943); Asger Jorn, Hvid figur (White Figure,
1954/55), Studie nr. 4 af opus 2 (Study no.4 of opus 2, 1952) and Havets
Guder II (Sea Gods II, 1953); Constant, Terre brûlée III (Scorched
Earth III, 1951); Constant, Moment érotique (Erotic Moment, 1949);
and Corneille, Vision d’Afrique (Vision of Africa, 1949).

fig.44

126 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 127

fig.46

Across the open space from Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures was

a display dedicated to Maria Martins, curated by Katia Canton,
with bronze sculptures including O implacável (The Implacable,
1947), The Road; The Shadow; Too Long, Too Narrow (1946) and
La femme a perdu son ombre (The Woman Has Lost her Shadow,
1946) on a central plinth and another placed on the floor farther
ahead. In the background, on the left, is an enlarged facsimile
of a handwritten manuscript by Oswald de Andrade alongside
the display ‘Literatura Modernista e Antropologia’, a selection
of texts, books and images.

fig.47 and 48

Works by Iole de Freitas and Carmela Gross were juxtaposed to

works by Maria Martins. On the left, sculptures from de Freitas's
series Corpo sem órgão (Body Without Organs, 1996) (fig.48),
with the Martins display behind.

128 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 129

 Also on view in the same section, Vicente do Rêgo Monteiro’s Menino nu
e tartaruga (Naked Boy and Turtle, 1923), on the far left; an anthropomorphic
Maracá-phase funerary urn; and Rêgo Monteiro’s O atirador de arco (The
Arc Sniper, 1925), on the far right (fig.50). Further along, paintings by Lasar
Segall (fig.51): Banana Plantation (1927), on the left, and Red Hill (1926),
on the right. Following the ‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’ section, also
in the side galleries, a separate and carpeted room (not pictured) held
works by Lygia Clark, among them O eu e o Tu: série roupa-corpo-roupa
(The I and the You: Clothing-Body-Clothing Series, 1967), Obra mole
(Soft Work, 1964) and selections from her 1960s Bichos (Beasts) series.

fig.49

In the side galleries behind the Maria Martins section was an

exhibition of works dedicated to colour in Brazilian modernism,
‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’, which included ‘contaminações’
(contaminations) by Anna Bella Geiger, in the form of eighteen
postcards titled Brasil nativo, Brasil alienígena (Native Brazil,
Alien Brazil, 1976–77), on the wall to the left, and Vicente do Rêgo
Monteiro’s Maternidade indígena (Indigenous Motherhood, 1924),
on the wall to the right. In the distance, Guillermo Kuitca’s
Marienplatz (1991) can be seen.

fig.50 and 51

130 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 131

fig.52

Entering the central enclosed space of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’,

the only air-conditioned part of the exhibition, on display was a
selection of works by Albert Eckhout, curated by Ana Maria Belluzzo
and Jean-François Chougnet. On the wall parallel to the entryway
hung four Eckhout paintings from 1641, from left: Mameluke Woman,
Tupi Woman, African Woman and Tarairiu Indian Woman.

132 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 133

fig.53 fig.54

Facing these was Albert Eckhout’s Dance of the Tapuyas (c.1641),

with Tunga’s TaCaPe (1986–97), one of the exhibition’s ‘contaminações’
(contaminations), adjacent, leaning against the wall.

134 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 135

fig.55

To the right of the Eckhout display was the ‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’

section, also curated by Ana Maria Belluzzo and Jean-François
Chougnet. A glass case displayed books, including Essais (1580–95)
by Michel de Montaigne and Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre
du Brésil (History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, 1578) by Jean
de Léry, behind which Vicente Albán’s Indio Principal de Quito con
traje de gala (The Indian Chief of Quito in Full Dress, 1783) was hung.

fig.56 and 57

Another view of ‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’. A display of José Joachim Magón’s

eighteenth-century paintings Las castas mexicanas (The Mexican Castes) is
visible on the far wall. On the wall opposite the glass cabinet, at a right angle
to the Magón wall, Adriana Varejão’s Proposta para uma Catequese – Parte I
Díptico: Morte e Esquartejamento (Proposal for a Catechesis – Part I Diptych:
Death and Dismemberment, 1993) was displayed as one of the ‘contaminações’,
with the painting América (artist unknown, c.1650) on the next partition along.
‘Séculos XVI–XVIII’ extended behind the free-standing partitions on the right,
where the eighteenth-century polychrome sculpture Cristo Atado à Coluna, of
Jesus Christ tied to a column, attributed to Francisco das Chagas, was placed.

136 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 137

 View of ‘Século XIX’, with two versions of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture
Ugolino (1882/1906), of the father who devours his sons, on the left,
and the severed heads of Théodore Géricault’s Têtes Coupées
(1818–19) painting on the back wall.

fig.58

The next section, ‘Século XIX’, dedicated to nineteenth-century

art, was curated by Régis Michel, who provided the audience with
a ‘Modo de Usar’ (‘Users’ Guide’), visible to the right, explaining
the division of the section into: ‘1. Taboo: the father eats the son’;
'2. Transgression: the sons eat the father’ and ‘3. Totem: society eats
its children’. From left, Pedro Américo’s Tiradentes esquartejado
(Tiradentes Dismembered, 1893) and, opening onto the Francis
Bacon section, Bacon’s Figure in Movement (1985).

fig.59

138 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 139

fig.60 fig.61

View of ‘Século XIX’, with Théodore Géricault’s Le Radeau Another room in the ‘Século XIX’ section showed two paintings
de la Méduse – premiére esquisse (The Raft of the Medusa – from Francisco de Goya’s Caníbales series (c.1798–1800):
First Sketch, 1818–19) hung on the central partition and Caníbales contemplando restos humanos and Caníbales
Gustave Moreau’s Diomède dévoré par ses chevaux preparando a sus víctimas (Cannibals Contemplating Human
(Diomedes Devoured by His Horses, 1870) on the wall behind. Remains and Cannibals Preparing their Victims) are visible to
the left. On the adjacent wall was Gustave Moreau’s Hercule
et l’Hydre de Lerne (Hercules and the Hydra from Lerne, c.1870),
and, to the far right on the free-standing partition, William
Blake’s Inferno, Canto XXXIII, 13–93, Count Ugolino and his
sons in prison (c.1826).

140 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 141

fig.62 fig.63

In the next section hung works by Vincent van Gogh, curated by Pieter Another view of the van Gogh section shows, from left to right:
Tjabbes. From left to right: Vincent van Gogh, Still Life With an Earthen Vincent van Gogh, The Schoolboy (Camille Roulin) (1889–90)
Bowl and Pears (1885); partial view of ‘Século XIX’; Francis Bacon, and Portrait of Armand Roulin (1888); Sherrie Levine, After van
Study for Portrait on Folding Bed (1963) and The Human Figure in Motion: Gogh (1994), as part of ‘Roteiros Canada and US’.
Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water/Paralytic Child Walking on All Fours
(1965); and three paintings by Vincent van Gogh, including Farmhouses
in Loosduinen Near The Hague at Twilight (1833).

142 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 143

fig.64 fig.65

Following the van Gogh display was a selection of paintings by The ‘Monocromos’ section, across three rooms, featured
Armando Reverón, curated by Luis Pérez-Oramas. His paintings monochromatic works curated by Paulo Herkenhoff with the
La grua (The Crane, 1942), Marina (Seascape, 1944) and Paisage assistance of Valéria Piccoli. In this room, there were four
de Macuto (Landscape of Macuto, 1943) appear on the left; works from Hélio Oiticica’s untitled ‘White Series’ (all 1959).
Joaquín Torres-García’s Construcción en blanco y negro
(Construction in Black and White, 1938) and Reverón’s El arbol
(The Tree, 1931) on the right. Beyond the column was the entrance
to the ‘Monocromos’ section.

144 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 145

 View of ‘Monocromos’ (fig.67), with Jesús Rafael Soto’s Vibración
en blanco (Vibration in White, 1960), second from left, and two
works by Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale (Spatial Concept, 1950)
and Concetto spaziale/espera (Spatial Concept / Waiting, 1966),
third and fourth from left. From left to right (fig.68): Hércules
Barsotti, Branco branco (White White, 1960); Antonio Dias, Project
for an Artistic Attitude (1970); and Robert Ryman, Winsor (1965).

fig.66

The anteroom featured monochromes by Kazimir Malevich,

Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Georges Vantongerloo,
all of whom were reference points for mid-century Brazilian
constructivist and concretist artists. ‘Monocromos’ also featured
works by Hércules Barsotti, Antonio Dias, Glenn Ligon, Manabu
Mabe and Jesús Rafael Soto, and sections devoted to Lucio
Fontana, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama (a selection of her Infinity Net
paintings), Piero Manzoni (the Achrome series), Hélio Oiticica,
Robert Ryman and Joaquín Torres-García.

fig.67 and 68

146 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 147

fig.69

The next room, curated by Didier Ottinger, was dedicated to René Magritte
and featured paintings such as, from left to right: Le Mariage du minuit
(Midnight Marriage, 1926), Le Prince des objets (Prince of Objects, 1927),
Campagne II (Countryside II, 1927), Le sens propre (The Literal Meaning,
1929), Découverte (Discovery, 1927), Personnage méditant sur la folie
(Figure Brooding on Madness, 1928), L’Empire des lumières (Empire of
Light, 1953–54), Perspective II: Le balcon de Manet (Perspective II: Manet’s
Balcony, 1950) and L’heureux donateur (The Happy Donor, 1966). At the
room’s centre was his sculpture La Folie des grandeurs (Megalomania)
(The Madness of Greatness (Megalomania), 1967).

fig.70 and 71

Adjacent to the René Magritte room was a space, curated by Dawn Ades
and Didier Ottinger, devoted to Dada and Surrealism and related works.
On display was, for example, a selection of drawings by André Masson.
Above such works hung one of Paulo Herkenhoff’s ‘contaminações’:
a portrait of Sigmund Freud by Vik Muniz, Sigmund, from his Pictures of
Chocolate series (1997) (fig.70). Another view from this section (fig.71)
shows a display of publications associated with Dada and Surrealism:
Documents (1929–30), edited by George Bataille, and Cannibale (1920),
edited by Francis Picabia. The latter was placed alongside Wolfgang
Paalen’s bone pistol Le Génie de l’espèce (1938).

148 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 149

 The next space presented a range of works by Roberto Matta, curated by
Justo Pastor Mellado, and partly visible on the right here. From left to right:
the Vincent van Gogh section (L'Arlésienne (Portrait of Madame Ginoux)
(1890), The Schoolboy (Camille Roulin) (1889–90) and Portrait of Armand
Roulin (1888)); the Francis Bacon section (Three Studies for a Portrait of
John Edwards (1984)); and the opening to the Matta section (second, third
and fourth from the left: Composición en tonos verdes (Composition in
Greens, 1939); Boulevard Raspail (1937); and Theory of Nature’s Strategy
(Polypsychology) (1939).

fig.72

On the wall perpendicular to the display of journals hung works

such as, second from left, André Masson’s Massacre dans un champ
(Massacre in a Field, 1933). René Magritte’s sculpture La Folie des
grandeurs (Megalomania) (1967) is visible in the distance.

fig.73

150 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 151

fig.74 fig.75

The Francis Bacon display formed the centre of this part of the 'Núcleo Returning to the Roberto Matta section, on the right wall, from left,
Histórico’. Curated by Dawn Ades, it included works such as, from left Ernesto Neto’s O escultor e a deusa (The Sculptor and the Goddess, 1995)
to right: The Human Figure in Motion: Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water/ was hung above Matta’s Crucifixion (1938) and Composition in Magenta:
Paralytic Child Walking on all Fours (1965), Figure in Movement (1985), The End of Everything (1942) as a ‘contaminação’. Continuing into the
Figure Sitting (1955), Study for Portrait of Van Gogh VI (1957), Portrait of space, there were additional works by Matta, including Pecador justificado
George Dyer Talking (1966), Three Studies of Henrietta Moraes (1969), (Justified Sinner, 1952) on the central wall, leading into a room of paintings
Study for Portrait (Michel Leiris) (1978), Portrait of Michel Leiris (1976), by David Alfaro Siqueiros, curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez. The Siqueiros
Self-Portrait (1973) and Self-Portrait (1971). As a ‘contaminação’ in this room displayed the works, from far left, Birth of Fascism (1936), Ethnography
section, Artur Barrio’s T.E. (trouxas ensangüentadas) (T.E. (bloody bundles), (1939), El sollozo (The Sob, 1939) and El diablo en la iglesia (The Devil in
1969) was displayed behind a transparent barrier at ground level. the Church, 1947).

152 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 153

fig.76

Continuing into the David Alfaro Siqueiros display, here appears, on the
far left, Hélio Oiticica’s B33 Bólide Caixa 18, poema caixa 02 ‘Homenagem
a Cara de Cavalo’ (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02 ‘Homage to Horse Face’,
1965–66), alongside Siqueiros’s works on the back wall, from left: María
del Carmen Portela (1933), Retrato de María Asúnsolo bajando la escalera
(Portrait of María Asúnsolo Descending a Staircase, 1935) and Ione
Robinson (1931). Oiticica’s sculpture was moved around during the period
of the exhibition as a ‘contaminating element’; it was also included for
a time in the ‘Monocromos’ display, for instance.

fig.77

Hélio Oiticica, B33 Bólide Caixa 18, poema caixa 02

‘Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo’ (1965–66).

154 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 155

fig.78

The next room featured works by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson,
curated by Mary Jane Jacob. On the floor are, from left: Hesse’s
Accession II (1967) and Washer Table (1967); Smithson’s Nonsite
(Palisades-Edgewater, New Jersey) (1968) and Eight-part piece
(Cayuga Salt Mine) (1969). On the wall, third and fourth from left:
Smithson’s Bingham copper mining pit – Utah reclamation project
(1973) and Island project (1970). This room opened onto a smaller
room displaying work by Louise Bourgeois (not pictured).

fig.79

In the Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson room, one of the

exhibition’s ‘contaminações’, a work by Mira Schendel
from her series Droguinhas (Little Nothings, 1965–66)
was inserted in a corner.

156 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 157

 fig.82

Turning right out of the central enclosed space of the ‘Núcleo

Histórico’ and walking around it, visitors passed a section
on ‘Poesia Contemporânea’ ('Contemporary Poetry'), with
Contribuicão multimilionária de todos os erros (Multimillionaire
Contribution of All Errors, 1998), an installation of poetic
works by Arnaldo Antunes, Lenora de Barros and Walter Silveira.
Pictured is Arnaldo Antunes’s Colagem (Collage, 1998).

fig.80 and 81

Next to the Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson space was a room
dedicated to Bruce Nauman, curated by Robert Storr, which included:
Waxing Hot from Eleven Color Photographs (1966/70), on the far left;
the neon work EAT/DEATH (1972); works from Studies for Holograms
(a & b) (1970), on the far right; and Four Pairs of Heads (1991),
in the foreground. The Nauman space was adjacent to the display
of paintings by Albert Eckhout (fig.81) and the main entrance/exit
to the enclosed part of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’.

158 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 159

fig.83

This was followed by work by Lygia Pape (not pictured). On the other
side of the enclosed museological structure, the space opened
onto the so-called ‘Eixo da Cor’ section, starting with a display of
paintings by Tarsila do Amaral, curated by Sônia Salzstein including
(on left wall, from left): A Negra (The Negress, 1923), Abaporu (1928)
and Composição (Composition, 1930).

160 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 161

 Within the Tarsila do Amaral display, from left to right:
Operários (Workers, 1933), Manacá (1927), Cartão postal
(Postcard, 1928), O lago (The Lake, 1928), Paisagem
com touro (Landscape with Bull, 1925) and Carnaval em
Madureira (Carnival in Madureira, 1924).

fig.84

On the immediate right-hand wall hung Tarsila do

Amaral’s paintings, from left to right: São Paulo (1924),
A estação (The Station, 1925) and A caipirinha (1923).

fig.85

162 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 163

fig.86 fig.87

Following the display of paintings to the end of the wall, Turning right again out of the Tarsila do Amaral display and passing
to Tarsila do Amaral’s Sol Poente (Setting Sun, 1929), her A lua (The Moon, 1928) on the left, a partition wall displayed
led to Beatriz Milhazes’s work, hung in the space at the Alfredo Volpi’s early painting of two figures Sem título (Untitled, 1945),
far end of the gallery. with Cildo Meireles’s installation Desvio para o vermelho (Red Shift,
1967–84) and Franz West’s video work Paulo Herkenhoff in his Everyday
(1998), part of ‘Roteiros Europe’, visible in the next space.

164 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 165

 fig.90

Moving into the second area showing Alfredo Volpi’s work, on

the left wall hung four mid-1960s works from his Fachada series
and Bandeirinhas (Small Paper Flags, mid-1960s); on the wall
behind and the wall in front to the right, four additional works
from his Concretos (mid-1950s).

fig.88 and 89

Exiting the Tarsila do Amaral display and turning right, viewers

saw a large installation dedicated to the work of Alfredo Volpi,
curated by Aracy Amaral. From left: four works from Volpi’s
Concretos (Concretions) series and six works from his Fachada
(Façades) series (all mid-1950s). Visible through the partition
(fig.89) is Tarsila do Amaral’s Boi na floresta (Ox in the Forest, 1928).

166 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 167

fig.91 fig.92 and 93

Leaving the Alfredo Volpi display at the entry point, with his Concretos Moving into the next space and looking left to the rear walls,
(mid-1950s) to the left and Casario de Santos (1952) to the right, viewers saw a display of Delson Uchôa’s work, visible here
Antonio Dias’s The Invented Country (God-Will-Give-Days) (1976) was on the far walls, from left: Sudário Caeté (Caete Burial Shroud,
visible against the central pillar, with Delson Uchôa’s Tear (Loom, 1989) 1989) and Roi Roi (King King, 1989) (fig.92). Beatriz Milhazes’s
on the wall behind. work was shown in an adjoining space. Here, her Gavião
e passarinhos (The Sparrow-Hawk and the Little Birds, 1998)
s visible beyond Uchôa’s Tear (Loom, 1989) (fig.93).

168 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 169

fig.94

In the opposite direction, an installation of Hélio Oiticica’s Tropicália

(1968), including Penetráveis PN2 Pureza é um mito and PN3 Imagético,
was visible at the rear of the space, and two partitions on the right
marked off a corridor containing works from his series Bilaterais
(Bilaterals, 1959) and Relevos Espaciais (Spatial Reliefs, 1960). In the
foreground is Franz West’s Paulo Herkenhoff in his Everyday (1998),
an inclusion described in the catalogue as a ‘contamination’.

fig.95

170 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 171

fig.96

To the left, within a walled structure, Cildo Meireles

assembled a re-presentation of his immersive installation
Desvio para o vermelho (Red Shift, 1967–84).

fig.97 and 98

Facing Cildo Meireles’s Desvio para o vermelho (Red Shift, 1967–84), here
seen in the distance, the following Hélio Oiticica works, from left to right,
were presented in an open corridor-like space: Relevo espacial (vermelho)
(Spatial Relief (red), 1960), Relevo espacial (amarelo) (Spatial Relief
(yellow), 1960), Bilateral Clássico (1959), Bilateral (1959), Maquette para
Relevo espacial 23 (amarelo) (Maquette for Spatial Relief 23 (yellow), 1960)
and Relevo espacial (vermelho) (Spatial Relief (red), 1960) (fig.97). In a
space adjacent to the corridor, additional works from Oiticica’s series
Relevo espacial (Spatial Relief, 1960) were presented alongside several
of his Parangolés (1964–79) and Penetrável PN1 (1960) (fig.98).

172 ‘Núcleo Histórico' 173

fig.99 fig.100 fig.101 fig.102

Covers of the four volumes of the

24th Bienal de São Paulo catalogue.

174 Catalogue covers 175

The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy During the time of the exhibition there were several polemics, more intense
After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo in the local context and more nuanced in the international press. In the years
— Mirtes Marins de Oliveira that followed, while there was plenty of discussion about the visibility gained
by the curator, there was otherwise considerable silence. In that period,
Brazilian universities only timidly addressed Herkenhoff ’s proposals. The
If one of the fundamental ‘functions of criticism is the attempt to recreate eventual return of interest in the show in the international arena, more than
artistic products and make past work and past places our contemporary’, 1 as ten years after the event, is therefore somewhat surprising. The 24th Bienal
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda wrote in 1940, it is possible to say that the has leapfrogged from being misunderstood to becoming institutionalised
notion of anthropophagy has actually expanded throughout time and space. within an a-critical pantheon, as evidenced in its recent inclusion through
When analysing the relations between poetry and criticism, Buarque de installation views and catalogue covers in publications attempting to establish
Holanda underlined this coexistence that results from criticism, in which a a canon of exhibitions of contemporary art.5
‘simultaneous order’ is established ‘with all the other authors from the past
and present, even if they might mean for us something very different from In the context of the globalisation of the 1980s and 90s, some curatorial
what they meant to the men of their times’. 2 Adopted and considered by proposals attempted to ‘promote an internationalist vision of art through
different disciplines, anthropophagy has proven its hermeneutic potential terms that could be shaped and understood locally’. 6 Some relevant examples
since the beginning of the twentieth century, instituting a simultaneous are: ‘“Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern’
order that has constantly been revisited.3 By choosing it as the curatorial (1984–85) at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the third
concept of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo, Paulo Herkenhoff established his Bienal de La Habana (1989), ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ (1989) at the Centre
own role as an interlocutor in that order, expanding the category beyond its Georges Pompidou and the Grande Halle de La Villette in Paris and ‘The
literary origins to contemporary artistic and curatorial practice. The critical Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain’ (1989) at the Hayward
reception of the 24th Bienal, both in the press and in academia, has shown Gallery in London.7 This list could also include documenta X, from 1997,
a recurrent polarity in the analysis of the exhibition: its insertion in an curated by Catherine David, who did not develop that exhibition in relation
anthropophagic order and, through it, in an order promoted by the inter- to the debate about primitivism but did explore operations defining relations
national circuit of exhibitions that, in the 1980s and 90s, proposed a revision of difference, of all those whom globalisation, after the fall of the Berlin
of the idea of the ‘primitive’ and its modern appropriation in the framework Wall, allowed to become visible. David’s project also intended to demonstrate
of globalisation’s financial and political shifts. the critical potential of artistic practices as tools that trouble the economic
operations through which globalisation functions. 8 Both documenta X and
Locating the 24th Bienal at the intersection between these two orders could the 24th Bienal were developed under the expectation of offering responses
explain its reception, which has focused on a discussion of anthropophagy to the end of a century. In the case of the 24th Bienal, inscribing Brazilian
rather than an attempt to understand the relationships of ‘contamination’ artists into the international circuit at the time of globalisation was not
between the exhibited works that Herkenhoff had adopted as the key strategy enough – the curatorial project needed to rewrite established history.
for display.4
—
5
See Bruce Altshuler, Biennials and Beyond: Exhibitions that Made Art History,
1962–2002, London: Phaidon, 2013, pp.355–70; and Jens Hoffman, Showtime:
The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, London: Thames &
— Hudson, 2014, pp.128–31.
1
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, ‘Poesia e crítica’ (1940), in O Homem Cordial 6
Charles Esche, ‘Making Art Global: A Good Place or a No Place?’, in Rachel
(ed. Lilia Moritz Schwarcz), São Paulo: Penguin, 2012, pp.39–43. Except where Weiss et al., Making Art Global, Part 1: The Third Havana Biennial 1989, London:
noted, texts originally in Portuguese have been translated for this volume. Afterall Books, 2011, p.8.
2
Ibid., p.41. 7
‘“Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern’,
3
It is possible to think of the simultaneous order of cannibalism and anthropophagy 27 September 1984 to 15 January 1985, curated by William Rubin and Kirk
as being active well before the twentieth century in the actions of European Varnedoe; the third Bienal de La Habana, 1 November to 31 December 1989,
metropolises in the colonised territories of South America and Africa. In the curated by Gerardo Mosquera and others (for more on this exhibition, see R. Weiss
twentieth century, the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (1928) created its own simultaneous et al., Making Art Global, Part 1, op. cit.); ‘Magiciens de la Terre’, 18 May to
order. See Carlos A. Jáuregui, Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia 14 August 1989, curated by Jean-Hubert Martin (for more on this exhibition,
cultural y consumo en América Latina, Madrid and Frankfurt a.M.: Iberoamericana see Lucy Steeds et al., Making Art Global (Part 2): ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ 1989,
and Vervuert, 2008. London: Afterall Books, 2013); and ‘The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-
4
Editors’ Note: On ‘contamination’ in the exhibition, see Lisette Lagnado, ‘Anthro- War Britain’, 29 November 1989 to 4 February 1990, curated by Rasheed Araeen.
pophagy as Cultural Strategy: The 24th Bienal de São Paulo, 1998’, in this 8
See Catherine David, ‘Introduction’, in documenta X: Short Guide, Ostfildern-
volume, pp.19–20. Ruit: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1997, pp.7–13.

176 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 177
 In this arena, Herkenhoff chose anthropophagy as a concept operating amidst of privatisation, begun during Collor’s government and continuing through
other cultural proposals that attempted to mediate between the West and those that followed. The Fundação Bienal didn’t avoid such dynamics. In
the East, the South and the North, the centre and the periphery. In recuper- institutional terms, in the 1980s and 90s it engaged in gigantism and spectac-
ating the debate originating in Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto antropófago’ ularisation under the presidency of Edemar Cid Ferreira. He was followed, for
of 1928, Herkenhoff also brought forth the constellation Andrade built in the 24th Bienal, by Julio Landmann, who established, in collaboration with
relation to that concept: patriarchy and matriarchy, myth and reason, Herkenhoff, new professional parameters for giving shape to the exhibition.11
metropolis and colony. The curatorial project gave new life to the corrosive
and irreverent critique the ‘Manifesto’ made of academicism, and of grand In 1998, the Brazilian press, accustomed to the profile of previous editions
linear and hegemonic historical narratives. Also, strategically, it intended to of the Bienal, offered an anecdotal reading of the exhibition, exploring the
represent a historical emblem that was supposed to characterise Brazilian cannibalistic analogies and criticising what they saw as the imposition of an
identity – the anthropophagic, the act of devouring – within a set of arbitrary curatorial eye on ‘helpless’ artistic production.12 It is worth remem-
approaches to cultural appropriation. But the chosen emblem, in contrast to bering that a conception of curating as knowledge production – Herkenhoff ’s
what some responses to the exhibition have stated, is not a founding myth position13 – was in strong contrast to the ideas presented in the 23rd Bienal,
that is as obvious and homogeneous as a national narrative. Rather, until the which merely reheated the notion of dematerialisation in reference to art
1950s, the ‘Manifesto’ and its author were relatively obscure, until their production from the late 1960s and early 70s, as shaped by Lucy Lippard and
rehabilitation by the São Paulo Concretist poets (Augusto de Campos, John Chandler in the US and Oscar Masotta in Argentina. 14 This anecdotal
Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari) in the 1960s, and, later, by the reaction has recurred in unsuspected places, such as the book published by
mass visibility of Andrade’s O Rei da Vela, 9 when it was staged by Teatro the Fundação Bienal on the fiftieth anniversary of the Bienal.15 In Bienal 50
Oficina in 1967. Directed by José Celso Martinez Corrêa, the staging of the anos: 1951–2001, the Fundação echoes the local misunderstandings, failing
play used parody to address a sharp criticism to the petit bourgeoisie’s behaviour to construct an institutional discourse of its own:
during the dictatorship, and immediately became a reference for the actions
of Tropicalismo. The daring act of curator Paulo Herkenhoff, responsible for the most
radical experience after the Great Canvas in 1985, was not discussed as
In that period, the Bienal de São Paulo suffered from being used as the it deserved by the local media, even though it received great international
cultural and diplomatic arm of Brazilian governments. After the international recognition. What emerged was a generalised discomfort among the local
boycott of the tenth Bienal, in 1969, by artists and intellectuals,10 the exhi- artistic scene in response to what they considered an emphasis on the
bition recovered its intellectual legitimacy thanks to the efforts of Walter figure of the curator that eclipsed the work of art, when it should instead
p.38 Zanini, curator of the sixteenth and seventeenth editions, in 1981 and 1983 increase its worth. 16
(still in the final years of the dictatorship). The 1990s began with Brazil full
of vitality; social and political movements led, through a democratic process, The hailstorm that flooded São Paulo in the first week of October 1998, when
to the impeachment of President Fernando Collor de Mello on charges of the exhibition opened, damaging several windows and the roof of the Ciccillo
corruption in 1992. But this vitality was accompanied by intense processes Matarazzo Pavilion, was reported by the press with no generosity: perceiving
Brazil’s international image as stained, they blamed the Fundação for its
— lack of preparation for such a crisis. The financial and management scandals
9
The theatre piece, written by Andrade in 1933, was published in 1937 but that had affected previous editions also prepared the way for another area of
censored by the Getúlio Vargas government, ignored by directors and theatre interest: the new forms of cultural marketing and popularisation adopted by
critics during the 1940s, and first staged in the 1960s. It revolves around the
anthropophagic paradigm. See Christopher Dunn, Brutalidade Jardim: A Tropicália
e o surgimento da contracultura brasileira, São Paulo: Editora da Universidade —
Estadual Paulista, 2009, p.99. 11
In relation to the collaborative work and mutual support between the curator
10
Led by Pierre Restany in France and Gordon Matta-Clark in the US. See and the presidency, see Paulo Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’,
Renata Zago, ‘A Bienal de São Paulo ou Pré Bienal de 1970’, lecture given at the marcelina, vol.1, São Paulo, 2008.
conference ‘VI Encontro de História da Arte do Instituto de filosofia e Ciências 12
Examples of some of the headlines printed in Brazilian journals and magazines:
Humanas da Universidade Estadual de Campinas’, Centro de História da Arte e ‘A angústia da autofagia’ (‘The Anguish of Self-Devouring’), ‘Receita à moda da
Arqueologia (CHAA) da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), São casa’ (‘Home Recipe’), ‘Miscelânea no 1o andar’ (‘Miscellany on the First Floor’),
Paulo, 30 November to 3 December 2010, available at http://www.unicamp.br/ ‘O cardápio antropofágico’ (‘The Anthropophagic Menu’).
chaa/eha/atas/2010/renata_cristina_oliveira_maia.pdf (last accessed on 16 February 13
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit.
2015). See also the visceral letter by Matta-Clark, dated 19 May 1971, which was 14
Lisette Lagnado, ‘As tarefas do curador’, marcelina, vol.1, 2008, p.16.
reproduced in the catalogue for the 27th Bienal de São Paulo, available at 15
See Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial,
http://issuu.com/bienal/docs/27a_bienal_de_sao_paulo_guia_2006 (last accessed on São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 2001.
16 February 2015). 16
Ibid., p.259.

178 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 179
 the 24th Bienal, echoing practices from other cultural contexts. The amount The critic also perceived that the re-presentation of Cildo Meireles’s Desvio
of money spent on the production of the exhibition – almost R$15 million, para o vermelho (Red Shift, 1967–84) allowed for new readings: this, its third fig.96
which in 1998 amounted to US$15 million 17 – was widely publicised and installation, was its first since the end of the dictatorship; it also echoed
discussed, as was the unfulfilled promise by Telesp, the public telecom- Henri Matisse’s L’Atelier rouge (The Red Studio, 1911). 22 Leffingwell also
munication network of the State of São Paulo, to contribute funding to wrote about the exhibition’s presence in the city through the pedagogical
that edition.18 activities of Brian Maguire’s workshops in the favela of Vila Prudente, and
in concurrent exhibitions at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC
In the international press, the critical reception was more complex, and USP), Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM SP) and the Museu de
contributed to the dissemination of anthropophagy as a hermeneutical Arte de São Paulo (MASP),23 in addition to others in commercial spaces, which
category beyond Brazil. In this respect, Edward Leffingwell’s essay ‘Cannibals all created a backdrop against which to understand more deeply what was
All’, published in Art in America, in May 1999, is exemplary: he attempted exhibited in the Bienal.
to locate anthropophagy in the materiality of the exhibition and the books
published by the team, organised by Herkenhoff together with associate More analytical readings were offered elsewhere at the time, such as Lisette
curator Adriano Pedrosa. Leffingwell pointed to the coherence between the Lagnado’s in Third Text,24 in which the description of the relations between
exhibition and the catalogues, which, through contamination, presented works in the exhibition, beyond the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ (‘Historical Nucleus’), pp.114–73
‘interpolations of image or text that critically illustrate themes’ around was accompanied by analyses that revealed the different forms in which the
anthropophagy,19 for example: various conceptions of anthropophagy were presented via the curatorial
platform. Lagnado also accounted for the misunderstandings of both critical
Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa [1818–19], reproduced on the inside front and public audiences, noting that the ‘gigantic scale of the building con-
fig.99 cover of the 550-page principal volume, set forth the notion of cannibalism tributed to an engulfing of the smaller curatorial “embroideries” offered to a
with its internal reference to a nineteenth-century example. It was accom- public always out of step with contemporary issues’.25
panied by an appropriate quote from Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel
[1532] that reads in part, ‘Taste this chapter, swallow this gloss.’ Readers are Interviewed by Rosa Olivares for Lápiz, 26 Herkenhoff identified the
invited to similarly ‘devour’ the catalogue in their hands.20 deconstruction of a hegemonic historical narrative as the exhibition’s greatest
intellectual contribution, a point he repeated in several other places.27 Partic-
The essay also describes several other ways through which contamination ularly in relation to the ‘mission’ of the institution – to show the newest and
occurred in the exhibition space: the most experimental contemporary art – the success of the ‘Núcleo Histórico’
over the contemporary displays might be understood as a crisis for the Bienal:
fig.78 [Mary Jane] Jacob’s selection of materials-centred Non-Sites by Smithson ‘The bigger the success of the historical section, the bigger the crisis of the
and objects by Hesse seemed apposite to the presentation of similarly institution.’28 For the curator, the institutional crisis materialised in the fact
fig.94–95 and process-oriented works by Hélio Oiticia and Lygia Clark, artists who are that it was more difficult to ‘keep a video running than the air conditioning
97–98 in a sense counterparts in production and legend to Smithson and Hesse in
the United States. The language of installation design further linkedClark
fig.46–48 and Bourgeois to Maria Martins, whose Surrealist plasters and bronzes —
populated a banquette flanking one of the major ramps, facing a similarly 22
Ibid., p.49.
fig.41 and 43 installed gathering of Giacometti bronzes, perhaps in an attempt to support
23
These were: ‘Heranças contemporâneas’ (‘Contemporary Inheritances’), MAC-
the current rehabilitation of Martins’s career. 21 USP, 25 September to 5 December 1998; ‘Arte Construtiva no Brasil: Coleção
Adolpho Leirner’ (‘Constructivist Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection’),
— MAM-SP, 2 October to 20 December 1998; and ‘O moderno e contemporâneo
17
In July 1994, the real became the Brazilian currency. The Central Bank of Brazil na arte brasileira – Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection’ (‘The Modern and
set its value as equal to the US dollar. the Contemporary in Brazilian Art – Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection’), MASP,
18
In 1996, during the privatisation and the fragmentation of the Sistema Telebrás, 6 October to 13 December 1998.
of which Telesp was part, Minister of Communication Sergio Motta promised to 24
L. Lagnado, ‘On How the 24th São Paulo Biennial Took on Cannibalism’,
contribute R$1 million to the 24th edition. Motta passed away in April 1998, and Third Text, vol.13, no.46, 1999, pp.83–88.
the donation did not take place. Regarding the financial problems of the Bienal, see 25
Ibid., p.88.
Cassiano Elek Machado, ‘Exposição: Bienal tem rombo de R$ 1,4 milhão’, Folha de 26
Rosa Olivares, ‘Ahora es necesario olvidar la historia: Entrevista a Paulo
S. Paulo, 14 November, 1998. Herkenhoff ’, Lápiz, no.149/150, January–February 1999, pp.153–61.
19
Edward Leffingwell, ‘Cannibals All’, Art in America, vol.87, no.5, May 1999, 27
See, for example, P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit.;
pp.47–55. and Maria Helena Carvalhaes, ‘Dez anos depois: Um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff’,
20
Ibid., p.47. marcelina, vol.1, 2008.
21
Ibid., p.48. 28
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit.

180 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 181
for the historical works’. 29 When he stated that ‘now we need to forget about Demystifying such approaches, Gerardo Mosquera tackled anthropophagy
history’, 30 he was certainly proposing to forget about the linear and causal in 2011 as a modernist metaphor that legitimised both anti-colonial resistance
approach of many historiographic perspectives, and to offer, instead, a and the appropriation of European tropes.35 Mosquera recognised the strength
confrontation between contemporary artistic production and an international of the metaphor, as an emblem of the cultural dynamics of the whole of
historical tradition. In moving away from the ‘Salas Especiais’ (‘Special Latin America.36 However, in relation to the 24th Bienal, he attempted to
Rooms’) of earlier editions and proposing instead a ‘Núcleo Histórico’, distinguish between the anthropophagic approach as outlined by Andrade
he was attempting to substitute status for knowledge. 31 and Brazilian artistic production in the 90s. In an interview with Cildo
Meireles, he explained:
Olivares perceived the polarisation of the debate about the exhibition:
Latin American culture has specialised in appropriating, digesting and re-
The result [of the exhibition] has been criticised by some and praised by signifying the production of other cultural centres of the world. This is the
others. Among the former, the more conservative sector of Brazilian criticism, notion of ‘anthropophagy’ or cultural ‘cannibalism’ coined by the Brazilian
showing nostalgia for other times and other artistic demonstrations, more poet Oswald de Andrade in 1928. In your work and that of other contemp-
decorative and less radical; and also proponents of the idea that history orary Brazilian artists this process is reversed. You are making ‘international’
cannot be changed. Among those who have considered this Bienal a rupture art in a Brazilian way: your cultural identity is not represented by vernacular
with the traditional decline of such exhibitions are the international critics or local components, but it determines a different way of making the
and the hundreds of thousands of spectators who were able to approach ‘international’. It is an ‘anti-samba’ art which generates its difference not
contemporary art in a friendlier and more critical manner, understanding through representation – the common strategy among contemporary Mexican
that it is much closer to their own lives than they could have ever imagined.32 and Cuban artists – but through action. 37

Writing in 2009, in a retrospective evaluation for Asociación Internacional de Referring to Herkenhoff ’s choice of anthropophagy as his curatorial concept,
Críticos de Arte–Paraguay (AICA–PY), and looking to analyse the impact of Mosquera pointed at its incapacity to function critically, as, in its own
globalisation on cultural dynamics, Jacques Leenhardt presented the curatorial definition, it would incorporate the ‘contradictions of dependency’.38 In his
project of the 24th Bienal as exemplary in the incorporation of transcultural analysis of the notion as an explanatory and legitimising key for cultural
problematics. For the author, the choice of anthropophagy as a conceptual relations, Mosquera incorporated the fierce criticism that Heloísa Buarque
axis made evident ‘the place of the curator’: ‘[the] point of tension between de Hollanda made of its adoption in the cultural field as the universalisation
a local problematic, needed for the local public to be interested in the of a contradictory foundational project: the lack of a past with black or
manifestation, and a global problematic open for others, especially for the indigenous traits, dissipated in the figure of the mestizo and in the notion
specialised public and art critics, who have no alternative today but to be of ‘racial democracy’. For her, ‘Brazil has several imaginations, as a nation
open to a globalised art space’.33 whose identity lies on the capacity to eternally delay its definition’. 39

Globalisation processes demanded a different terminology, newly coined or —

recuperated from the past, in order to provide instruments for interpreting 35
Gerardo Mosquera, ‘Beyond Anthropophagy: Art, Internationalization and
culture. Syncretism, hybridisation, miscegenation, fusion, creolisation: these Cultural Dynamics’, available at http://www.summeracademy.at/media/pdf/
terms were activated during the 1980s and 90s to refer to the cultural dynamics pdf776.pdf (last accessed on 16 February 2015). The text is the result of the
between the West and Latin America, to the legacy of the relationship symposium ‘Global Art’ that took place on 30–31 July 2011 at the Salzburg
between metropolis and colony. 34 The physical and cultural violence of International Summer Academy of Fine Arts and the Austrian and Swiss sections
of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA).
colonisation would be avenged by Andrade’s anthropophagy through the 36
Ibid., p.6.
destruction of the coloniser and the inversion or carnivalisation of its 37
‘Gerardo Mosquera in conversation with Cildo Meireles’, in Dan Cameron,
impositions, offering simultaneously a daring critique of neocolonisalism. P. Herkenhoff and G. Mosquera, Cildo Meireles, London: Phaidon, 1999, p.28.
38
Mosquera has developed this analysis in additional articles, interviews and
— conferences, such as G. Mosquera, ‘From Latin American Art to Art from Latin
29
R. Olivares, ‘Ahora es necesario olvidar la historia’, op. cit., p.155. America’ (trans. Michèle Faguet), Art Nexus, issue 48, April–June 2003, available
30
Ibid. at http://artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=9624; and Juan Pablo
31
Ibid. Pérez, ‘Contra el arte latinoamericano: Entrevista a Gerardo Mosquera’, Arte Nuevo,
32
Ibid., p.153. June 2009, available at http://arte-nuevo.blogspot.com.br/2009/06/contra-el-arte-
33
Jacques Leenhardt, ‘El papel del comisario en las exposiciones internacionales’, latinoamericano.html (both last accessed on 16 February 2015).
AICA-PY, Year 2, no.2/3, December 2009–January 2010, p.11. 39
Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, ‘Um problema quase pessoal’ (1998), available
34
See Néstor García Canclini, Culturas Híbridas: Estratégias para entrar e sair da at http://www.heloisabuarquedehollanda.com.br/um-problema-quase-pessoal/ (last
modernidade, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 2013, p.32. accessed on 16 February 2015).

182 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 183
In anthropophagy, there is to be found a recurrent identification of ‘a horizontal Roteiros. Roteiros.’ understood and tackled anthropophagy, Fabris located pp.100–13
solidarity, around goals and interests that are common to different classes, areas of inconsistency and ambiguity. For her, a single perspective originating
races or professional and sexual categories, masking multiple differences’.40 in the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ resulted in opposing curatorial projects,
The anthropophagic model, defined by modernism as the fundamental trait from Rina Carvajal’s ‘enthusiastic adhesion’ in the selection of Latin
of Brazilian culture, has an anti-confrontational character, which dilutes American artists to Bart de Baere and Maaretta Jaukkuri’s European
difference and the other. For Buarque de Hollanda, in the anthropophagic ‘perplexity’: ‘If Latin America recognises itself in that proclamation of
myth and its derivations, Brazil emerges as the kingdom of cordiality, in singularity attempted by Oswald de Andrade in 1928, Europe, which shaped
which there is ‘a difficulty to instrumentalise clearly, until very recently, the modern perception and continues to develop a fundamental role in the
differences in interest between the social classes and the ethnic or gender postmodern debate, just felt dislocated within a discussion that precisely
groups’. 41 This criticism has been used by Mosquera to point out the confirmed its centrality, even in a situation like today’s, characterised by
insufficiency of the concept proposed for the exhibition. Mosquera’s criticism globalisation and multiculturalism.’46
can be linked to the anti-colonial cultural tradition developed in relation to
the Caribbean starting in the 1930s, and in the works of Aimé Césaire and The criticism by Fabris is exemplary of the efforts of leading intellectuals in
Édouard Glissant. Glissant identified the ‘hybridity’ characterising Caribbean São Paulo in the 1980s and 90s to understand the effects of globalised
identity as a cultural form that would allow for new voices in the debates culture. The frame has since shifted, as is apparent in the responses of Brazilian
and conflicts between cultures.42 Although hybridity and anthropophagy can academia – a reaction that arrived, given the speed of institutional processes,
be seen as conceptually close in many ways, Mosquera’s perspective also with a certain delay. If Brazilian universities, and in particular USP, were
reinstates the premises upon which, with his involvement, the Bienal de La present in the show through a number of researchers responsible for curatorial
Habana was founded in 1984: as a deliberate attempt to oppose positions projects within the ‘Núcleo Histórico’, including Aracy Amaral, Ana Maria fig.88–91
like that seen – later – at the 24th Bienal.43 Belluzzo and Sônia Salzstein, 47 among others, this has not secured the fig.52–57 and
legitimisation of the 24th Bienal within the academic system: there was no 83–87
During the 24th Bienal, Annateresa Fabris, a historian at the Universidade apparent increase of new research about the relation between anthropophagy
de São Paulo (USP), pointed out the insufficiency of anthropophagy as a and contemporary art or about the exhibition itself. The number of doctoral
hermeneutic tool 44 in her discussion of the exhibition in the pages of the theses that, since 1998, have directly addressed the exhibition are few. 48
Folha de S. Paulo. She asked whether the ‘Manifesto antropófago’, decon-
textualised from its modernist origins, could articulate a contemporary —
vision. Was adopting a concept defined in relation to a national identity 46
Ibid.
appropriate in a moment of redefining the national under the pressure of 47
Amaral, who was Professora Titular of Art History at the School for Architecture
globalisation? Hadn’t the depersonalisation imposed by globalisation erased and Urbanism, was the guest curator for Alfredo Volpi’s participation; Belluzzo,
Professora Titular of Art History at the School for Architecture and Urbanism,
from the horizon the question of the relationship between the national and
was responsible for the selection of Albert Eckhout’s work (together with Jean-
the international? ‘A banalisation is taking place when the concept of François Chougnet); and Salzstein, Professora Titular of Art History and Art
anthropophagy imposes itself on the wide dialogical relations between Theory in the Fine Arts Department of the School of Communication and the
different cultures’; furthermore, its potential alignment with the critique of Arts, was responsible for the selection of Tarsila do Amaral’s work.
Eurocentrism was problematic, since giving centrality to the periphery, at 48
Among the first relevant pieces of research to address the exhibition was a 2002
that time, was an operation ‘proclaimed by the cultural institutions from the doctoral thesis by Elisa de Sousa Martínez presented at the Programa de Estudos
centre’ – meaning Europe and the US. 45 Analysing the different ways Pós-graduados em Comunicação e Semiótica of the Pontifícia Universidade
in which the curators of ‘Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Católica of São Paulo, titled ‘Textualização antropofágica: A curadoria do Espaço
Museológico da XXIV Bienal de São Paulo’ (‘Anthropophagic Textualisation:
The Curation of the Museological Space at the XXIV Bienal de São Paulo’), which
— studied the relationship between the works and the wall texts in the ‘Núcleo
40
Ibid. Histórico’ (Martínez currently teaches in the Programa de Pós-Graduação em
41
Ibid. Artes Visuais – Universidade de Brasília). Other studies since have discussed the
42
Édouard Glissant developed his work on hybridity beginning in the 1950s and curatorial project in relation to the Brazilian literary tradition (for example, Luiza
acquired considerable visibility in the 1990s through titles such as Traité du Tout- Oliveira da Silva’s ‘Configurações identitárias na arte contemporânea: A Bienal de
Monde, Paris: Gallimard, 1997. São Paulo de 1998’ (‘Identity Configurations in Contemporary Art: The Bienal de
43
Terry Smith makes the point that the Bienal de La Habana was planned in São Paulo 1998’), Curso de Pós-Graduação em Letras of the Universidade Federal
opposition to the Bienal de São Paulo, with Mosquera holding a central role in Fluminense, 2006) or multiculturalism (Helena Pereira de Queiroz’s ‘Antropofagia
the early editions of the former. See T. Smith, What Is Contemporary Art?, Chicago ou Multiculturalismo? Oswald de Andrade na XXIV Bienal de São Paulo’
and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009, p.154. (‘Anthropophagy or Multiculturalism? Oswald de Andrade at the XXIV Bienal de
44
Annateresa Fabris, ‘Bienal’, Folha de S. Paulo, 10 October 1998. São Paulo’), Programa de Pós-Graduação Interunidades em Estética e História da
45
Ibid. Arte, Universidade de São Paulo, 2011).

184 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 185
How can we explain this lack of attention to the alleged relevance of the nos une’ (‘Only anthropophagy unites us’). The exhibition worked on two
24th Bienal? It is possible to venture that the study of curatorial practice levels, in Jáuregui’s estimation: one oriented towards popular consumption,
is still taking its first steps in Brazil. And, when exhibitions are actually towards an audience that would be educated in Dada or Surrealism for fig.70–72
studied, thematic aspects, as well as analysis of the works exhibited, are instance; the other functioning as ‘elitist banquet for a public who already
given priority, rather than the materiality of the exhibition and the specific has that cultural capital’.55
relations that are set up by the display, or between the display and discourse,
publications or other elements of the curatorial project. Jáuregui’s interpretive tools for analysing the exhibition operate from fixed
polarities – South America versus Europe, consumption versus concept,
In 2008, with the goal of offering balanced critical reflection on curatorial curators versus artists, elite versus popular – considered as internal contra-
practice, a curating seminar dedicated to the 24th Bienal was organised by dictions and, therefore, weaknesses. In this way, his discourse constructs a
Lisette Lagnado at Faculdade Santa Marcelina in São Paulo, with the binary logic that, however critical, cannot capture the ironies and possibilities
participation of Paulo Herkenhoff.49 The proceedings were gathered in the of interference at play in globalisation processes. Should anthropophagy’s
first issue of the magazine marcelina, which was subtitled [antropofágica].50 internal coherence and verisimilitude, now that it functions as an expanded
With the increasing local demand for short courses to train curators, the metaphor, be necessarily referred back to the original formulation? Further-
idea of the ‘Seminários Curatoriais’ was to contribute an opposing movement, more, is it possible to free anthropophagy, as a metaphor for modern cultural
generating materials that would live beyond the recurrent superficiality.51 practices, from the processes of the expansion of capital?

Writing in the same year, precisely a decade since the show and from an Potential answers can be found in Arthur Danto’s response to the Bienal.
anthropophagic perspective, Carlos A. Jáuregui characterised cannibalism as Even without having seen the exhibition, Danto perceived its density in the
a modern cultural metaphor that also suggests a ‘fear of the dissolution of way it reverberates within multi-volume catalogues. 56 For Danto, anthro-
identity and, inversely, a way to appropriate difference’. 52 For him, the many pophagy fulfilled its role as a mediator within a broad discussion about
attempts to reactivate the anthropophagic paradigm have, in their majority, transformations of contemporary culture. That could be what Herkenhoff
voided the political capacities of the metaphor.53 A whole chapter of his considered one of the most important curatorial tasks, the production of
book Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y consumo ‘epistemological leaps affecting knowledge about art and the ways of
en América Latina (Canibalia: Cannibalism, Calibanism, Cultural Anthro- thinking about it’. 57 Through the similarities and differences among the
pophagy and Consumption in Latin America) is dedicated to the 24th edition, various ways in which anthropophagy materialised in the 24th Bienal, the
presented as exemplary of this depoliticisation: ‘The discourses from and exhibition reconfigured and expanded the anthropophagic landscape,
about the Bienal by the organisers, the press and critics are diverse and contra- reinforcing its historical viability, creating the simultaneous order Sergio
dictory; a large part of them refer to the entrepreneurial project that it Buarque de Holanda proposed, and inaugurating a set of material effects
involved, others to its happenstances and occurrences, and the majority of them that helped create new ways of understanding artistic and curatorial practice.
to the degree of misunderstanding of the proposal, both for the public and
for the critics.’54 Jáuregui’s conclusion is that what was articulated in the publi- Translated from Portuguese by Pablo Lafuente.
cations and the exhibition was contradictory – as captured in the statement
appearing on bumper stickers sold during the exhibition: ‘Só a antropofagia
—
49
The ‘Seminários Curatoriais’, at which Lagnado was a teacher, were organised
by the Mestrado em Artes Visuais at Faculdade Santa Marcelina in São Paulo.
50
See marcelina, vol.1, São Paulo, 2008, available at www.sophiamarchetti.com.
br/index.php/PDF/1/32/ (last accessed on 16 February 2015).
51
In 2012, the Fourth Seminar of Researchers at the Programa de Pós Graduação
em Artes – Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro presented work dealing with the
‘expansion of the notion of anthropophagy proposed by the 24th Bienal de São
Paulo’. ‘Vômito e não: Práticas antropoêmicas na arte e na cultura’ (‘To Vomit and —
not to Vomit: Anthropoemic Practices in Art and Culture’) addressed the incorp- 55
Ibid., p.549.
oration of anthropophagy by capitalism. The organisers proposed anthropoemy as 56
See the critic and curator Felipe Chaimovich’s interview with Arthur Danto for
an inventive and productive relation in cultural contact. Folha de S. Paulo: ‘As novas feiras: Para o crítico Arthur Danto, as bienais de
52
C.A. Jáuregui, Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y consumo arte substituíram as exposições internacionais’, 21 May 2001, available at
en América Latina, op. cit., p.15. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/especial/fj2005200112.htm (last accessed on
53
Ibid., p.342. 16 February 2015).
54
Ibid., p.548. 57
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op cit., p.23.

186 The Epistemological Leap of Anthropophagy After the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Mirtes Marins de Oliveira 187
 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal rarely examined but most relevant aspects of this now-familiar exhibition.
de São Paulo This cantinho, or corner, for art education was intended primarily as a space
— Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz to enable exchanges and provide information for visiting teachers (initially
it was called the Sala do Professor). It signalled much more: at the 24th
Bienal, education had, indeed, become a fundamental pillar of the Bienal as a
In 1975, the year of the 13th Bienal de São Paulo, a group of artists, including whole. This role, however, came accompanied by some ambivalences. After
Fred Forest, gathered footage, interviews and material traces from around all, the Sala was located on the pavilion’s ground floor, in the service area, which fig.6
Ibirapuera Park to produce artefacts for the ‘Bienal do Ano 2000’, an was also used during the 24th Bienal to showcase its sponsors and partners,
archaeological projection of the future of the Bienal.1 In fact, a Bienal would through, for example, stands for collaborating magazines and newspapers and
not be held in 2000: the edition planned for the millennium was postponed photographic printers such as Kodak.
twice. There was a huge shortfall in the budget; the designated curator, Ivo
Mesquita, was let go; and the Fundação Bienal’s president ended up in a fist Taking this image of the discarded container dug up from the depths as a
fight with an artist.2 As has been written, the Fundação was ‘in perhaps the point of departure, we can write a modest archaeology of education at the
greatest crisis since its inception’.3 When the 25th edition was finally held, in 24th edition, reconstructing and contextualising its policy and practice of art
2002, it received a lukewarm reception.4 But, four years earlier, there was a education, which was ambitious and advanced in manifold ways. What dared to
Bienal de São Paulo with far more potential for an archaeology of the future come ‘out of the cantinho’ entered a cultural force field of overlapping political,
of exhibiting, as well as for the future of art education.5 curatorial, economic, public policy and art educational interests. This archae-
ology reveals continuities that have played a significant role in the history –
Among the relics of the 24th Bienal, let us imagine an unspectacular metal characterised by massive caesuras – of this notoriously ‘unstable institution’.6
and glass booth, covered in Ibirapuera’s vegetation, with HBSC’s logo peeping
fig.5 out from beneath the undergrowth: a remnant of the Sala Educação, a
structure set up on the ground floor of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, once 1. A ‘Curatorial Difference’
the operational base for the Bienal’s educational initiatives – one of the Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo was implemented from above,
— flourishing high on the banners of its institutional policy and curatorial
1
Media artist Fred Forest was part, with Hervé fischer and Jean-Paul Thenot, of approach. This was unusual, despite the Bienal’s long-standing educational
the Collectif d’art sociologique, which developed a practice of artistic research commitment, as Evelyn Ioschpe, director in charge of education for the 24th
based on sociological theory. Forest had already participated in the Bienal de São edition, has explained: ‘Whereas usually the educational aspect is subordinated
Paulo in 1973, in the section planned by Vilém Flusser, ‘Arte e comunicação’ (‘Art to the curatorial, or even clashes with it, here at this zero point we see the clear
and Communication’), and was arrested by the police during one of his actions. In will of the institution and the curator to position an important educational
1975, he produced the ‘Bienal do Ano 2000’ for the Museu de Arte Contemporânea
initiative.’7 Julio Landmann, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo at
da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP). See Isobel Whitelegg, ‘The Bienal de
São Paulo: Unseen/Undone (1969–1981)’, Afterall, issue 22, 2009, pp.107–13. the time of the 24th Bienal, has since described the educational imperative he
2
Celso Fioravante, ‘Feud for thought’, Artforum, vol.39, no.3, 2000, p.37. and the exhibition’s curator, Paulo Herkenhoff, agreed to:
3
Ibid.
4
The 25th and 26th editions were curated by Alfons Hug, who reintroduced the As early as the first month of our preparation, we produced a document
‘Venetian’ order of national representations, and this resulted in negative criticism.
listing its main functions. There were about twenty of them – from
‘The “Bienal da Antropofagia” […] received immense international attention
and praise, but this was not enough to save the exhibition from entering an acute temporary museum to symbolic representation of the city of São Paulo,
period of crisis in the years that followed.’ Kiki Mazzucchelli, ‘The São Paulo from educating the gaze of young artists to showing Brazilian art on the
Biennial and the Rise of Brazilian Contemporary Art’, in Hossein Amirsadeghi international scene. The 24th Bienal was set on a tripod – exhibiting,
(ed.), Contemporary Art Brazil, London: Thames & Hudson, 2012, p.22. publishing, educating – and the Bienal began to be seen as an instrument
5
We, the authors, would like to note that this text offers a perspective shaped by for art education. 8
our engagement with contemporary large-scale exhibitions such as documenta X
and 12. We cannot assert first-hand knowledge of the complexities of the Bienal —
de São Paulo’s editions in recent decades. We have concentrated on archival 6
We borrow this term from Carlos Basualdo. See ‘The Unstable Institution’,
documents on the art education programme, as well as on oral histories that are MJ – Manifesta Journal, no.2, 2003–04, pp.50–61.
certainly not fully representative of the concrete work of the roughly 160 art 7
Evelyn Ioschpe, ‘Bienal e educação’, Revista USP, no.52, 2001–02, pp.108–15,
educators who participated in the 24th Bienal. The question of how affirmative available at http://www.usp.br/revistausp/52/13-evelyn.pdf (last accessed on
or critical the art education actually was in practice, and whether there were 15 April 2015). Except where noted, the translations in this essay are based on
institution-critical twists to it (albeit not foreseen in the overall thrust of the the translations into German by Catrin Seefranz from the original Portuguese.
programme), would need to be further appraised through interviews with the 8
See Julio Landmann’s reflection in Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 /
protagonists – the audience, art educators, teachers and others. 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 2001, p.323.

188 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 189
The particular constitutive status accorded to art education for this edition spirit of an ‘institution of critique’, 13 it created a blueprint for a reflective,
is indicated by the creation of the position of director of education within critical museum – an ‘open place and public institution’ 14 – devoted to
the Fundação Bienal. As the minutes from an internal meeting attest, the education, in part drawing its public duties from public financing. 15 This
decision ‘recognised the importance of this aspect of the exhibition and Bienal was therefore designed as a museum-style educational machine, a
aimed to extend it beyond the duration of the exhibition’. 9 However, in machine that was conceived in superlative terms; it was, after all, to mobilise
practical terms, it took ten more years for a permanent education department an audience of school pupils the size of a small city. 16 A few years on, the
(‘educativo permanente’) to finally be established, in 2009. education-based curatorial stance announced by the 24th Bienal had become
the status quo in Brazil. Herkenhoff proposes to read this as the ‘Brazilian
Just as the Fundação’s newfound focus on art education might be interpreted curatorial difference’, as a committed attitude that is ‘part of a social
as a new institutional policy in a phase of strategic expansion, symbolic and conscience that characterises Brazil, whereby an art exhibition can contribute
economic investment in art education perhaps constituted a curatorial to creating cidadania (citizenship), a process driven ahead by the curator as
position (according to Landmann, the financial investment amounted to an agent, and in which education is fundamental’.17
more than R$1 million, equivalent to approximately US$1 million at the
time, out of a total exhibition budget of R$15 million). At the initial
meeting on the ‘Art Education Project’, Herkenhoff reflected, according to 2. Subterranean History
the minutes, ‘on the importance of the Bienal in São Paulo, where economic If the education engagement of the 24th Bienal appears, in the statements
capital is transposed into symbolic capital, and on the Bienal as a large cited earlier, to have been a brand-new initiative, it was actually built upon
educational institution’. 10 This suggests he applied a critical eye to the considerable history that had long remained ‘subterranean’. 18 It has been
Bienal as a hegemonic representational apparatus that could gain democratic written that ‘from the beginning, [the Bienal] fulfilled a pedagogical function’:19
or critical potential through according space to its educational programme; from the first Bienal onwards, a range of tours were offered, 20 and gener-
this process could also legitimate his own position as an engaged curator, ations of art students took on the task of teaching ‘visual literacy’,21 in other
entangled in all kinds of power relations by virtue of working on such a
—
project. With hindsight, Herkenhoff has summarised his reconfiguration of 13
Andrea Fraser, ‘From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique’,
the institution’s parameters by opposing his project to the notion of an ‘art Artforum, September 2005, vol.44, no.1, pp.278–83.
hotel’: ‘I was not going to execute the Bienal according to its consolidated 14
Martin Grossmann, ‘O Anti-museu’ (1989), Revista Forum Permanente 1, 2012,
parameters … the Bienal shouldn’t be an art hotel, but a process constituting available at http://www.forumpermanente.org/revista/numero-1/museu-ideal/
a reflection around art from a particular focus.’11 martin-grossmann/o-anti-museu (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
15
‘The conviction that the money invested gave rise to public costs led to plans
In Herkenhoff ’s work for the 24th Bienal, the museum was the locus in which for a project in the sector of public education.’ P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998:
princípios e processos’, op. cit.
this reflection on art – this critical intervention within the dominant para- 16
‘The educational project of the Bienal is held to be the largest art education
digms of art history and this decentring of hegemonic modernism – became programme associated with an art event anywhere in the world. It is tantamount
possible, in what was indubitably a rewriting of (art) history. The 24th Bienal to mobilising a medium-sized city for an art exhibition’. E. Ioschpe, fax to
entrusted its new, decidedly postcolonial narrative and ‘epistemological leap’ Cynthia [surname missing], a member of the Fundação Bienal, 30 March 1998,
to the invention of the museum, permeated by the colonial project. 12 In the Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
17
P. Herkenhoff, in ‘Dez anos depois: um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff ’, trópico,
— 22 April 2008, available at http://www.revistatropico.com.br/tropico/html/textos/
9
Fax dated 14 December 1998 with minutes from the constitutive meeting in 2972,1.shl (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
December 1997, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. 18
Lilian Amaral used this term in speaking with Mary Lourdes Setsuko Yamanaka,
10
Ibid. in ‘A experiência visível: Entrevista com Lilian Amaral’, available at http://www.
11
Paulo Herkenhoff, quoted in Hossein Amirsadeghi, Contemporary Art Brazil, London: emnomedosartistas.org.br/FBSP/en/Educativo/Pages/Educativo-da-Bienal.aspx
Thames & Hudson, 2012, p.168. There was also a pragmatic reason for emphasi- (last accessed on 15 April 2015). The general contours of this art education
ing the educational dimension at the 24th Bienal: ‘In the multifaceted negotiations of history can be found in the oral history of the Bienal de São Paulo recently made
loans from foreign museums, there was always much more willingness to cooperate as publicly available. See ‘Seminário Arte em Tempo’, available in different chapters
soon as the educational project was mentioned’. P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios on YouTube, and as quoted in several footnotes to this essay.
e processos’, in trópico, 22 April 2008, unpaginated, available at http://www.revistatropico. 19
K. Mazzucchelli, ‘The São Paulo Biennial and the Rise of Brazilian Contemporary
com.br/tropico/html/textos/2973,1.shl (last accessed on 15 April 2015). Art’, op. cit., p.18. See also V. Spricigo, Modes of Representation of the São Paulo
12
Ibid. The 24th Bienal was indeed characterised by reflectivity vis-à-vis the Biennial / Modos de Representação da Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo: Hedra, 2011.
institution of the museum and attempted to question the symbolic violence often 20
E. Ioschpe, ‘Projeto Núcleo Educação Bienal/SESC’, in XXIV Bienal de São
inscribed in the exhibition space, for example through addressing hierarchies: Paulo: Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s (exh. cat.), São Paulo:
‘If the exhibition space signifies language and power in the Bienal, then it was A Fundação, 1998, p.206.
necessary to de-hierarchise spaces, to de-hierarchise countries.’ 21
See Aracy Amaral’s commentary on the early editions of the Bienal, in ‘30xbienal,

190 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 191
words, instructing those members of the audience who were keen to be 18th Bienal in 1985, curated by Sheila Leirner, the first thing that the art
educated ‘in the right way of seeing’.22 education team did was buy a map of the city to find schools in the vicinity
of the park.28
During its first decades, the Bienal seems to have served as a kind of
particularly intensive, and also particularly high-quality, temporary academy Walter Zanini’s celebrated 16th Bienal, in 1981, offered a scope of paradigm p.38
for those hired as art educators. 23 Up until the 1980s, the art education shifts, which filtered through into art education. Zanini resolutely conceived
programme had concentrated on the classical tour format, and tended to be the exhibition as a medium, following a line of thinking that philosopher
affirmative in its approach to the exhibition apparatus and its narratives; yet Vilém Flusser had traced out in his advisory role to the Bienal in the early
individual deviations from the script were possible, for example with tours 1970s. 29 This also led to reflections on the ‘process of communication
given in drag in the 1960s. 24 According to Ivo Mesquita, ‘the system was between the arts and the people’,30 by then long debated in the field of art edu-
completely different from the one today’, focused entirely on art history.25 cation; thus, a shift in and examination of power relations began. In discussing
the 18th edition, Chaké Ekisian recalled: ‘We had very clear requirements
During the military rule, which lasted from 1964 to 1985 (and when, for the art educators. We are not there to tell people what we think. We are
despite the regime, dissident articulations were manifest at various Bienals26), also not there to tell people what they saw.’31
art education for school-age viewers became part of the education
programme of the Bienal. This was, according to his own account, thanks to There was also a resolute focus in those years on tackling territorial power
the initiative of Antonio Santoro Júnior, who came from a family of relations between curators and art educators, with the latter enjoying more
professional clowns, was a Bienal aficionado, and later became a professor of leeway and freedom, at least in some cases, than proved conceivable in later
art. The programme he organised for schools in the vicinity of Ibirapuera editions. For example, in the 18th and 19th Bienals, both curated by Leirner
Park can be seen as an early predecessor to the large-scale school-visit in 1985 and 1987, space was secured for workshops for school students and
programme of the 24th Bienal. After that, student attendance increased workers from ‘several factories’ 32 that were connected to the exhibition.
throughout the years, from 20,000 in 1975 (achieved via a cooperation These workshops took place in the exhibition itself, albeit only in the morning
scheme with a newspaper) to 130,000 in 1998 (110,000 from public schools and ‘very carefully’, and there was scope to exhibit the results subsequently.
and 20,000 from private schools through a cooperation system with the city For Lilian Amaral, a workshop at the 19th Bienal marked a decisive moment:
and state of São Paulo). 27 When military rule became civilian rule in 1985, ‘To my mind an enduring change came about there, a shift from “before” to
initiatives in the realm of formal education continued, but under conditions “after”. The Bienal changed its discourse, work with it became more visible
that, compared to those that would be seen at the 24th edition, seemed and the audience was so affected by the art that they began to make art them-
almost informal. As art educator Chaké Ekisian has recounted regarding the selves. Having a place to practice art is fundamental, enormously important;
it changed my relationship to art education.’33
—
década de 90’, 2013, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN6nBJ45H8M As head of art education for the 23rd Bienal in 1996, Amaral continued the
(last accessed on 15 April 2015). territorial debates with the clear intention ‘that the curators should share their
22
See Simon Sheikh, ‘Letter to Jane (Investigation of a Function)’, in Paul space and reduce their hegemonic claims’. Subverting ‘curatorial authority’,
O’Neill and Mick Wilson (ed.), Curating and the Educational Turn, London: ‘semi-clandestine’ teaching materials were produced ‘as the curators did not
Open Editions, 2010, pp.61–75. allow us to write any critical texts’.34 Similarly, the project ‘Mapas urbanas:
23
Participants in the training often participated as volunteers, but were sometimes
paid; art historian Cristina Freire recalls the generous conditions of a one-year
training programme for which a grant was available in ‘30xbienal, década de 80’, —
2013, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkXvNBncozc (last accessed 28
‘We were only out-and-about in the close environs’, within a limited radius.
on 15 April 2015). ‘Entrevista com Chaké Ekisian’, Educativos – uma história, available at http://
24
Former art educator Luiz Munari recalls the ‘deusa’ (goddess) Ricardo, ‘obvio www.emnomedosartistas.org.br/FBSP/en/Educativo/Pages/Educativo-da-Bienal.
um travesty’ (obviously a transvestite), who led tours in drag with the curator’s aspx (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
permission, in ‘30xbienal, década de 60’, 2013, available at https://www.youtube. 29
In the 1973 edition, Flusser’s concepts were only partially implemented,
com/watch?v=Os-JW-HCSn4 (last accessed on 15 April 2015). for example in the works by Fred Forest cited at the start of this essay and in the
25
Ivo Mesquita, in ‘30xbienal, década de 70’, 2013, available at https://www. ‘Art and Communication’ section.
youtube.com/watch?v=Sv_lEgHThZE (last accessed on 15 April 2015). Mesquita 30
V. Spricigo, Modes of Representation of the São Paulo Biennial / Modos de
has occupied a variety of roles across different editions, from art educator for the Representação da Bienal de São Paulo, op. cit.
15th, in 1979, to curator of the 28th, in 2008. 31
‘Entrevista com Chaké Ekisian’, op. cit.
26
See I. Whitelegg, ‘The Bienal de São Paulo: Unseen/Undone (1969–1981)’, op. cit. 32
C. Ekisian, in ‘30xbienal, década de 80’, op. cit.
27
See Maria Hirszman, ‘Bienal tem menos publico, mas balanço é considerado 33
‘A experiência visível: Entrevista com Lilian Amaral’, op. cit.
positivo’, O Estado de S. Paulo, 19 December 1998. 34
Ibid.

192 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 193
Arte contemporânea, a cidade e público’ (‘Urban Maps: Contemporary Art, city and state of São Paulo – were specifically addressed. In the light of the
the City and the Public’), consisting of 120 boards featuring drawings by extreme class segregation of the educational system in Brazil (which holds to
education workshop participants displayed across São Paulo and at the this day), this was a resolute statement. ‘Concentrating on the public school
workshop venue Paço das Artes, was realised almost behind the curators’ sector was a political and social decision’, 43 recalls Milene Chiavatto, who
backs.35 Amaral also implemented an ambitious school project; the thousands was in charge of coordinating the guided tours. It was made against a
of schoolchildren the scheme brought to the exhibition contributed to backdrop of transformations in educational policy during this period. In
attaining the record visitor numbers the directorship was keen to achieve.36 1996, art education became compulsory for all school classes, 44 after the
Therefore, the field on which the 24th Bienal built its cantinho and approval of the Nova Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (New
succeeded in implementing its ambitious art education programme was Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education). In 1998, the Ministry
already seeded; and its activities in 1998 would lay the groundwork for of Education was working on a revised version of the Parâmetros Curriculares
future editions. The ‘Bienal of the Future’, if it had indeed been held in the Nacionais (National Curricular Parameters); the 24th Bienal was keen to
year 2000, would have placed education at the heart of its concerns. As the intervene in this process.
designated curator Ivo Mesquita announced, ‘the curator’s prime concern
was, in any event, education’.37 Planning to contribute to a process of ‘creating citizenship’ 45 through art
education, the ‘Núcleo Educação’ (‘Education Nucleus’) developed a concept
according to three priorities: training teachers from the public school system
3. A ‘Big School’ as experts on the Bienal as well as ‘audience multipliers’ (school visits
The imaginary counterpart of the artworks in the 24th Bienal is the ‘mass’38 of accounted for more than half of the expected audience for the guided tours);
nao-iniciados39 (non-initiates), comprising, for the most part, students from developing an art education programme in the exhibition itself; and presenting
the public school system, an audience group that has been referred to in a concurrent education platform online. As can be read in a concept paper
subsequent editions as periferia40 (periphery) or comunidades 41 (communities). from the ‘Núcleo Educação’, the art education machine of the 24th Bienal
worked on the premise of an advanced and thoroughly ‘deconstructive’
This ‘mass’ from 1998 can only be imagined and understood through the concept of art education, with the intention to devour and digest the
conceptualisation of the 24th edition as a ‘big school’, as it was termed by curatorial agenda in an act of (art) pedagogical anthropophagy: ‘The discourse
members of the art education team.42 Only the public education sector and of the “Nucleo Educação” had absorbed the curatorial discourse […] in a
its protagonists – the officials, teachers and pupils of public schools in the productive fusion, in which the art educators flung themselves ravenously
upon the curator’s banquet and threw themselves with passion into educating
— people about it.’46 Milene Chiovatto has recalled these moments of art educa-
35
The Paço das Artes, an exhibition space at the University of São Paulo fifteen tional incorporation as evidencing appetite for the king’s head: ‘It was
kilometres away from Ibirapuera Park, was accessible by a specially arranged bus
maximum antropofagia, the way in which we, in a sense, gobbled up Paulo’s
four times a day.
36
‘We had Edemar Cid Ferreira as president and he was crazy, he wanted to break head, the whole crazy dream he had in there suddenly became tangible for us.’47
the visitor record at any cost. If Rodin and Monet could mobilise 500,000 people
in Rio and São Paulo, if there were queues outside the Pinacoteca, why shouldn’t This gave rise to a detailed theoretical system, formulated by Luiz Guilherme
the Bienal break records? […] So every morning we had 6,000 pupils from public Vergara, a member of the Bienal’s art education team and also director of
schools. It had to be in the morning so they didn’t mingle with the normal paying education at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói at that time.
audience. He had the idea that children create disorder anyhow, let alone pupils This system drew on phenomenology and critical pedagogy as well as the art
from public schools, who he thought would really cause problems.’ ‘A experiência pedagogue Ana Mae Barbosa’s newly established metodologia triangular
visível: Entrevista com Lilian Amaral’, op. cit.
37
I. Mesquita, quoted in M. Hirszman, ‘Bienal investe na “clareza pedagógica”’,
(triangular methodology).48 The objective was ‘to create a (trans-)cultural,
O Estado de São Paulo, 19 December 1998.
38
P. Herkenhoff, ‘Bienal 1998: princípios e processos’, op. cit. —
39
E. Ioschpe, ‘Bienal e educação’, op. cit., p.110. 43
‘30xbienal, década de 90’, op. cit.
40
Denise Grinspum, ‘A 27a Bienal de Sao Paulo e seu projeto educativo’, in 27a 44
This wasn’t the first time, as a similar legislation was passed in 1971. This was
Bienal de São Paulo: Seminários, São Paulo: cobogó, 2006, p.393. followed, at least since 1983, by a series of attempts to eliminate the discipline.
41
See ‘29a Bienal de São Paulo – Entrevista com Stela Barbieri’, 2010, available 45
P. Herkenhoff, in ‘Dez anos depois: um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff ’, ibid.
at http://www.stelabarbieri.com.br/edu/bienal_entrevista.htm (last accessed on 46
E. Ioschpe, ‘Bienal e educação’, op. cit., p.112.
15 April 2015). The underlying political views of this semantic shift demand 47
‘30xbienal, década de 90’, op. cit.
further research. The public school system in Brazil is used by sectors of the 48
Barbosa was also a consultant to the 24th Bienal. What began as metodologia
population with limited resources, and the schools themselves are highly under- triangular and later became proposta (proposal) and finally abordagem (approach)
resourced, both in material and human terms. to art education consists of a combination of apreciar (looking/appreciating),
42
See Luiz Guilherme Vergara’s commentary in ‘30xbienal, década de 90’, op. cit. contextualisar (contextualising) and experimentar (experimentation). It remains a

194 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 195
critical and poetic consciousness through art’, 49 taking the dimension of like a ‘crazy turnstile’. 55 Nonetheless, it does appear that the attempt to
estranhamento (estrangement), as its point of departure ‘in order to tap into implement a basic level of (self-)reflection in this educational machine was
the potential of the communicative tension of art’.50 deemed successful:

The focus was on activating a ‘diversified audience’,51 who, through engaging We established the fields in which we wished to work with greater clarity
with art and stimulated by art educators, were to be empowered as about how and what we wished to do. Not starting from the assumption – 
‘producer[s] of meanings’: ‘Art education linking these experiences with and I believe for the first time in a consistent fashion – that in art
one’s own individual life circumstances can prove enriching by enhancing education we would simply be leading people through the exhibition
an awareness of belonging to a collective and being a producer of meanings, space. I think that was a huge revolution in the Bienal’s mentality and,
in the light of art, culture and one’s own life.’ 52 In conceptual terms, their to my mind, that of all contemporary cultural institutions. 56
approach to art education shifted away from educação bancária, to use Paulo
Freire’s term for an accumulation style of education that reproduces power The project ‘A Educacão Pública e a XXIV Bienal de São Paulo’, coordinated
relations – a banking concept of education – and moved towards an educação and comprehensively documented by Iveta Fernandes, lay at the heart of the
problematizadora – problem-posing education as an emancipatory and ‘big school’,57 offering a comprehensive educational programme to a range
critical agenda that attempts to take alienation as a productive starting of professionals in the public education system – teachers of art and other
point. 53 For this politicised process of subject construction, Vergara disciplines for various age groups in various types of schools; delegates
proposed the term antropofagias contínuas (continuous anthropophagies) to broadly spread out across the pedagogical field of the city and state of São
describe a process to be set in motion by art educators: ‘This anthropophagic Paulo. According to Evelyn Ioschpe, over 3,000 teachers were involved from
attitude is not passive, but instead demands an individual mobilisation to more than 140 districts in the state of São Paulo. 58 The project began with
exchange and share significant experiences related to one’s own life circum- a video conference in cooperation with TV Cultura, which offered partici-
stances’. 54 The so-called curadorias educativas (education curatorships) were pating schools scope for interaction. A series of events, seminars and courses
introduced in order that the curatorial concepts would be translated into (after which participants received a certificate), aimed to stimulate an
educational ‘proposals for thematic routes’, and through them, it was hoped, educational engagement with the 24th Bienal, were offered in conjunction
art education at the Bienal would take up a thoroughly self-aware and power- with institutions such as the Museu Lasar Segall, Museu de Arte São Paulo
conscious stance (although the notion of the curadoria educativa found scarce (MASP), Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM SP), Serviço Social do Comércio
resonance in the exhibition’s public discourse). (Social Service of Commerce, or SESC)59 and Museu de Arte Contemporânea
da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP).
On the basis of materials kept in the Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo at the
Fundação Bienal, it is difficult to reconstruct the extent to which the These sessions primarily focused on the 24th edition itself, in anticipation
concepts elaborated above were actually included in the teaching programme of the groups’ subsequent visits to the exhibition, where they would also,
of the ‘big school’ that developed at the exhibition. Another question that to a large extent, make use of the art education features available. The
remains unanswered here relates to the way in which the outline of the programme’s focus also extended beyond, seeking to intervene actively in
underlying concept, with its advanced theoretical framings, could actually the process of repositioning contemporary art within the general educational
be transposed into the concrete practice of art education, with the thousands system. This allowed for the creation of a cooperation agreement, vital for a
and thousands of tours that set the art education programme moving project on this scale, with the Department of Education of the state of São
Paulo. The production of teaching materials was a central component in the
programme: 15,000 copies of a collection of 20 posters with images from
—
much-discussed and practised paradigm of art education in Brazil. See Ana Mae
the ‘Núcleo Histórico’ section of the exhibition and a set of questions and
Barbosa, A imagem do ensino da arte: anos oitenta e novos tempos, São Paulo: information were printed and distributed to schools around the state.
Perspectiva, 1991.
49
Núcleo Educação (ed.), Conceitos e Metas – XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Curadoria —
Educativa, 1998, unpublished manuscript from Fundação Bienal Archive, p.9. 55
M. Chiavatto, in ‘30xbienal, década de 90’, op. cit.
50
E. Ioschpe, ‘Bienal e educação’, op. cit., p.112. 56
Ibid.
51
Núcleo Educação (ed.), Conceitos e Metas - XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Curadoria 57
See Iveta Fernandes, Relatório do Projeto A Educação Pública e a XXIV Bienal de
Educativa, op. cit., p.8. São Paulo, 1998, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
52
Ibid., p.8. 58
E. Ioschpe, ‘Projeto Núcleo Educação Bienal/SESC’, op. cit., p.204.
53
See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos), 59
The SESC is a private non-profit institution dedicated to culture, health and
New York: Continuum, 2005. leisure. It is funded through a payroll tax taken from the salaries of workers in the
54
Núcleo Educação (ed.), Conceitos e Metas – XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Curadoria corporate sector. There are around thirty SESC units in the state of São Paulo,
Educativa, op. cit., p.10. half of them in the metropolitan area of the capital.

196 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 197
 The 24th Bienal, with its ‘postulation of a non-Eurocentric vision’ 60 and, 4. Non-synchronicity
more generally, its attempt to intervene in the canon, thus landed in many The discussion and practice of public art education at events of comparable
classrooms, if not on the curriculum per se. This Material de apoio educativo size in continental Europe at the time – documenta X, Skulptur Projekte
para o trabalho do professor com arte (Educational Support Material for the Münster and the 47th Venice Biennale, all in 1997 – lagged significantly
Teacher’s Work with Art) certainly provided concrete starting points in this behind those developed around the 24th Bienal de São Paulo. 65 At the
fig.83–87 undertaking. Referring to a painting by Tarsila do Amaral, it proposed, for European events, education was not at all conceived in terms of its conceptual
example, how reflections on the representations and realities of Brazil’s or programmatic importance for the curatorial approach. Instead, it was under-
fig.26 indigenous population could be developed; or how works by Leonilson stood as a conventional ‘visitor service’: a service-oriented transmission of an
could provide a foundation for integrating the topic of homosexuality into authorised explanatory text to as many clients as possible, from non-experts to
teaching (a subject also addressed in the new curriculum). 61 The material VIP guests. The efforts on this front were particularly sparse in Venice to the
was produced by various authors, which led to a ‘wealth of polyphonic extent that they can be reconstructed through archival research and interviews.66
readings’ and to a set of resources that ended up being ‘very much in demand In Münster, various tour formats and suggested routes through the exhibition
and frequently used to this day’.62 were proposed, as well as a limited number of workshops for school classes.67
In Kassel, for documenta X, a subcontracted firm offered various tour formats
Continuing with Bienal tradition, guided tours were a central art educational and introductory lectures ‘on an entrepreneurial basis’ and ‘guided over
format at the 24th Bienal, based on the concept of curadoria educativa. The 150,000 people around documenta with 70 staff ’; in addition, the city of
three-month training scheme for 160 educators (selected from a total of Kassel’s Museum Pedagogy Service offered a small programme for children.68
800 applicants who were asked to articulate their position on Brazilian
modernism as part of the selection process) was run in cooperation with In contrast, there are numerous correspondences between the 24th Bienal’s
SESC São Paulo. Both ‘stationary’ and ‘mobile’ tours were planned (it was self-image as an educational undertaking, including the design of its art
estimated that 146,000 would be required): art educators were positioned at education as an autonomous cultural and critical practice, and the status of
particular points to answer visitors’ questions63 whilst individually designed art education in other geopolitical regions, namely the US and England.
tours that moved through the exhibition were also on offer. All the educators Since the nineteenth century, Anglo-American educational practice has
were paid a fixed wage (a stationary monitoria junior received R$500 for a developed through a framework based on an ambivalent relationship between
six-hour day, and a mobile monitoria senior R$730 for four hours), and their discipline and emancipation. From the 1970s onwards, efforts to realise the
working conditions were regulated by the Fundação Bienal.64 latter were to a large extent shaped by relationships between artists work-
ing in education and activists connected to the civil rights movement. 69
In addition, the Bienal’s art educators developed the format of ‘Conversas
com Arte’ (‘Conversations with Art’), specific thematic workshops taking —
65
While Herkenhoff would identify Venice and Kassel as his major models for the
place during the exhibition, and musician Hélio Ziskind and critic and
24th Bienal, it is also worth noting a much earlier history of biennials integrating
curator Lisette Lagnado were responsible for an audio guide. Rental revenue discursive and other non-exhibition initiatives in the Global South: see Anthony
from the audio guide was used to support teachers’ development of projects Gardner and Charles Green, ‘Biennials of the South on the Edges of the Global’,
relating to the Bienal in their schools. Third Text, vol.27, no.4, 2013, p.454.
66
In the archives of the Venice Biennale, very few references to art education for the
1997 edition are to be found. In the three catalogues produced for the exhibition,
there is only one page devoted to art education, with very brief and exclusively
practical information. See Germano Celant (ed.), La Biennale di Venezia XLVII
Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte (exh. cat.), Milan: Electa, 1997, p.16.
— 67
See the Skulptur Projekte Münster website: http://www.lwl.org/skulptur-
60
Lisette Lagnado, ‘On how the 24th São Paulo Biennial took on Cannibalism’, projekte-download/muenster/97/index.htm (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
Third Text, vol.13, issue 46, 1999, p.83. 68
‘Der Berliner Galerist Matthias Arndt setzt auf Vermittlung (Interview)’, Der
61
See Núcleo Educação (ed.), Material de apoio educativo para o trabalho do Tagesspiegel, 12 November 1999, available at http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/
professor com arte, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1998. der-berliner-galerist-matthias-arndt-setzt-auf-vermittlung-interview/104170.
62
See L.G. Vergara’s and I. Fernandes’s commentaries in ‘30xbienal, década de html (last accessed on 15 April 2015). An analysis of the art education work at
90’, op. cit. documenta X can be found in Carmen Mörsch, ‘100 Tage Sprechen: Als Künstlerin
63
In addition, T-shirts were produced with the polysemic slogan ‘Tira-Dúvidas’ auf der documentaX’, available at http://www.kunstkooperationen.de/pdf/
(clarify or eliminate doubts or questions), which did somewhat reinforce the 100TageSprechen.pdf ’ (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
authority of the explanations given by the educators. 69
See Felicity Allen, ‘Situating Gallery Education’, in David Dibosa (ed.), Tate
64
‘Relatório de Previsão de custos com Pessoal’, fax from Mia Chiovatto to Encounters [E]dition 2: Spectatorship, Subjectivity and the National Collection of
E. Ioschpe, 14 April 1998, Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de British Art, vol.2, 2008, available at http://www2.tate.org.uk/tate-encounters/
São Paulo. edition-2/papers.shtm (last accessed on 15 April 2015).

198 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 199
These movements, as well as education in anglophone art institutions, found in these US artistic movements or in British gallery education and
have drawn a lot from Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of liberation. The intensive socially engaged art movements, which, in the UK in 1997, if not before,
exchanges between the instigators of the 24th Bienal’s conceptual approach were appropriated by New Labour as part of its neoliberal agenda. Vergara’s
to art education and anglophone strands of gallery education and ‘Education ambitious programme, with a discourse directed against educação bancária
Through Art’70 are well-documented: Luiz Guilherme Vergara had studied and drawing on a lengthy theory and practice of critical (art) pedagogy, also
on the studio and environment art programme at New York University in owed its realisation to the neoliberal transformation of Brazilian cultural
addition to leading the art education programme at MAC de Niterói; and policy following a US model: the capitalisation and privatisation of culture
Ana Mae Barbosa wrote a doctoral thesis in 1979 at Boston University on implemented on a massive scale in the 1990s and manifested in the adoption
the US influence on Brazilian art pedagogy.71 of the Rouanet Law, a tax-incentive system for corporate cultural sponsor-
ship. This legislation signified ‘a radical break with the modes of cultural
Having spent time intermittently as president of the International Society financing through the hallmark of a “new logic of financing”’, which
for Education in the Arts (InSEA), founded by Herbert Read, Barbosa has ‘privileged the market but in the process almost always used public money’.77
long been part of a professional community decisively influenced by art In 1995, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture published the brochure Cultura
education movements from the English-speaking world.72 Her book A imagen é um bom negócio (Culture Is Good Business), which pithily characterised the
no ensino da arte (1991) focused on education work in art museums, and neoliberal paradigm shift.78
was a formative text for the 24th Bienal team; 73 it considers the Escuelas al
Aire Libre movement of outdoor schools in post-revolutionary Mexico and The Bienal de São Paulo has operated as a (geo-)politically overdetermined
the development of British critical studies and the ‘discipline-based art enterprise since its inception, 79 and its shifting representational policies,
education’ pursued by the Getty Center for Education in Arts in Los Angeles specifically in connection with the art field’s capitalisation and globalisation,
during the same period.74 have been convincingly depicted by Vinicius Spricigo as an ideational machine
to transform real capital into its symbolic counterpart and to generate a
Luiz Vergara has outlined, in ‘Curadoria educativa: percepção imaginativa/ return on investment. 80 Art education plays an active role in this undertaking:
consciência do olhar’ (‘Education Curatorship: Imaginative Perception/ all the more so when its ‘audience has a specific quality, and additional value:
Awareness of Seeing’),75 the basis for his art education concept for the 24th children, young people, those who are excluded in a whole host of different
Bienal. The text includes numerous references to, on the one hand, John ways, and beginners – everyone who can be counted in the balance sheet as
Dewey (who was also addressed in Barbosa’s dissertation), and, on the other, part of the social responsibility of foundations and patrons’.81 The 24th Bienal
the interface between art and activism from a curatorial perspective in the can therefore also serve as an example of the issues facing critical theory and
US during the 1990s, as postulated by Suzanne Lacy in her term ‘New the practice of art education: its consolidation and institutionalisation,
Genre Public Art’.76 In keeping with this, the 24th Bienal’s art education especially since the 1990s, has taken place within the context of the capitali-
programme had to steer a course between contradictions analogous to those sation of culture; or rather, with the creative turns of a cognitive capitalism. 82
— —
70
See Herbert Read, Education Through Art, London: Faber & Faber, 1943. 77
Antonio Albino Canelas Rubim, ‘Políticas culturais no Brasil: Tristes tradições’,
71
See Ana Mae Tavares Bastos Barbosa, ‘American Influence on Brazilian Art Revista Galáxia, vol.13, 2007, p.24 and pp.101–13.
Education: Analysis of Two Moments, Walter Smith and John Dewey’, 1979, 78
See Cultura é um bom negócio, Brasília: Ministério de Cultura, 1995. Since
doctoral thesis, Boston University. Latin America (first and foremost Chile), since the 1970s, often in alliance with
72
This community also recognised Barbosa’s achievements with a series of awards the military dictatorships, had been a testing ground for neoliberal policies (and
and appointments, among them: the Sir Herbert Read Award, UNESCO’s perhaps just as much for resistance to such policies), a trans-local engagement
International Society for Education through Art (1999); Distinguished Fellow, with the effects in the cultural field, precisely concerning the educational turn
National Art Education Association, US (1997); and the Edwin Ziegfeld too, would appear to offer a useful perspective for further research.
International Award, United States Society for Education through Art (1992). 79
See Michael Asbury, ‘The Bienal de São Paulo: Between Nationalism and
73
See A.M. Barbosa, A imagem no ensino da arte: Anos 1980 e novos tempos, São Internationalism’, in Espaço Aberto / Espaço Fechado: Sites for Sculpture in Modern
Paulo: Perspectiva, 2009. Brazil (exh. cat.), Leeds: The Henry Moore Institute, pp.72–83.
74
See Maria Christina Rizzi, ‘Reflexões Sobre a Abordagem Triangular do Ensino 80
See V. Spricigo, Modes of Representation of the São Paulo Biennial / Modos de
da Arte’, in A.M. Barbosa (ed.), Ensino da Arte – memória e história (exh. cat.), Representação da Bienal de São Paulo, op. cit.
São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2008, pp.335–48. 81
Cayo Honorato, ‘Expondo a mediação educacional: Questões sobre educação,
75
See L.G. Vergara, ‘Curadorias educativas: A consciência do olhar: Percepção arte contemporânea e política’, ars, vol.9, 2007, p.115, available at http://www.
imaginativa, perspectiva fenomenológica aplicadas à experiência estética’, Anais revistas.usp.br/ars/article/view/2989/3679 (last accessed on 15 April 2015).
ANPAP-Congresso Nacional de Pesquisadores em Artes Plásticas, vol.3, 1996, 82
The research network Another Roadmap takes this as its point of departure and
pp.240–47. examines policies and practices of art education and their genealogies from a
76
See Suzanne Lacy, Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Seattle: trans-local and trans-disciplinary perspective. See http://another.zhdk.ch (last
Bay Press, 1994. accessed on 15 February 2014).

200 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 201
That the first initiative to establish the Fundação Bienal’s permanent art in Europe until 2007, at documenta 12, through the integration of the
education department stemmed from a sponsor, the Fundação Vitae, fits educational dimension into the curatorial concept, intermeshed with a form
into this scenario (the proposal was rejected by the president during the 21st of art education based on (self-)deconstruction, performativity, participation
Bienal, Maria Rodrigues Alves, for unspecified reasons). 83 Against this and an exploratory, interrogatory quest.90 Similar approaches can be identified
backdrop, the anthropophagic borrowings of the 24th Bienal’s art education elsewhere, for example in Columbia in 2011 at the Encuentro Internacional de
programme could be subjected to a critical reading similar to that conducted Medellín (MDE 11), which consisted of a three-month series of workshops,
by Suely Rolnik in the Bienal’s catalogue to address the concept of seminars, participatory art projects, media labs and a large exhibition, all
anthropophagy. Rolnik emphasises the ambivalence of this term; it is under the title ‘Enseñar y aprender: Lugares del conocimiento en el arte’
generally automatically classed as radical, but it is precisely the Bienal’s (‘Teaching and Learning: Places of Knowledge in Art’).91
anthropophagic capacity that makes it ‘so at ease in the contemporary
neoliberal scene’, offering the dubious potential ‘for us to become the best The 24th Bienal continues to offer opportunity to consider art education in
flexibility athletes in the world’. 84 To a large extent, ‘flexibility’ is a transfer all its complexity. Viewed as an anti-elitist initiative within the frame of an
effect, often invoked as a unique selling proposition of art education,85 which international art event, the visibility of the Sala Educação and its protagonists fig.5
‘seeks to engender creative, flexible subjectivities, with a willingness to and users, as well as the wide impact of the whole programme, was decidedly
learn, which are up to dealing with the post-Fordist regimen and system- a result of a willingness to make an intervention. As described above, the
preserving precarisation’.86 substantive thrust of the material produced in this context tapped into the
potential for political education within the frame of art education. In
Even if idealising art education at the 24th Bienal is inappropriate, especially programmatic terms, the art education programme distanced itself, just as
in the light of these problematics, it is important to note that the approach Herkenhoff and the 24th Bienal as a whole did, from the ‘fetishisation of
adopted there was ten years ahead of the conceptual and political positioning the market’92 and the dictates of audience maximisation.93
of art education at large-scale exhibitions in places such as continental
Europe.87 In the light of the notorious devaluation of art education, here the
non-‘unilateral’88 alliance of curatorial and pedagogical work proclaims a 5. Back to the Future
‘re-definition of the status of art education’,89 which would not be realised The art education policy and practice set up for the 24th Bienal was taken
up again 2006, for the 27th Bienal, when Denise Grinspum was given the
— newly created position of education curator.94 In contrast to the 24th Bienal,
83
See ‘Interview with Chaké Ekisian’, op. cit. the 27th, curated by Lisette Lagnado, extended beyond the museum
84
Suely Rolnik, ‘Anthropophagic Subjectivity’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Arte paradigm in an aesthetic-political exploration of the title of ‘Como viver
Contemporânea Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s, op. cit., p.144. She would develop
this line of argument in more detail a decade later. See S. Rolnik, ‘The Geopolitics
of Pimping’, transversal, vol.10, available at http://eipcp.net/transversal/1106/ —
rolnik/en (last accessed on 15 April 2015). 90
See C. Mörsch et al. (ed.), Kunstvermittlung: Zwischen kritischer Praxis und
85
‘21st-century societies are increasingly demanding workforces that are creative, Dienstleistung auf der documenta 12, Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojekts, Zürich
flexible, adaptable and innovative and education systems need to evolve with and Berlin: diaphanes, 2009. Likewise, in 2007, a press release from Skulptur
these shifting conditions. Arts Education equips learners with these skills, enabling Projekte Münster announced: ‘Never before in the 30-year history of the Skulptur
them to express themselves, critically evaluate the world around them and actively Projekte has arts education played as important a role as it did during the 2007
engage in the various aspects of human existence.’ UNESCO, ‘Roadmap for Arts exhibition.’ Available at http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/besucher/?lang=en (last
Education’, report compiled from ‘The World Conference on Arts Education: accessed on 15 April 2015). Also, since its 52nd edition in 2007, the Venice
Building Creative Capacities for the 21st Century’, Lisbon, 6 to 9 March 2006, Biennale appears to have an education consultant.
available at http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/CLT/ 91
Curated by Nuria Enguita Mayo, Eva Grinstein, Bill Kelley, Jr and
pdf/Arts_Edu_RoadMap_en.pdf (last accessed on 15 April 2005). For a critical Conrado Uribe.
account, see Pen Dalton, The Gendering of Art Education: Modernism, Identity and 92
‘Dez anos depois: Um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff ’, op. cit.
Critical Feminism, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2001. 93
When visitor attendance at the 24th Bienal proved lower than expected, references
86
Catrin Seefranz, ‘Causing Trouble: Zum Forschungsvorhaben Another Roadmap’, were made in the media to the success of the ambitious educational programme and
Bildpunkt 2, 2013, available at http://www.igbildendekunst.at/bildpunkt/bildpunkt- its long-term impact: ‘Uninterested in figures and in the idea of breaking records,
2013/unvermittelt/seefranz.htm (last accessed on 15 April 2015). Landmann views the educational project as a central success of the exhibition,
87
The situation is different when it comes to art education in self-organised contexts enabling an exhibition visit with professional art education for 110,000 pupils
and smaller institutions. In the German-speaking world, a critical art education from public-sector schools and 20,000 from private schools. A further 17,000
practice began to emerge in the late 1990s, and was in turn able to draw on visitors booked tours and more than 15,000 used the digital guide.’ See M.
examples from the 1970s. Hirszman, ‘Bienal tem menos publico, mas balanço é considerado positivo’, op. cit.
88
Ana Helena Curti, in ‘30xbienal, década de 90’, op. cit. 94
‘Our point of departure was the projects developed by the 24th edition.’
89
C. Honorato, ‘Expondo a mediação educacional’, op. cit. D. Grinspum, ‘A 27a Bienal de São Paulo e seu projeto educativo’, op. cit.

202 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz 203
junto’ (‘How to Live Together’). Correspondingly, with its ‘Centro-Periferia’
programme, implemented by Guilherme Teixeira, the art education pro-
gramme moved into new terrain, addressing the fault lines between centre
and periphery – and Bienal and city – from a clearer institutional-critical
and transformative perspective. This approach was already present at the
24th Bienal in the conceptualisation of exhibiting and art education as
‘creating citizenship’. 95 The idea of institutionalising art education through
a director of education at the Fundação Bienal, as formulated in 1997, was
finally put into practice in 2009 with the creation of a permanent education
team, thus definitively overcoming the art education cantinho. 96 This has
provided the art education programme considerably more space to develop
across editions of the Bienal, as demonstrated in, for example, initiatives to
produce historical accounts of art education work at the exhibition.97

However, the institutionalisation and consolidation of art education work

has not rendered old struggles insignificant. That this process goes hand in
hand with regulation and/or precarisation, opening up new battlegrounds,
was demonstrated in 2013 by the art educators’ strike during the 9th Bienal
do Mercosul in Porto Alegre.98 The strike echoed the local political mood.
A year later, lines of divergence and confrontation similarly emerged at the
31st Bienal de São Paulo between the educators and the coordinators of the
education team, as well as between the educators and the Bienal institution.
Questions about the role of education in relation to the curatorial project
and the respective capacities for initiative and agency were amplified by a
perception of unfair labour conditions and a feeling of instrumentalisation,
of both the educators and the education activities, for the benefit of the
institution and its self-reproduction. Considering the way the political and
economic situation is evolving in Brazil, and the way the system of
contemporary art consolidates around specific market practices and class
structures, these conflicts are likely here to stay.

Translated from German by Helen Ferguson.

—
95
‘Dez anos depois: Um debate com Paulo Herkenhoff ’, op. cit.
96
In 2009, Stela Barbieri was appointed Curador Educativo (‘art education curator’)
and a permanent art education department was established. Barbieri held this
position until mid-2014.
97
These include the research undertaken on the occasion of the ‘30xbienal’ exhi-
bition in 2013, made available through videos posted online (which have been
cited in numerous earlier footnotes to this essay).
98
On this point, see ‘Quando falhas operacionais são desigualdades estruturais –
por que o Coletivo Autônomo de Mediadores realizou uma paralisação na 9ª Bienal
do Mercosul/Porto Alegre’, an account from a participating art educator available at
http://coletivoam.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/quando-falhas-operacionais-sao-
desigualdades-estruturais-por-que-o-coletivo-autonomo-de-mediadores-realizou-uma-
paralisacao-na-9a-bienal-do-mercosulporto-alegre (last accessed on 15 April 2015).

204 Out of the cantinho – Art Education at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo
The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites: Reconnecting Although Andrade had studied the period’s extensive anthropological
Oswald de Andrade’s Proposal to Amerindian Art-Thought1 literature, his ‘Manifesto’ was still based on ethnocentric concepts such as
— Renato Sztutman ‘evolution’ and ‘pre-logical mentality’, and had very little to say specifically
about the Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples of the South American lowlands.
Andrade took the realm of the Tupinambá as an allegory or even as a lesson
A poesia existe nos fatos / Poetry exists in facts (a kind of utopia) for ‘our own’ private world, in the sense that it would only
Oswald de Andrade, ‘Manifesto Pau-Brasil’, 1924 be worthwhile if it could actually affect or change the world we live in.

In his ‘Manifesto antropófago’,2 Oswald de Andrade takes anthropophagy as Now that today’s anthropologists, as part of their struggle against ethnocen-
metaphor – or, rather, as allegory – for creative processes, and particularly trism, have acknowledged many artistic treasures in indigenous realms –
those applied in Brazilian cultural production. For Andrade, to devour the artworks that continue to feature images of cannibalism – to what extent may
Other is to absorb cultural elements from another world, as opposed to we reconnect the indigenous concept of anthropophagy with the ‘modernist’
being subordinated to them: this is an active process of creation, to digest version as spawned by Andrade? And what potential does this – or do these
foreign culture and return it in a new form. The subject of cannibalism had – notion(s) of anthropophagy hold now?
been explored by various avant-garde artists in the early twentieth-century —
(such as Francis Picabia, founder of the Dadaist journal Cannibale in the
early 1920s) but Andrade took the image of humans devouring humans The relative absence of work by Brazil’s indigenous peoples at the 24th
from a real-life practice: the cannibal ritual of the Tupinambá, indigenous Bienal de São Paulo is intriguing, to say the least. There were pieces from
to what is now Brazil, who were known to colonisers for executing enemy other non-Western populations historically viewed, mistakenly, as ‘primitive’,
warriors and eating their flesh amid lively feasting. As shown by the such as indigenous artists from Australia and Canada, some of whom had by
burgeoning anthropological research of the second half of the twentieth 1998 become well known in certain Western artistic circles for their ritual
century, anthropophagy among the Tupinambá went beyond its literal, objects: abstract paintings by the former, which gained traction in the art
‘cannibal’ sense: here, eating the Other was imbued with powerful symbolism market, and zoomorphic masks (which the Surrealists used so extensively) in
(and quite unrelated to diet, as Andrade had clearly realised). To eat someone the case of the latter. 5 At the same time, together with the phenomenon of
was to constitute oneself from alterity.3 art-market appreciation and absorption of these so-called ‘traditional’ arts,
a new figure emerged in Australia and North America: the ‘contemporary
Andrade had always taken an interest in anthropology, paying particular indigenous artist’, whose exploratory pieces in their own way recreated an
attention to reports compiled by explorers who studied the Tupi-Guarani anthropophagic gesture by appropriating hegemonic languages with a
peoples on the Brazilian coast. However, his approach – unlike that of his rebellious or oppositional twist.6 This dual process is still at an incipient stage
contemporary and fellow modernist poet Mário de Andrade – did not involve
—
going on expeditions or collecting objects from folk or indigenous cultures. 4 for Brazilian modernism. Together with Claude Lévi-Strauss and Dina Dreyfus,
Mário de Andrade founded an ethnography and folklore society in São Paulo, the
— Sociedade de Etnografia e Folclore, which lasted from 1935 to 1938. See Luísa
1
This essay is an extended version of a talk given at the symposium ‘XXIV Bienal Valentini, Um laboratório de antropologia: O encontro entre Mário de Andrade, Dina
de São Paulo: Anthropophagy and Cannibalism Histories’, Escola São Paulo, Dreyfus e Claude Lévi-Strauss (1935–1938), São Paulo: Alameda, 2013.
13 April 2013, organised by Lisette Lagnado and Mirtes Marins de Oliveira in 5
In this respect, see two pieces from the Bienal catalogue: Jean-Hubert Martin’s
collaboration with Afterall. Except where noted, texts originally in Portuguese reflection on the art-religion relationship and Australian aboriginal art (‘A religião,
have been translated for this volume. herética para a arte moderna’ / ‘Religion, heretical for modern art’ in XXIV Bienal
2
See Oswald de Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’ / ‘Anthropophagite Manifesto’ de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos, op. cit.,
(trans. Adriano Pedrosa and Veronica Cordeiro), in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: p.518); and Deborah Root’s discussion of the ritual masks of the Kwakiutl people
Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos (exh. cat.), São Paulo: and their appropriation by modern artists (‘Devorando o cannibal: um conto de
A Fundação, 1998, pp.532–539, and this volume, pp.222–29. precaução da apropriação cultural’ / ‘Eating the cannibal: a cautionary tale on
3
For two different anthropological perspectives on this, see Carlos Fausto, cultural appropriation’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
‘Cinco séculos e meio de carne de vaca: Antropofagia literal e antropologia Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. (exh. cat.), São Paulo: A Fundação, 1998, p.180).
literária’, in J. Ruffinelli and J.C.C. Rocha (ed.), Antropofagia hoje? Oswald de 6
For instance, at the Bienal itself, ‘Roteiros Oceania’ featured a work by Francis
Andrade em cena, São Paulo: Realizações Editora, 2011; and Oscar Calavia Saez, Jupurrurla, a member of the Warlpiri Media group in Australia, which, as described
‘Antropofagias comparadas’, travessia, no.37, July–December 1998, available at by Louise Neri in the catalogue, shows the Warlpiri people’s cosmological discourse
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/travessia/article/view/14919/13583 (last accessed transposed to the language of video so that it becomes a political tool denouncing
on 5 February 2015). a history of massacres and territorial claims. In her catalogue essay, Deborah Root
4
Mário de Andrade was one of the primary organisers of the 1922 Week of defines the new ‘indigenous artists’ as those who are exploring hybridism, such
Modern Art in São Paulo, which is often historicised as the foundational event as the painter Lawrence Paul, who ‘toys with the Surrealists being fascinated by

206 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 207

in Brazil; nonetheless, indigenous arts have become part of the art scene and While the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ poses a programme for an anthropopha-
market (which is always problematic, given the risk of decontextualised gous approach to artistic creation, Andrade’s later writings aspire to an
instrumentalisation and objectification of their particularly ritual and entire ‘conception of the world’, a cannibalistic philosophy as such, based
relational character) and politicised indigenous artists have emerged (reacting to on a dialectical synthesis of savage and civilised worlds, low and high
stereotypes, rejecting both aesthetic and economic subordination). Indeed,the culture, freedom and technique. Such a conception sharply opposes the
art of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, with rare exceptions, remains among the philosophies and religions of transcendence – here termed ‘messianic’ –
planet’s least known. 7 Unlike those in Africa, Asia, Australasia and North which have emerged in the wake of political forms that owed much to
America, and relative to other South American countries, their work remained patriarchal models.
practically absent from the exhibitions of the avant-garde period. However,
their practices convey a powerful anthropophagic meaning that now enables Andrade’s later theoretical writings developed the allegories found in the
us to reconnect with the ethical, aesthetic and metaphysical proposal of ‘Manifesto antropófago’, using ideas such as ‘primitive matriarchy’ or
Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’. ‘participatory consciousness’ that he borrowed from the writings of late-
nineteenth and early-twentieth century anthropologists.9 Whilst Andrade’s
use of notions that now seem outdated or even mistaken must be treated with
Allegory and utopia due care, his position as a thinker and artist perhaps allows these aspects to
To describe Andrade’s anthropophagy as allegorical is not to claim that it breaks be revisited more readily than if he were writing as a scholar or anthropologist.
new ground in terms of recorded knowledge of non-Western peoples. Andrade
was a tireless reader of primary sources, of sixteenth century literature on Tupi- Among its aphorisms, the ‘Manifesto’ contains an important reference to an
Guarani people and such anthropological studies as were available at the time, allegorical ‘Pindorama matriarchy’. Pindorama is a Tupinambá word meaning
references to which can be found in both his ‘Manifesto Pau-Brasil’ of 1924 ‘region or country of the palm trees’, yet here Andrade owes more to a book
and the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ of four years later, as well as being evident in by the Swiss anthropologist and jurist Johann Jakob Bachofen concerning
his more theoretical pieces written several decades later, such as ‘A crise da purportedly maternal rights in the ‘ancient world’ than to historical
filosofia messiânica’ (‘The Crisis of Messianic Philosophy’, 1950) or ‘A marcha descriptions of Tupinambá society itself. 10 Bachofen rejected patriarchy as a
das utopias’ (‘The March of Utopias’, 1966, published posthumously). 8 universal form of society – against his British contemporary Henry James
Sumner Maine’s theses of patriarchal domination as a property-derived
— primordial right – suggesting that matriarchal regimes had existed in the
northwest-coast patterns as a way of both complicating and subverting the premises remote past and were neither despotic nor based on private property.
of Western science’. See L. Neri, ‘Roteiros Oceania’, in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo:
Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros., op. cit., p.40; and A direct association between the theme of matriarchy and anthropophagy
D. Root, ‘Devorando o cannibal: um conto de precaução da apropriação cultural’ / 
was to return in a passage from ‘A crise da filosofia messiânica’. In this essay,
‘Eating the cannibal: a cautionary tale on cultural appropriation’, op. cit.
7
This situation has changed over the last few years. There have, for example, been Andrade opposed a matriarchal world, in which cannibalism was customary,
two paradigmatic exhibitions of works by Brazilian indigenous artists: ‘Histoires to a patriarchal one in which subordination would take the form of slavery or
de voir, Show and Tell’, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, 15 May class rule. Surely influenced by Friedrich Engels’s interpretation of nineteenth-
to 21 October 2012; and ‘Mira! Artes visuais contemporâneas dos povos indígenas’ century anthropology, 11 Andrade embraced an idea of dialectical and
(‘Look! Contemporary Visual Arts of Indigenous Peoples’), which opened in July predictably evolutionary progress from simple to more complex societies.
2013 at Centro Cultural UFMG, Belo Horizonte, and will be travelling to several
cities in Brazil (see http://projetomira.wordpress.com, last accessed on 5 February —
2015). See also Sophie Moiroux, ‘Painting the Xingu: Amati Trumai’s Images as 9
In the second half of the twentieth century, anthropologists rejected both Johann
Memory of Traditions’ (UpperXingu, Central Brazil), unpublished manuscript Bachofen’s ‘primitive matriarchy’ hypothesis and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s notion of
submitted to the seminar ‘Arts and Belonging in the Americas Today’, Senate ‘participatory consciousness’. In the first instance, they pointed to confusion
House, London, 12 to 13 April 2013. between regimes in which matrilineal descent prevailed and the hypothesis that
8
See O. Andrade, Obras Completas VI: Do Pau-Brasil à Antropofagia e às Utopias, women had governed society. The struggle against the idea of ‘participatory
Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1972. For more on these works, particularly the consciousness’ and also against ‘pre-logical thought’ is closely associated
crisis of messianic philosophy, see Benedito Nunes, ‘Antropofagia ao alcance de with Claude Lévi-Strauss, who argued instead for an enlarged or broadening
todos’, in A utopia antropofágica, São Paulo: Globo, 1990; and Oswald Canibal, São universal rationality.
Paulo: Perspectiva, 1979. Antonio Candido recalled that Andrade submitted ‘A crise 10
See Johann Jakob Bachofen, An English Translation of Bachoffen’s Mutterrecht
da filosofia messiânica’ as part of a competitive selection procedure for a philosophy (Mother Right) (1861): A Study of the Religious and Juridical Aspects of Gyneco-
appointment at Universidade de São Paulo, but the National Education Council cracy in the Ancient World: Volume I “Lycia,” “Crete,” and “Athens” (trans. David
rejected the book and demanded the applicant show a degree-level diploma specifi- Partenheimer), London: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
cally in philosophy. See A. Candido, ‘Digressão sentimental sobre Oswald de Andrade’, 11
See Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
in Vários escritos, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro: Duas Cidades, Ouro sobre Azul, 2004. (1884, trans. Robert Vernon), Atlanta: Pathfinder Press, 1972.

208 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 209

However, the most interesting aspect of his view is the idea that domination – and ‘pre-logical thought’ were related to the image of the sacred that the
by the Father, the One, the State, figures of a messianic philosophy as such – Surrealists had appropriated in their own particular way, as well as with
is not the essential ‘law of Man’ but there are other laws, such as ‘the law of Sigmund Freud’s concepts of instinct, impulse and drive. Andrade made
the anthropophagite’, which primarily means recognising equality of condi- these relationships explicit by presenting a singular interpretation of
tions and constitutive freedom.12 Andrade insisted that patriarchy and its forms psychoanalytic thought, with particular reference to Freud’s controversial
had not always existed but were introduced in the distant past following the Totem and Taboo (1913). 17 Andrade imagined that the Tupinambá cannibal
downfall of a prior system of matriarchy; equally, that subordination was not rituals and their sacrifice of enemy warriors were sacred acts as such, conjoin-
inherent to humanity but could be rejected through the devouring practice ing killers and victims: ‘Anthropophagy. Absorption of the sacred enemy. To
of anthropophagy. transform him into totem.’18 For Andrade, to transform totem into taboo is to
sacralise pre-rational instincts (those that activate ‘participatory consciousness’,
In Andrade’s ‘A marcha das utopias’, matriarchy is depicted quite differently, a mixture between human and non-human subjectivity) during rituals, a
not as something confined to the past but as a utopia. He proposes this as practice cultivated by Tupinambá anthropophagites but repressed by so-
both a dream and a protest, quoting Lenin – ‘If there is some connection called civilised peoples. Instead of dismissing primitive peoples as neurotics
between dreams and life then all is well’, then adding: ‘Utopia is always a incapable of suppressing primal instincts such as the Oedipus complex, as
sign of nonconformism and a harbinger of revolt.’13 This essay finds Andrade was insinuated by Freud, Andrade suggests de-repressing instincts, specifically
somewhat remote from Marxist orthodoxy: his vision of utopia involves the those that instigate a return to such a participatory state.19
return of matriarchy, this time under the sign of technology, which could
end labour as an imposition giving rise to inequality. In Andrade’s words, In short, Andrade’s anthropophagy projects both an allegory and a utopia:
‘human labour leads to idleness. The paradisiacal stage of matriarchy.’14 the sacred act of anthropophagy emerges as a critique of bourgeois logic
Here, again, we find the ‘technicised barbarian’ of the ‘Manifesto’: matriarchy and a chance to retrieve forgotten experiences, to re-engage with the world
had been overthrown by patriarchy and freedom reduced to subordination, passionately. In his invocation of the ‘Caraíba revolution’ (in Tupinambá
but technology would then restore matriarchy and human freedom by minimi- history and mythology, the Caraíba were empowered shamans or prophets
sing toil. Here Andrade reflects his generation’s faith in the power of who led migrations to the so-called ‘Land Without Evil’) and the ‘matriarchy
technology and science but projects it onto a different image of the world that of Pindorama’, Andrade was not proposing a return to an ancestral past
is capable of combining modernisation with primitivism to reach the utopia but rather a future – the future of ‘technicised barbarianism’ and
outlined in Marx and Engel’s German Ideology. In this state, people would no experimental hybridisms.
longer be required to labour but be fulfilled as free human beings. Andrade’s
anthropophagy becomes thus both thought and art, allegory and utopia,
drawing its power from the possible world of Others. Rather than allegorising Anthropophagous metaphysics
the world in which he found himself, he posed an allegory for this world. The difference between Oswald de Andrade’s anthropophagy and its indig-
enous form is more than just a difference between symbolic figure and real
As the ‘Manifesto’ points out, ‘we never admitted the birth of logic among practice; ‘real life’ anthropophagy is also symbolic in most cases. The act of
us’.15 This statement leads Andrade explicitly to the ideas of philosopher and ‘literally’ eating another human being is charged with symbolism, just as a
sociologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, who had described a ‘participatory conscious- symbolic act of devouring will usually have real consequences for people’s
ness’ in connection with experience of the sacred, which contrasts with lives. Cannibalism as ethics – rather than diet – has always been found among
standard rationality.16 Lévy-Bruhl’s notions of ‘participatory consciousness’ many of the indigenous peoples of South America’s lowlands. However,
colonisation led to ‘pacification’ (or ethnocide, as it might well be called)
—
12
Alexandre Nodari’s brilliant discussion of the ‘law of the anthropophagite’
and these practices were suppressed through missionary catechesis. In general,
in the ‘Manifesto’ asks how a law that succinctly acts to disable ‘Law’ may be two indigenous forms of cannibalism may be distinguished: exo-cannibalism,
understood. See A. Nodari, ‘A única lei do mundo’, in J. Ruffinelli and J.C.C. which involves warriors and the consumption of a sacrificed enemy’s flesh
Rocha (ed.), Antropofagia hoje? Oswald de Andrade em cena, São Paulo: Realizações
Editora, 2011, p.455. —
13
O. Andrade, Do Pau-Brasil à Antropofagia e às utopias, op. cit., p.209. see Marcio Goldman, Razão e diferença: Afetividade, racionalidade e relativismo
14
Ibid. no pensamento de Lévy-Bruhl, Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Da UFRJ/Grypho, 1994.
15
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.227. 17
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement Between the Mental
16
See Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, La mentalité primitive (1922), Paris: Anabet Éditions, Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913, trans. James Strachey), London: Routledge
2007. In ‘A marcha das utopias’, while admitting the problematic nature of Lévy- and Kegan Paul, 1950.
Bruhl’s reflections, Andrade notes how he revised his ethnocentric arguments in his 18
O. Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, op. cit., p.230.
more mature work, particularly in his Carnets (see Les Carnets de Lévy-Bruhl, Paris: 19
On Andrade’s ‘libertarian’ interpretation of Freud, see B. Nunes, Oswald
PUF, 1949). For a discussion of Lévy-Bruhl’s ideas and their internal development, Canibal, op. cit.

210 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 211

(for instance, by the Tupinambá), and endo-cannibalism, associated with Araweté people of Ipixuna, in southeastern Pará, is particularly noteworthy.23
funeral ceremonials (for instance, by the Yanomami). 20 Despite the Araweté’s warrior tradition, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation
(FUNAI) – a governmental body who devise and enforce policy in relation
In Brazilian anthropology, in particular studies of the Tupi-Guarani speaking to indigenous peoples – gradually persuaded this group to be pacified. The
peoples, anthropophagy is a recurring theme. Early proto-anthropological Araweté did not usually hold anthropophagous feasts to devour enemies like
writing – in the form of travel journals or missionaries’ letters – took the Tupinambá, nor eat their own dead like the Yanomami. However, their
anthropophagy as the basis for a view of indigenous peoples through European speculations concerning fate after death described part of the human soul
(notably Portuguese and French) eyes. The first substantive analysis of this ascending to heaven to be devoured by cannibal gods, the Maï, at which
subject in a Brazilian context was in the 1950s, when Florestan Fernandes wrote point this soul would become a god too. Becoming a cannibal god was
A função social da guerra na sociedade Tupinambá (The Social Function of War a posthumous destiny awaiting all Araweté, especially the great killers.
in Tupinambá Society, 1952). Among the Tupinambá, Fernandes argued, war
was a means of holding society together: the anthropophagous ritual sacrificing Among the Araweté, as for the Tupinambá, the enemy is a key figure. When
of an enemy was meant to seal group-unity and reinforce continuity between the period of reclusion that followed a killing ended, the Araweté killers
the living and their ancestors.21 would have to sing songs they had received from their dead enemies.
According to Viveiros de Castro, these songs conveyed the words of their
A few decades later, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and Eduardo Viveiros de enemies; it was the enemy that was singing, never the killer. Something
Castro revised Fernandes’s interpretation for their 1985 article ‘Vingança e similar was seen among the Tupinambá: the words they sung were always
temporalidade’ (‘Revenge and Temporality’). 22 They reinterpreted their those of others. In both cases, the killer sees things from the enemy’s point
predecessor’s sources, critiqued his functionalist approach and rejected the of view, which means that he experiences an enemy affect or ‘becoming’ –
notion that the purpose of war is to foster social cohesion and celebrate the a condition that is quite dangerous for himself or his community. While the
ancestral. They proposed that, rather than keeping a group together, war model for the Araweté male figure is that of a killer, the ‘becoming-enemy’
was a vehicle for vengeance. Moreover, they argued that the killer-victim is a constituent part too. Taking the argument further, one might conclude
relationship, as the basis of Tupinambá social life, has to be understood in that, rather than identity, ‘becoming-Other’ is the mark of the Araweté
terms of its reversibility: in a circular fashion, today’s killer may be tomorrow’s person. Comparing their ethnography with that of other Tupi-Guarani
victim. He who is to be devoured will have devoured others, and his own populations, Viveiros de Castro elucidates a cannibal ethics that defines a
subjection to this event is an honour. In this ritual, the prisoner of war is Tupi individual as a constantly changing ‘anti-Narcissus’.24
treated as a free being; equally, he will never flee from his captivity. Instead,
he becomes part of a family, has his name changed, is given a wife and takes In his account, Viveiros de Castro in no way poses a psychoanalytic or
part in everyday life – until the day of cannibal feasting. Devouring is a irrational explanation: cannibalism is not a primary instinct being realised
relationship between warriors mutually recognising their glory, rather than or irrationality bursting out. Instead it is this process of ‘becoming-Other’
an act of subordination based on the possibility of objectification of one based on the logic of predation: constituting the self depends on the Other;
by another. (The idea of such an anthropophagical joy takes us back to the producing identity and interiority depends on difference and exteriority.
spirit of the ‘Manifesto’.) In this way, far beyond notions of diet and instinct, anthropophagy reveals
an entire logic, ethics and ontology – in short, a metaphysics.
In the 1980s, the Amazonian Tupi-Guarani peoples were examined in a
profusion of publications, among which Viveiros de Castro’s study of the It is no coincidence that Cannibal Metaphysics is the title of another of
Viveiros de Castro’s books. 25 This metaphysics is based on the idea that the
—
20
Many peoples ate their dead and still do; the point is that the one who eats the
problem of being – germane to Western metaphysics – must be dissolved in
dead is never a close relative. For an overview of indigenous cannibalism, see, the problem of becoming. To cannibalise is to occupy the position of the
for instance, Carlos Fausto, ‘Banquete de gente: Comensalidade e canibalismo na
Amazônia’, Mana, vol.8, no.2, 2002, pp.7–44. For ethnographic studies of canni- —
balism among present-day peoples, see Aparecida Vilaça, Comendo como gente: Formas 23
See E. Viveiros de Castro, From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity and Divinity
de canibalismo wari, Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, 1992; and Bruce Albert, ‘Temps de in an Amazonian Society (trans. Catherine V. Howard), Chicago: University of
sang, temps de cendres: Réprésentations de la maladie chez les Yanomami du Sud Chicago Press, 1992.
Est (Amazonie)’, unpublished doctoral thesis, Nanterre: Université Paris X, 1985. 24
Ibid.
21
See Florestan Fernandes, A função social da guerra na sociedade Tupinambá 25
In this text, Viveiros de Castro extends aspects of his Araweté observations to
(1952), Rio de Janeiro: Globo, 2006. the Amazon region and the South American lowlands as a whole, despite
22
See Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, ‘Vingança numerous linguistic and cultural variations noted in these regions. See E. Viveiros
e temporalidade’ (1985), in M. Carneiro da Cunha (ed.), Cultura com aspas, de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics (trans. Peter Skafish), Minneapolis: University
São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2009. of Minnesota Press, 2014.

212 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 213

Other: for warrior cannibalism, this means taking the position of the enemy; sense that the body is a common measure of all existing souls); the latter sees
for funerary cannibalism, devouring a non-consanguineous relative rather difference in nature, in the proliferation of bodies (in the sense that all share
than an enemy is nonetheless a ‘becoming-Other’ since affinity (in-law a single soul with no particularised being). From this perspectivist stand-
relationship) and enmity are interchangeable figures in this conceptualisation. point, the subject is simply a position that may be occupied by any existing
In short, all these cannibalisms – and there are many more than two – pose thing, which means that anything may be a subject – so everything may be
the question of the place of alterity: ‘I am interested only in what is not human. In such a world, peopled by so many human subjectivities, cannibalism
mine’, as Andrade wrote in his ‘Manifesto’. Anthropophagous metaphysics! becomes a common horizon: everything that you eat may be human, and
everything that looks at you may devour you.28
Warrior cannibalisms also involve ‘exchanging perspectives’, which recalls
another major theme addressed by Viveiros de Castro: the ‘Amerindian per- With his claim that perspectivism revisits Oswald de Andrade’s anthro-
spectivism’ of the indigenous peoples of America.26 There may be different pophagy in different terms, Viveiros de Castro points to an elective affinity
exchanges of perspective in other contexts, too, such as the shamanism often between an artistic manifesto and indigenous thought, translated by contemp-
associated with hunting, when shamans may take on the point of view of orary ethnology. 29 Overall, it seems that the anthropophagous thinking
animals or other non-humans. Indeed, Amerindian shamans may shuttle Andrade pursued in his later writings could establish an unexpected and
between different points of view, visit the world of the dead, negotiate positive connection to the thought of anthropophagites themselves. But
hunting with animal masters, or enter underwater or celestial realms. could this indigenous anthropophagous thought also be found at the level of
Amerindian shamans are those most likely to experience ‘becoming-Other’ – expressive forms? In other words, could there be anthropophagous art among
they sing the words of others, see through the eyes of others – which would the anthropophagites?
be very dangerous, if not deadly, for ordinary humans. In both predation
and perspectivism, what we have is self-alteration as a mode of inhabiting a
world composed of many worlds, or a pluriverse, to borrow a term from the Anthropophagous arts
philosopher William James. 27 One can only learn or know to the extent that As already noted, Andrade did not derive his concept of anthropophagy
one takes up different perspectives, and that is a cannibal act. directly from Brazilian indigenous ethnographic objects. Instead he focused
on descriptions of Tupi rituals and mythologies that were symbolically or
Again, we may draw a parallel with Andrade’s anthropophagy: to create artistically suggestive. From burgeoning research into expressive forms
something new there has to be a ‘becoming-Other’, taking a point of view produced by indigenous Amazonian populations over the last few decades, it
as self-metamorphosis. This different metaphysics, this de-definition of could be argued that these arts show distinctively anthropophagous poten-
being by becoming – a possibility that Gilles Deleuze had raised in more tial. This would explain the fact that everything that has artistic value is
traditionally philosophical terms – requires a different theory of knowledge: conceived as being of ‘foreign’ origin for these people. Art is that which
not one based on the fixed and hierarchical nature of positions such as originates from the worlds of enemies, animals or spirits – the different
subject and object but one in which subjects interrelate and therefore may realms of Otherness.
devour each other. The subject’s position is not a guarantee but something
to be occupied and potentially reoccupied. And having collapsed the But in what sense may it be claimed, from a Western standpoint, that non-
subject-object dichotomy, it follows that the nature-culture dichotomy Western objects and performances (rituals, for instance) are artistic? Published
too is endangered. Viveiros de Castro perspicaciously suggests inverting in 1998, Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency suggests that if the notion of art were
terms: for standard modern thought, there is only one nature or world for to be extended to be relevant to all the planet’s peoples, which would be a
various different cultures or ‘worldviews’, while for Amerindian thought political move, it would have to relinquish classical aesthetics and symbolism
there are multiple natures and worlds for one single culture or ‘worldview’. and conclude that an art object is anything capable of prompting action,
Modernity sees difference in culture, in the proliferation of souls (in the
—
— 28
To put it another way, among different Amerindian cosmologies, cannibal spirits
26
See E. Viveiros de Castro, A inconstância da alma selvagem e outros ensaios de or soul eaters populate the cosmos. Note that the Amerindian notion of the soul
antropologia, São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2002. In English, see, for example, is actually corporeal: souls have bodies and may be eaten, but, for that very
E. Viveiros de Castro, ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, The reason, they too may devour others. On this subject, see Anne Christine Taylor,
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.4, no.3, 1998, pp.469–88; and ‘The Soul’s Body and Its States: An Amazonian Perspective on the Nature of
‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Being Human’, Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.2, 1998,
Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge, vol.10, no.3, 2004, pp.463–84. pp.201–15.
27
See, for example, William James, A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures 29
See E. Viveiros de Castro in conversation with Luísa Elvira Belaunde, in Renato
at Manchester on the Present Situation of Philosophy (1909), New York: Biblio Sztutman (ed.), Entrevistas com Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Rio de Janeiro:
Bazaar, 2006. Azougue, 2008, p.114.

214 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 215

anything that has agency or the ability to actively influence the world.30 Just no discernible distinction between aesthetics and the shamans’ shuttling back
as Claude Lévi-Strauss extended rationality to rediscover it in ‘savage’ and forth between perspectives.34
thought, there finding it to abide by its own logic of sensitive qualities, Gell
too extends art and rediscovers it in life, with attendant critique of exhibition It is very common to hear from different Amerindian peoples that art objects
spaces and of the autonomy of artworks. By emphasising agency, Gell or performances, as forms invested with efficacy, originate from the worlds
attempted to shift art as a whole closer to magic as technology – based on of enemies, animals, spirits – realms into which one enters through an
the principle of efficacy – without presupposing a transcendent reality as in exchange of perspectives, a high-risk move that may border on devouring.35
the case of religion. 31 Following this reasoning, artistic objects or perform- Art would, then, be precisely a means of domesticating all this ferociousness,
ances must not be reduced to their form, or to the possibility of their since being affected is not enough – these affects must be retained, tamed,
symbolising something; what they actually do is produce a reality – which transformed into something else. The idea of art domesticating the ferocious-
again connects to the real-symbolic or literal-metaphorical dichotomy, as ness of other realms has been developed by Lucia Hussak van Velthem in her
seen in relation to anthropophagy. The idea of art as agency is also seen in studies of the Carib-speaking Wayana people of Pará. She rejects the imperious
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s definition of art as producing and view of indigenous arts as repetitive and lacking innovation or invention,
conserving affects.32 An artistic object would be one that causes an action or said to be constantly reformulating the same graphic patterns based on a
produces affects in someone. supposedly finite set of motifs.36 Instead Velthem reports that Wayana designs,
or milikut (the term is also used to refer to writing taught in local schools),
These considerations surely shed light on indigenous arts. It is often said are not the property of the Wayana themselves; they belong to ‘archetypal’
that drawing on a surface is a way of activating it; making an object is beings, especially mythical characters that may materialise and need to be
conceiving a live body; performing a song is actualising a reality, with what engaged with creatively.
is sung synaesthetically being seen. Such art is more than merely decorative:
it potentiates, it produces affects. A painted or sculpted arrow makes it A widespread myth in the region traces the origin of these drawings to obser-
efficacious; a drawing or painting on a body will protect it from super- vations of a painted ancestral Tulupërë (serpent, anaconda or caterpillar) –
natural attack; singing makes one become like a god or a spirit. Art is a being that is metamorphic by definition, a shape-shifting or scale-shedding
inscribed here in the realm of ‘becoming’ and the body, rather than the creature that constitutes an enduring image of immortality. According to
realm of representation or the soul. It is inscribed in the realm of the myth, having trapped and killed the monster, the Wayana began copying
effectiveness rather than contemplation – implied in life precisely because its image in countless drawings on various supports, including basketry,
there is no separation between art and life.33 Not unrelatedly, shamans may pottery and their own bodies. Van Velthem summarises Wayana art with the
be described as artists. In making connections between realms, they are dictum ‘beauty is the beast’: meaning that aesthetic experience is directly
prompted to invent new things or knowledge that must acquire form – related to supernatural beings’ ferociousness and the scale of their predatory
visual (drawing), verbal-musical (song), choreographic (dance). There is activity. 37 Once again, to see this process of imprinting predatory beings
solely in terms of representation would be a misunderstanding. Rather, the
— crucial feature is agency, since appropriation of these archetypes leads to
30
Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998. —
31
There is an odd tendency to talk about indigenous arts in the realm of religion 34
The relationship between art and shamanism was specifically addressed in two
as religious arts and ceremonial arts. Gell’s way of approaching them is through of Aristóteles Barcelos Neto’s books on the Wauja of the Upper Xingu region,
magic, which involves immanence. In this respect, the objects he has in mind are A arte dos sonhos: Uma iconografia ameríndia (Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 2000)
more ones that ‘do things’ and are thus designated as ‘fetishes’ or ‘sorcery’, rather and Apapaatai: Ritual de máscaras no alto Xingu (São Paulo: Edusp, 2008),
than ‘objects of worship’ or ‘veneration’. which primarily examine the visionary experience of Wauja shamans and their
32
See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (1991, trans. Hugh interaction with apapaatai, or pathogenic supernatural spirits. The shamans’ duty
Tomlinson and Graham Burchill), London: Verso, 1994. is to appease these spirits in order to heal the sick. To do so, however, the same
33
For an introduction to the general problem of anthropological studies on indig- spirits must be ‘represented’ by patterned masks and musical instruments, and
enous arts, see Els Lagrou, Arte indigena no Brasil: Agência, alteridade e relação, Belo then fed in the course of elaborate rituals. Another view of the relationship
Horizonte: Com Arte, 2009; and A.C. Taylor, ‘Voir comme un autre: Figurations between art and shamanism may be found in P. Cesarino, Oniska: Poética do
amazoniennes de l’âme et des corps’, in Philippe Descola (ed.), La fabrique des xamanismo na Amazônia, op. cit.
images, Paris: Musée du Quai Brany, 2012. For a key study of Amerindian graphic 35
See, for example, Lucia Hussak van Velthem, ‘Em outros tempos e nos tempos
arts, see Peter Gow, ‘Piro Designs: Paintings as Meaningful Action in an Amazonian atuais: Arte indígena’, in Artes Indígenas: Mostra do Redescobrimento (exh. cat.),
Lived World’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.5, no.2, 1999, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 2000.
pp.229–46. On the relationship between imagery and verbal expression, examined 36
Ibid.
through a study of Marubo shamanism, see Pedro Cesarino, Oniska: Poética do 37
See L.H. van Velthem, O Belo é a Fera: a Estética da Produção e da Predação entre
xamanismo na Amazônia, São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2011. os Wayana, Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim, 2003.

216 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 217

specific affects; it involves channelling supernatural ferociousness in order Regimes such as these require ‘creating a different concept of creation’.42
to keep it at bay. 38 Van Velthem has associated this process with a certain Hence Viveiros de Castro’s suggestion of a possible connection between
anthropophagous potential, given that all these forms originate in others’ traditional indigenous and recent digital modes of creating; for example,
models and may yet become part of a shared knowledge driven by sampling in music production or tools and organisations for sharing
mythological narratives and shamanism. It is a matter of not just reproducing knowledge and products, such as Creative Commons. Both modes reject the
models but subjecting them to constant experimentation. Such proliferation idea of creating from nothing since we always start from something that
of mythic narratives around looting or appropriation in reference to the already exists. In this sense, what is shamanic art if not combining created
origin of graphic markings and/or objects is not uniquely Wayana; it may be work with citations, since all its expressions are already compositions of
found everywhere among indigenous peoples of the Amazon region. images, voices or sounds that belong to other agents? Not coincidentally,
the Araweté liken their shamans to radios, while the Yanomami talk of
Els Lagrou writes of the many narratives of the Pano-speaking Kaxinawá recorders and amplifiers in forests that broadcast the words of the spirits with
people of the western Amazon region, according to which the origin of whom their shamans communicate by ingesting hallucinogenic yakoana. 43
graphic patterns and all the world’s beauty lies in loving and having sexual In short, they perform metamorphoses and ramifications rather than creations
intercourse with strangers or foreigners – be they human or animal. Here, in some absolute sense. The human world may be understood in terms of
looting gives way to seduction, which is also a way of producing contact the continuous imitation and improvised actualisation of mythological
between remote realities.39 The Kaxinawá themselves associate glass beads models – necessarily involving danger since a model can become real, and
currently obtained from Westerners with the ornaments and medicinal might prove monstrous. Hence, ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’ – instead of
substances which were taken from the Inka, their mythological enemies. In forms being fixed (each with its own authenticity), they occupy a state of
so doing, they take history as an extension of mythical stories and logics. continuous transformation.
Like everything of artistic value, and thus agency-related, beads come from —
outside, and the outside is what constitutes world and self. As Lagrou writes:
This discussion indicates that certain Amerindian expressive modes, under-
The Kaxinawá love of beads may be related to their fascination with the stood in conjunction with a particular metaphysics, may be considered as
dangerously alluring beauty of their powerful ‘Others’ [including art. This view also enables these modes and concepts to connect with what
Westerners and the Inka]. In this sense, objects made from beads would we have called ‘artistic anthropophagy’ in modernist and contemporary
not be mere ‘hybridisms’ but ‘legitimate expressions of specific ways of settings. Such connections were perhaps the great lacuna at the 24th Bienal
producing and using substances, raw materials and objects while following de São Paulo: the absence of work by those who inspired Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’,
specific logics of transformation and classification’. 40 namely the indigenous peoples who still inhabit Brazil, remains striking.

The image of mythological, shamanic and bellicose acts of seduction and A first step towards including the indigenous arts and their underlying
looting (since war was an important source of appropriated objects, drawings, thought in curatorial agendas should be to recognise their special regimes of
stories and even ritual) 41 suggests that these aesthetic regimes would involve creativity. This would mean, for example, no longer seeing them as mere repe-
constantly experimenting with others’ works rather than creating ex nihilo. tition of unchanging and unreflective traditions. It would involve apprehending
their unique forms and creative artworks, which include subtle variations and
— incessant appropriation of exogenous elements. As in Andrade’s proposal, to
38
See Barcelos Neto’s research of the Wauja, who believe that apapaatai drawings say that everything that is ‘mine’ has come from the Other does not mean
are the outcome of their diplomatic relations with shamans, who ‘imitate’ the letting go of creativity. Quite the contrary: creative artwork takes place precisely
apapaatai in order to transform their pathogenic, or predatory, powers into art in
both the aesthetic and diplomatic senses, ‘creating forms’ and the ‘art of building
as part of a relationship with the outside and the Other. In this way, indigenous
relationships’, respectively. arts are more radically anthropophagous than Western art, since they focus
39
Lagrou compares different ethnographic case studies and recognises one of the less on the autonomy of individual artists or artistic collectives and their
region’s ‘key symbols’ as the mythical anaconda, with its power of generating all artworks – hence less on the fierce opposition between creator-artist-subject
decorative motifs – the ‘Big Snake’ figure evoked in Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’. See E. and objectified product – and more on relational networks in which creativity
Lagrou, Arte indígena no Brasil: Agência, alteridade e relação, Belo Horizonte: emerges precisely because ‘subject’ and ‘object’ roles are interchangeable.44
Com Arte, 2009, p.77.
40
Ibid., pp.55–56. —
41
Viveiros de Castro’s aforementioned From the Enemy’s Point of View contains an 42
E. Viveiros de Castro in conversation with P. Cesarino and Sérgio Cohn,
extensive analysis of Araweté warrior songs, or ‘enemy songs’, to show that it is the in Entrevistas com Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, op. cit., pp.164–87.
dead enemy that takes the place of enunciating subject in these songs, which are 43
Davi Kopenawa and B. Albert, La chute du ciel: Paroles d’un chaman yanomami,
taken from the enemies in as far as the enemies sing through the mouths of their Paris: Plon, 2010.
killers. The same formulation may be found among other indigenous peoples. 44
James Leach distinguishes modes of creativity not confined to the universe we

218 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites… Renato Sztutman 219

Although this concept of anthropophagy is not exactly the same as that
cultivated in contemporary art – or by the 24th Bienal – this should not
prevent us from continuing to foster dialogue and trace connections. Many
of the critiques levelled at art historical canons, for example, coincide with
concerns posed by Amerindians. Just as indigenous artists have started to
appropriate technologies, languages and spaces in contemporary art, curators
have been showing interest not only in indigenous objects but also their modes
of creativity. 45 The greatest challenge in engaging with these practices is the
step from inspiration to alternative, from the Other as allegory to the Other
as alteration of ourselves.

Writing in 2009, Pedro Cesarino noted: ‘The detour toward the Other is a way
of pursuing the powerful spirit, the creative potential in a state of ebullition,
and constantly challenged thought.’46 If indigenous arts do actually develop
such an anthropophagous potential – materialising these cannibal metaphysics,
invoking metamorphosis and ‘becoming’ to the detriment of identity and
‘being’; insisting that soul is body and body is flesh – then they may well
lead to reflection on or even extension and radicalisation of this intriguing
cannibalistic tradition: the same anthropophagy that has impelled Brazilian
modernist and contemporary art, as spawned by Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’.

Translated from Portuguese by Izabel Burbridge.

—
call ‘art’: while predominant modes in the modern West are ‘appropriative’ in
relation to the idea of property, his studies of indigenous societies such as
Melanesia’s have found ‘distributive’ modes prevailing, with creativity disseminated
rather than belonging to anyone. See J. Leach, ‘Modes of Creativity’, in Eric Hirsch
and Marilyn Strathern (ed.), Transactions and Creations: Property Debates and the
Stimulus of Melanesia, New York: Bergham Books, 1990.
45
I have at least two recent exhibitions in mind. One is ‘Yanomami, l’esprit de la
forêt’, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, 14 May to 12 October
2003, curated by Hervé Chandès and the anthropologist Bruce Albert. The
exhibition resulted from an encounter between Yanomami shamans and contemp-
orary artists aiming to trigger ‘free associations’ across different creative processes.
See Yanomami, l’esprit de la forêt (exh. cat.), Paris: Fondation Cartier, 2003. The
second is the ‘Hidden State’, curated by Rodrigo Moura in dialogue with the anthro-
pologist Paulo Maia, at the 43 Salón (inter) Nacional de Artistas, Medellín,
Columbia, 6 September to 3 November 2013. The curatorial proposal questioned
the meaning of art based on the dialogue between indigenous objects and contemp-
orary artworks, with indigenous artists and film-makers participating. See http://
universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/sna_colombia/2013_medellin/tour/mamm_2
(last accessed on 5 February 2015). Both exhibitions focused on interesting ideas of
collaboration involving the chance to instigate creative alterations and contami-
nations in both parties. Pointing to the possibilities these collaborations suggested
is more important than judging their materialisation (there will always be asymmetry
in the background, since the spaces focused on are always ‘ours’).
46
P. Cesarino, ‘Atualidade e alteridade’, Atual: o Último Jornal da Terra, 1 May 2009.

220 The (Re)turn of the Anthropophagites…

Manifesto antropófago1 Nunca fomos catequizados. Vivemos através de um direito sonâmbulo.
— Oswald de Andrade Fizemos Cristo nascer na Bahia. Ou em Belém do Pará.

Mas nunca admitimos o nascimento da lógica entre nós.

Só a antropofagia nos une. Socialmente. Economicamente. Filosoficamente.
Contra o Padre Vieira. Autor do nosso primeiro empréstimo, para ganhar
Única lei do mundo. Expressão mascarada de todos os individualismos, comissão. O rei analfabeto dissera-lhe: ponha isso no papel mas sem muita
de todos os coletivismos. De todas as religiões. De todos os tratados de paz. lábia. Fez-se o empréstimo. Gravou-se o açúcar brasileiro. Vieira deixou o
dinheiro em Portugal e nos trouxe a lábia.
Tupi, or not tupi that is the question.
O espírito recusa-se a conceber o espírito sem corpo. O antropomorfismo.
Contra todas as catequeses. E contra a mãe dos Gracos. Necessidade da vacina antropofágica. Para o equilíbrio contra as religiões de
meridiano. E as inquisições exteriores.
Só me interessa o que não é meu. Lei do homem. Lei do antropófago.
Só podemos atender ao mundo orecular.
Estamos fatigados de todos os maridos católicos suspeitosos postos em
drama. Freud acabou com o enigma mulher e com outros sustos da psicologia Tínhamos a justiça codificação da vingança. A ciência codificação da Magia.
impressa. Antropofagia. A transformação permanente do Tabu em totem.

O que atropelava a verdade era a roupa, o impermeável entre o mundo Contra o mundo reversível e as idéias objetivadas. Cadaverizadas. O stop do
interior e o mundo exterior. A reação contra o homem vestido. O cinema pensamento que é dinâmico. O indivíduo vítima do sistema. Fonte das injustiças
americano informará. clássicas. Das injustiças românticas. E o esquecimento das conquistas interiores.

Filhos do sol, mãe dos viventes. Encontrados e amados ferozmente, com Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
toda a hipocrisia da saudade, pelos imigrados, pelos traficados e pelos touristes.
No país da cobra grande. O instinto Caraíba.

Foi porque nunca tivemos gramáticas, nem coleções de velhos vegetais. Morte e vida das hipóteses. Da equação eu parte do Kosmos ao axioma Kosmos
E nunca soubemos o que era urbano, suburbano, fronteiriço e continental. parte do eu. Subsistência. Conhecimento. Antropofagia.
Preguiçosos no mapa-múndi do Brasil.
Uma consciência participante, uma rítmica religiosa. Contra as elites vegetais. Em comunicação com o solo.

Contra todos os importadores de consciência enlatada. A existência palpável Nunca fomos catequizados. Fizemos foi Carnaval. O índio vestido de senador
da vida. E a mentalidade prélógica para o Sr. Lévy-Bruhl estudar. do Império. Fingindo de Pitt. Ou figurando nas óperas de Alencar cheio de
bons sentimentos portugueses.
Queremos a Revolução Caraíba. Maior que a Revolução Francesa. A unificação
de todas as revoltas eficazes na direção do homem. Sem nós a Europa não Já tínhamos o comunismo. Já tínhamos a língua surrealista. A idade de ouro.
teria sequer a sua pobre declaração dos direitos do homem. Catiti, Catiti,
A idade de ouro anunciada pela América. A idade de ouro. E todas as girls. Imara Notiá,
Notiá Imara,
Filiação. O contato com o Brasil Caraíba. Oú Villegaignon print terre. Mont- Ipejú
aigne. O homem natural. Rousseau. Da Revolução Francesa ao Romantismo,
à Revolução Bolchevista, à Revolução surrealista e ao bárbaro tecnizado de A magia e a vida. Tínhamos a relação e a distribuição dos bens físicos, dos
Keyserling. Caminhamos. bens morais, dos bens dignários. E sabíamos transpor o mistério e a morte
com o auxílio de algumas formas gramaticais.

— Perguntei a um homem o que era o Direito. Ele me respondeu que era a garantia
1
Editors’ Note: This text was originally published in Revista de Antropofagia, do exercício da possibilidade. Esse homem chamava-se Galli Mathias. Comi-o.
May 1928, São Paulo.

222 Manifesto antropófago Oswald de Andrade 223

Só não há determinismo – onde há mistério. Mas que temos nós com isso? Somos concretistas. As idéias tomam conta, reagem, queimam gente nas
praças públicas. Suprimamos as idéias e as outras paralisias. Pelos roteiros.
Contra as histórias do homem que começam no Cabo Finisterra. O mundo Acreditar nos sinais, acreditar nos instrumentos e nas estrelas.
não datado. Não rubricado. Sem Napoleão. Sem César.
Contra Goethe, a mãe dos Gracos, e a Corte de D. João VI.
A fixação do progresso por meio de catálogos e aparelhos de televisão. Só a
maquinaria. E os transfusores de sangue. A alegria é a prova dos nove.

Contra as sublimações antagônicas. Trazidas nas caravelas. A luta entre o que se chamaria Incriado e a Criatura – ilustrada pela contradição
permanente do homem e o seu Tabu. O amor quotidiano e o modus vivendi
Contra a verdade dos povos missionários, definida pela sagacidade de um capitalista. Antropofagia. Absorção do inimigo sacro. Para transformá-lo em
antropófago, o Visconde de Cairu: – É mentira muitas vezes repetida. totem. A humana aventura. A terrena finalidade. Porém, só as puras elites
conseguiram realizar a antropofagia carnal, que traz em si o mais alto sentido
Mas não foram cruzados que vieram. Foram fugitivos de uma civilização que da vida e evita todos os males identificados por Freud, males catequistas.
estamos comendo, porque somos fortes e vingativos como o Jabuti. O que se dá não é uma sublimação do instinto sexual. É a escala termométrica
do instinto antropofágico. De carnal, ele se torna eletivo e cria a amizade.
Se Deus é a consciênda do Universo Incriado, Guaraci é a mãe dos viventes. Afetivo, o amor. Especulativo, a ciência. Desvia-se e transfere-se. Chegamosao
Jaci é a mãe dos vegetais. aviltamento. A baixa antropofagia aglomerada nos pecados de catecismo – a
inveja, a usura, a calúnia, o assassinato. Peste dos chamados povos cultos e
Não tivemos especulação. Mas tínhamos adivinhação. Tínhamos Política que cristianizados, é contra ela que estamos agindo. Antropófagos.
é a ciência da distribuição. E um sistema social-planetário.
Contra Anchieta cantando as onze mil virgens do céu, na terra de Iracema –
As migrações. A fuga dos estados tediosos. Contra as escleroses urbanas. o patriarca João Ramalho fundador de São Paulo.
Contra os Conservatórios e o tédio especulativo.
A nossa independência ainda não foi proclamada. Frape típica de D. João
De William James e Voronoff. A transfiguração do Tabu em totem. VI: – Meu filho, põe essa coroa na tua cabeça, antes que algum aventureiro
Antropofagia. o faça! Expulsamos a dinastia. É preciso expulsar o espírito bragantino, as
ordenações e o rapé de Maria da Fonte.
O pater famílias e a criação da Moral da Cegonha: Ignorância real das coisas
+ falta de imaginação + sentimento de autoridade ante a pro-curiosa. Contra a realidade social, vestida e opressora, cadastrada por Freud – a realidade
sem complexos, sem loucura, sem prostituições e sem penitenciárias do matriar-
É preciso partir de um profundo ateísmo para se chegar à idéia de Deus. cado de Pindorama.
Mas a caraíba não precisava. Porque tinha Guaraci.
Oswald de Andrade
O objetivo criado reage com os Anjos da Queda. Depois Moisés divaga. Em Piratininga
Que temos nós com isso? Ano 374 da deglutição do Bispo Sardinha.

Antes dos portugueses descobrirem o Brasil, o Brasil tinha descoberto

a felicidade.

Contra o índio de tocheiro. O índio filho de Maria, afilhado de Catarina de

Médicis e genro de D. Antônio de Mariz.

A alegria é a prova dos nove.

No matriarcado de Pindorama.

Contra a Memória fonte do costume. A experiência pessoal renovada.

224 Manifesto antropófago Oswald de Andrade 225

Anthropophagite Manifesto1 Filiation. The contact with Caraíba Brazil. Oú Villegaignon print terre.*
— Oswald de Andrade Montaigne. The natural man. Rousseau. From the French Revolution to
Romanticism, to the Bolshevik Revolution, to the Surrealist Revolution and
Keyserling’s technicised barbarian. We walk.
Only anthropophagy unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.
We were never catechised. We live through a somnambular law. We made
The world’s only law. The masked expression of all individualisms, of all Christ be born in Bahia. Or in Belém do Pará.
collectivisms. Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.
But we never admitted the birth of logic among us.
Tupi, or not tupi that is the question.*
Against Father Vieira. Author of our first loan, to gain his commission.
Against all catechisms. And against the mother of the Gracchi. The illiterate king had told him: ‘Put this on paper but don’t be too wordy.’
The loan was made. Brazilian sugar was recorded. Vieira left the money in
I am interested only in what is not mine. Law of man. Law of the anthropophagite. Portugal and brought us wordiness.

We are tired of all the suspicious Catholic husbands put in drama. Freud put The spirit refuses to conceive the spirit without body. Anthropomorphism.
an end to the enigma of woman and to other frights of printed psychology. The need for an anthropophagical vaccine. For the equilibrium against the
religions of the meridian. And foreign inquisitions.
What hindered truth was clothing, the impermeable coat between the
interior world and the exterior world. The reaction against the dressed man. We can only attend to the oracular world.
American cinema will inform us.
We had justice, the codification of vengeance. And science, the codification of
Sons of the sun, mother of the living. Found and loved ferociously, with all Magic. Anthropophagy. The permanent transformation of Taboo into totem.
the hypocrisy of nostalgia, by the immigrants, by those trafficked and by the
touristes.3 In the country of the big snake. Against the reversible world and objectivised ideas. Cadaverised. The stop *
of thought that is dynamic. The individual victim of the system. The source
It was because we never had grammars, nor collections of old plants. And we of classical injustices. Of the romantic injustices. And the forgetting of
never knew what was urban, suburban, frontier and continental. Lazy men interior conquests.
on the world map of Brazil.
A participating consciousness, a religious rhythm. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes.

Against all importers of canned consciousness. The palpable existence of The Caraíba instinct.
life. And the pre-logical mentality for Mr Lévy-Bruhl to study.
Death and life of the hypotheses. From the equation I, part of the Kosmos,*
We want the Caraíba revolution. Bigger than the French Revolution. to the axiom Kosmos, part of I. Subsistence. Knowledge. Anthropophagy.
The unification of all efficacious rebellions in the direction of man. Without
us Europe would not even have its poor declaration of the rights of man. Against vegetable elites. In communication with the soil.
The golden age proclaimed by America. The golden age. And all the girls.*
We were never catechised. What we did was Carnival. The Indian dressed as a
— Senator of the Empire. Pretending to be Pitt. Or featuring in Alencar’s operas,
1
Editors’ Note: This is a lightly revised version of the translation by Adriano full of good Portuguese feelings.
Pedrosa and Veronica Cordeiro that was published in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo:
Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias de Canibalismos (exh. cat), São Paulo: We already had communism. We already had the Surrealist language.
Fundaçao Bienal, 1998, pp.536–39; the original was published in Revista de The golden age.
Antropofagia, May 1928, São Paulo. For notes on translation issues see, for instance,
Catiti, Catiti,
Steve Berg, ‘An Intro-duction to Oswald de Andrade’s Cannibalist Manifesto’, Third
Text, vol.13, no.46, Spring 1999, pp.89–91; and Leslie Bary, ‘Cannibalist Manifesto Imara Notiá,
by Oswald de Andrade’, Latin American Literary Review, vol.19, no.38, July– Noliá lmara,
December 1991, pp.38–47. Ipejú *
*
Indicates language used in original.

226 Anthropophagite Manifesto Oswald de Andrade 227

Magic and life. We had the relation and the distribution of physical goods, Against the Indian with the torch. The Indian son of Mary, godson of
of moral goods, of noble goods. And we knew how to transpose mystery and Catherine de Médici and son-in-law of Dom Antônio de Mariz.
death with the aid of some grammatical forms.
Happiness is the proof of the pudding.
I asked a man what the Law was. He replied it was the guarantee of the
exercise of possibility. That man was called Galli Matias. I ate him. In the matriarchy of Pindorama.

Determinism is only absent where there is mystery. But what do we have to Against Memory as source of habit. Personal experience renewed.
do with this?
We are concretists. Ideas take hold, react, burn people in public squares.
Against the stories of man, which begin at Cape Finisterra. The undated Let us suppress ideas and other paralyses. Through the routes. To believe in
world. Unsigned. Without Napoleon. Without Caesar. signs, to believe in the instruments and the stars.

The fixation of progress through catalogues and television sets. Only machinery. Against Goethe, the mother of the Gracchi, and the court of Dom João VI.
And the blood transfusors.
Happiness is the proof of the pudding.
Against the antagonistic sublimations. Brought in caravels.
The struggle between what one would call the Uncreated and the Creature –
Against the truth of missionary peoples, defined by the sagacity of an illustrated by the permanent contradiction between man and his Taboo.
anthropophagite, the Viscount of Cairu: ‘It is the often repeated lie.’ Everyday love and the capitalist modus vivendi. Anthropophagy. Absorption
of the sacred enemy. To transform him into totem. The human adventure.
But they who came were not crusaders. They were fugitives from a civilisation The mundane finality. However, only the pure elites managed to realise carnal
that we are eating, because we are strong and vengeful like the Jabuti. anthropophagy, which brings with it the highest sense of life, and avoids all
evils identified by Freud, catechist evils. What happens is not a sublimation of
If God is the consciousness of the Uncreated Universe, Guaraci is the mother the sexual instinct. It is the thermometric scale of the anthropophagic instinct.
of the living. Jaci is the mother of plants. From carnal, it becomes elective and creates friendship. Affectionate, love.
Speculative, science. It deviates and transfers itself. We reach vilification. Low
We did not have speculation. But we had the power of guessing. We had anthropophagy agglomerated in the sins of catechism – envy, usury, calumny,
Politics which is the science of distribution. And a social-planetary system. assassination. Plague of the so-called cultured and Christianised peoples, it is
against it that we are acting. Anthropophagi.
The migrations. The escape from tedious states. Against urban sclerosis.
Against Conservatories, and tedious speculation. Against Anchieta singing the eleven thousand virgins of the sky, in the land
of Iracema – the patriarch João Ramalho, founder of São Paulo.
From William James to Voronoff. The transfiguration of Taboo into totem.
Anthropophagy. Our independence has not yet been proclaimed. Typical phrase of Dom
João Vl: ‘My son, put this crown on your head, before some adventurer
The paterfamilias and the creation of the Morality of the Stork: Real does!’ We expelled the dynasty. It is necessary to expel the spirit of Bragança,
ignorance of things + lack of imagination + sense of authority in the face of the law and the snuff of Maria da Fonte.
the pro-curious.
Against social reality, dressed and oppressive, registered by Freud – reality
It is necessary to depart from a profound atheism to arrive at the idea of without complexes, without madness, without prostitutions and without
God. But the Caraíba did not need to. Because he had Guaraci. the prisons of the matriarchy of Pindorama.

The created objective reacts as the Fallen Angels. Afterwards, Moses wanders. Oswald de Andrade
What have we got to do with this? In Piratininga
Year 374 of the swallowing of the Bishop Sardinha.
Before the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered happiness.

228 Anthropophagite Manifesto Oswald de Andrade 229

Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art1 CANNIBALISM. The indigenous cultural pattern of cannibalism has
— Paulo Herkenhoff provided Brazilian artists and writers of the twentieth century with a source
for a modern theory of cultural absorption: ‘Antropofagia’ (= cannibalism).
The 1928 ‘Manifesto antropófago’ by poet Oswald de Andrade, taken from
BANANA. Plant originally from Asia, from the family of the Musaceae. the painting Abaporu (1928) by Tarsila do Amaral states that only
It was introduced in America in the sixteenth century. In popular culture it cannibalism unites Brazilians socially, economically and philosophically. The
has a very broad set of meanings (erotic, depreciative, etc.). Brazilian Modern- law of the man-eater indicates an interest in Otherness, unlike the importation
ism was very dependent on bananas, while nineteenth-century academicism of canned consciousness. In this stage of Brazilian modernism, it was no longer
(Agostinho José da Mota and Estêvão Silva) preferred watermelons. (See enough to update art with the international scene. A national culture would
WATERMELON.) In one of the very few important paintings that she be open to devour any influence, to digest it for new meanings and possibil-
made in Brazil after returning from New York, Anita Malfatti presents, in ities. The primitivist model is transformed into a barbarian pattern against
her canvas Tropical (c.1917), a basket of fruits from bananas to pineapples. the oppressive censorship of civilisation. Andrade advocates the permanent
‘It is certainly the first time that the national theme is focused within modern transformation of taboo into totem. References to Freud and Surrealism
art in Brazil’, says Malfatti’s biographer, Marta Rossetti Batista. Right after his indicate the precedent he finds in Picabia’s cannibalism. In Brazil, the
definitive immigration to Brazil (1923), Lasar Segall introduced a joyful expres- ‘Antropofagia project’ has both historical and contemporary validity. It is a
sionistic landscape of a banana plantation with a certain post-Cubist spatial dialectic method which is far deeper than the superficial postmodern principle
character. In the ‘Antropofagia’ of the late twenties (see CANNIBALISM), of image quotations.
large banana-tree leaves with vegetal bodies dwell in the anthropophagous
native landscape of Tarsila do Amaral (since A Negra, 1923). These same leaves CARTOGRAPHIES. Artists in Latin America have used maps as a reference
will appear in Livio Abramo’s early anthropophagous period woodblock to the controversial social reality, rather than the flag, a conventional and
prints. In the late sixties, Brazilian Antônio Henrique Amaral, after his Pop unifying symbol of a nation, subjected to political manipulation. For Borges
departure, slowly moved to a hyperrealistic amplification of bananas which the map (in ‘Del rigor de la ciencia’) offered the possibility of substituting
are being submitted to painful operations (like being tied up or hung with the failure of rational knowledge for the actuality of adjusting metaphor to
string, or cut with forks and knives) as a metaphor for the dark political times reality, whereas Torres-García practices the inversion of the map (1936),
of the prevailing dictatorship of torture and murder. The negative symbolism with the intention of breaking the mirror (see ESPEJISMO) in a return to
of Latin American countries as ‘banana republics’ (as a post-Colonial alliance Latin America’s own values. The perpetuation of Mercator’s topographical
of local corrupt oligarchies, either civilian or military, with foreign interests conventions and distortions, in a science developed by the Conquest, are
and presently with United States interventionism) finally finds a morbid yet not innocent. The maps of Anna Bella Geiger register cultural domination
truthful portrait, in spite of some efforts of modernisation in certain with hegemonies and marginality. The painting of Guillermo Kuitca draws
societies of the continent. on many sources, from a Russian film (Eisenstein), a German dancer (Bausch)
or an English song (The Beatles), overflowing the geographic borders or any
BODY. O corpo é o motor da obra. (The Body is the motor of the work.) boundary between the realms of artistic languages. The maps fix no point as
they confirm a transiency of meanings from culture to the fantasmatic. Their
BRASIL. Also once called Pindorama. (See WOMEN.) Not to be mistaken function is inverted. It is no longer a description. Kuitca operates the revelation
with the island Brazil, in the same latitude as the south of Ireland and of the irreducible fluidity of the space of doubt and quest, of a world
consisting of an enormous ring of earth around a sea full of islands. Common glowingly transitional and challenged by the awareness of the Otherness.
mortals cannot see this island (Angelinus Dalorto, 1325, apud. Manguel Time is ‘never finished and is constantly changing’ in the work of Kuitca (Rina
and Guadalupi). Since Latin American Brazil is the country of the author of Carvajal). Kuitca then has the opportunity to transform the map, in the Borges
this glossary, the predominance of Brazilian examples is not intended to tradition, from the passive possibilities of the mirror into the crystalline
indicate the greater importance of this country, rather, it indicates the action of the prism.
limitations of his horizons.
CENSORSHIP. See different forms of censorship in CANNIBALISM,
BRASILIDADE. See CANNIBALISM. COLONIALISM and WOMEN.

CHANGE. ‘Change is the essential condition of existence’ (Lucio Fontana,

—
1
Editors’ Note: This text was first published in Ivo Mesquita, Paulo Herkenhoff ‘Manifiesto Blanco’, Buenos Aires, 1946).
and Justo Pastor Mellado (ed.), Cartographies (exh. cat.), Winnipeg: Winnipeg
Art Gallery, 1993, and has been edited for this volume. It is reproduced here by COLONIALISM. ‘Art is no longer an instrument of intellectual domination’,
kind permission of the author and publisher. said Hélio Oiticica (1967). It is up to the artist to overcome postcolonialist

230 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 231
aesthetics, in spite of the remnants of colonialism in the international circula- Artistic Conditioning’ (1966) due to the use of alien cultural roots. Pedrosa
tion of art. Both the exclusion from history and an interpretation that includes added that this crisis of modern art was due to the crisis in the levels of social
references only to European sources are forms of colonialist censorship. function and communication (1972). (See POSTMODERN.) Argentinian
Jorge Romero Brest wrote La Crisis del Arte en Latinoamerica y en el Mundo
COLOUR. The undeniable alignment of Latin American artists with the (1974). He discussed the notions of crisis and development in art and stressed
Western history of colour could lead to such clear relationships as Soto or a dialectic contradiction between the order of human needs and the order of
Oiticica with Malevich or Mondrian. Within this tradition (sometimes artistic demands. Besides the many specific crises that Latin American artists
touching the question of the monochrome) we may still quote the concretist, are dealing with, like perception (Waltercio Caldas and Alfred Wenemoser),
constructive or optical choices of colour in Cruz-Diez (Venezuela), Negret the critic Nelly Richard points to a fundamental contemporary crisis. The
(Colombia), Weissmann and Carvão (Brazil), among others. A picturesque Chilean group CADA (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte – Collective for Art
colour may descriptively derive from reality as in the Mexican painter Rivera Actions) (Raúl Zurita, Diamela Eltit, Juan Castillo, Lotty Rosenfeld and
or the Colombian sculptor Botero. It can be emblematic, within national Fernando Balcells) in the postulation of a ‘discourse of the crisis’, ‘had learned
conventions and codes of tradition, like the Orixas’ heraldic colours in to mistrust any new illusion of “totalitarian totality”: may we call it either
Cuba or Brazil. Archeological colour rules the earthy palette of Brazilian revolutionary utopia, myth or ideology’ (Nelly Richard). (See UTOPIA.)
Rêgo Monteiro, with reference to Amazonian Marajó civilisation, whereas
Andean artists Szyszlo (Peru) and Viteri (Ecuador) articulate historical colour DIFFERENCE. ‘Here I leave murdered distance’, says the Peruvian writer
from the fabrics, dolls and other sources in material culture and spiritual Alberto Hidalgo, ‘I am urged to declare that Hispanic-Americanism is repugnant
symbolism of the Incas and other groups. In Brazil, the purification of a to me. This is something false, utopic and mendacious […] Besides, there is
colour system derived from popular culture established an anthropological not even similitude of characters between the Hispanic American countries.
dimension. It starts with the landscapes of the Pau-Brasil period (1924), by […] The abyss that can be glimpsed between an Argentinian and a Colombian
Tarsila do Amaral, through the reductive and constructive colour architecture is incommensurable. That all are Spanish descendants, this is the least. The
of Alfredo Volpi (1950/1970s) and the sensory experience of colour as space conquerors have imposed the idiom but not the spirit. The predominating
and materiality in Oiticica (1960s). The harmonious colour compositions of influence is the land, the haphazard of the tribe with which the crossing was
a native naiveté by Tarsila do Amaral and Volpi synthesise a certain rural taste. produced. […] The immigrant from Russia, Italy, Germany, etc. is making
In other areas, contemporary colour sensibility might call for more bright and or has made the truthful independence. Within a few years there will be
strident combinations, as vigorous efforts to guarantee extreme visibility, more American children of Russian or Italian descent than the children of
like the recent work of Delson Uchôa in the Northeast and Emmanuel Nassar Spanish […]’ (1926). Latin America is difference. It is an internal difference
in Amazonia. A crisis of colour finds a moral severity in the almost black- (countries, regions, groups, individuals) and an external difference. Latin
and-white portraits of Mexican Siqueiros, such as The Proletarian Mother America remains for the West as a reserve of difference exotic and at the
(1930) and Ethnography (1939). Here the extreme scarcity of light and colour same time ‘fantasmatic’. Yet, Latin America makes no promise of either staying
induces a political judgment. Ethical severity also impels the woodblock or even being ‘Latin American’. A ‘Latin American’ art of Latin America (‘the
prints of Brazilian Goeldi. The anguished light is the presentation of a moral essentially Latin American issues which it raises’, as proposed by Oriana
night, melancholic in the urban drama of Rio de Janeiro and naturalistic, yet Baddeley and Valerie Fraser) is either a European ‘fantasmatic’ construction
mythical, in the Amazonian scenario. The painful extreme of tropical light or Latin American control. However, Latin American art does not confirm
is approached by the opposition of the sombre Goeldi to the solar Reverón in this European notion of history, of the ‘realisation of civilisation’, which is now
a complementary dimension like day and night. The antinomy of light/colour Latin America’s, and no longer the modern European man (for this thought
in Reverón’s paintings lays in the scarceness of pictorial matter. The Venezuelan I’m indebted to Gianni Vattimo). The search for a single Latin America
brings the excess of light as an approach to blindness. The experience of history can lead to fixed anthropological idealisations and also to the obtuse-
visual bewilderment leads the gaze to the possibility of its own nullification. ness of exploitation, internal colonialism and class conflicts, ignoring the
variety of historical times and cultural perspectives. (See EVERYTHING.)
CONTINENTALISM. See NATIONALISM.
DISORDER. The source of disorder in Brazil could be found in an initial
CRISIS. 1492 sets a dual crisis. A multilevel crisis, from religion to knowledge, reference to the flag, with its motto ‘Order and Progress’. A parallel historical
reaches Europe. A Portuguese map (1519) by Lopo Homem creates a line could be traced with Flávio de Carvalho, Hélio Oiticica and Tunga,
southern territorial link between America and Africa, as a last effort to re- representing three different generations. Flávio de Carvalho disrupted the
validate the Ptolemaic geographic notions. A permanent crisis was set for social codes with two performances: a) wearing a hat in a procession (1931)
the natives of the Americas, from cultural survival to life itself. After and b) wearing a costume for tropical weather, which included a skirt
independence, Paraguay underwent genocide and strangulation from its (1956). He provoked both the religious ideological set of values and the
neighbours. (See WAR.) Brazilian Mário Pedrosa discussed the ‘Crisis of the masculine role, thus inflicting disorder in two main codes of social stability.

232 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 233
Hélio Oiticica defined a level of metaphor between values from the art system EXCLUSION. The writing of art history is an exercise in power of exclusion
and challenges to a social order that reflected an authoritarian regime. He as well as inclusion. Someday, like the history of the defeated proposed by
dealt with a concept of ‘cultural diarrhea’. Favelados and samba-school Walter Benjamin, one should write the history of those excluded from the
dancers were brought inside the Museum of Modern Art in Rio (1965) as a dominant art history. This would include such artists as Gego in Venezuela,
rupture to the spatial feud of art. In his Bólide Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape and Amílcar de Castro in Brazil, or some
(1965–66) a transparent pillow of a vivid pure-red pigment becomes a from the Madí group in Argentina.
metaphor for the flesh of the bandit as ‘live mud’, as writer Clarice Lispector
named it, for another bandit. Contemporarily, Tunga takes art as a model in FOLKLORE. In Latin American Modernism folklore played a major role in
crisis. His violent poetics is ‘outside of the formalist model’, dealing with an the realisation of the national project. In 1920, composer Darius Milhaud
inquiétante étrangeté. Things play ‘between the real and the irreal, the advised Brazilian composers of the richness of popular and folkloric sources.
conscious and the unconscious, the rational and the irrational’. (The author Heitor Villa-Lobos and Francisco Mignone researched folklore themes like
is indebted to Catherine David in the development of this entry.) the Argentinian Alberto Ginastera in his early oeuvre. Tarsila do Amaral has
taken the sense of colour in peasant architecture, while Uruguayan Pedro
DUALITY. Where does the Third World end and the First World begin in Figari painted the Afro dances of Candombe in his exile. Writers, from
this world? (Or vice versa.) Is Latin American art in alignment with Mário de Andrade to Guimarães Rosa listened to the popular voice. Mexican
European and North American art? Or is it the setting of a local tradition? Orozco was critical of certain nationalist relationships between the art of the
The Shakespearean dilemma evolves to ‘Tupi, or not tupi that is the question’ muralist and folk art: ‘Painting in its higher form and painting as a minor
(pronounced ‘to pe’), where the name of this Native people gives Brazilian poet folk art differ essentially in this: the former has invariable universal traditions
Oswald de Andrade the possibility of condensing in a synthesis the funda- from which no one can separate him … the latter has purely local traditions.’
mental doubt of national identity at the crossroad of cultures and historical The recourse to folklore became an easy conservative and reductive cross-
times. (See CANNIBALISM. See also PERVERSIONS OF HISTORY.) cultural experience. Against this impoverishment, Hélio Oiticica would warn
Tunga’s installation Palindrome Incest (1990) claims to have the structure of that the capes Parangolés ‘rises up since 1964 against the oppressive folklori-
the human mind. ‘I’m trying to annul the terms of exterior and interior, of sation used the same material which formerly would be folk-Brazil’. Yet,
inconsequential and consequential’, the artist devises. (See DISORDER.) Oiticica never ceased his reference to genuine cultural exchange, as in his
transparent Yemanja tent in Eden (1968–69), rich in sensual experiences
ESPEJISMO. Spanish term derived from espejo (mirror) to describe that connected to symbolic meanings. On the political level, critic Nelly Richard
tendency in Latin American culture of reflecting foreign dependency or observed that the artistic action of CADA, the Chilean group Colectivo
influence, usually from the hegemonic Northern hemisphere countries. Jorge de Acciones de Arte, and the Avanzada did not seem as threatening to
Luis Borges speaks of the ‘passive aesthetics’ of the mirrors and the active the dictatorial authorities in the Pinochet regime as popular forms of
aesthetics of the prism. For a theory of cultural absorption, see communicating such as theatre and folklore.
CANNIBALISM. The trend of ‘quotations’ in art in the eighties distorts the
‘reflecting’ character of many artists. FUTURISM. First great door to Modernism in Latin America, perhaps
because its direct rhetoric is so clearly connected with the industrialisation
EVERYTHING. ‘Everything human is ours’, said the Peruvian José Carlos and modernisation of society. Chronology: 20 February 1909: Marinetti
Mariátegui (1926). In the prologue of The Book of Imaginary Beings, Borges publishes the ‘Futurist Manifesto’ (Le Figaro, Paris); one month later
writes: ‘the name of this book would justify the inclusion of Prince Hamlet, (26 March) Romulo Duran publishes an interview with him (in Comœdia
the point, the line, the surface, the hyper cube, all generic words and maybe magazine), and later (13 November 1909) an article about this new literacy
each one of us and the divinity. On the whole, almost all of the universe.’ school in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; less than 45 days after (5 April), Rubén
Elsewhere Borges says that ‘We may touch all European themes, and to Darío discussed Futurism in Buenos Aires (the poems of Marinetti are
touch them without superstitions […] I repeat that we should not fear, we ‘violent, sonorous and wild’) and in the following days Sousa Pinto commented
should think that the universe is our patrimony and try all themes.’ For on it in Rio de Janeiro; in August, Mexican Amado Nervo mentions ‘the
Borges, Xul Solar lived recreating the Universe. One may now conclude that iconoclast vanity’ of the new literary school; Henrique Soublette in
everything could be a genuine source for art in Latin America, because it has Venezuela (July 1910) and Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro (1914) discuss
the right to the universe, plus it holds a secret. Borges offers the broadest Marinetti in their countries. 1921 is a curious year. It witnesses a radical
challenges to the imagination of many artists, be they Argentinians (Kuitca, rejection and a fruitful adoption of Futurism in the cultural strategies of
Porter or Bedel) or non-Latin American (Kosuth). In his Biblioteca de Babel, Latin America. In May 1921, Borges refers to the passive aesthetics of the
Borges deals with a library where we may find that everything expressible in mirror and to the active aesthetics of the prism. ‘In the present literary
any language has been printed. One generation after the other has gone renovation, Futurism with its exaltation of the cinematic objectivity of our
through the library in search of the Book. Some called this library Universe. century, represents the passive, tame tendency of submission to the medium.’

234 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 235
Yet to the art historian Annatereza Fabris, ‘Futurism is assumed by Brazilian openness of those individuals in accepting a personal way of writing which
Modernists in São Paulo as a combat weapon, since 1921, due to the negative allows a level of play and implies, in that confession, deep insufficiency,
charge which it contained.’ what Theodor Adorno mentions in his Minima Moralia (1951). The author
wished a transparent operation with his net of prejudices, intuitions,
GLOSSARY. This glossary comprises a selection of entries and is necessarily apprehensions, selfcorrections, anticipations and exaggerations, as Adorno
incomplete due to the vastness of the object (see UNIVERSE) and to the has appended, which are never clear in the process of production of
universe of references that one single artist can always involve. A second knowledge. The author did not invent the UNIVERSE (see entry), therefore
level of incompleteness is in each entry, quite often vast fields in themselves. many art critics are purposely quoted in order to denote a network of
Therefore most entries are presented in abridged form or with partial investigative thought around Latin American culture, which is sometimes
examples. This is either due to space limitations or because most entries very controversial. The limited horizons of the author are also dealt with in
indicate the possibility of an issue. Hardly any entry would either exhaust the entry BRASIL, and therefore omissions in examples should not be seen
the theme as an absolute source or be universal in Latin America. The necessarily as discrimination. They conform to the part of the announced
internal differences have to be considered at this point, even between areas incompleteness of this glossary. Counterpoising the numerous mentions of
of a single region. Deep social contradictions in a society of class affect art Brazilian artists, the specific entry about Brazil somehow hides the country.
and the question of its neutrality. There is a plurality of responses besides An initial limitation results from the fact that it was originally written in
mere ‘engagement’. On the other hand, innumerable sources are neither English, when Portuguese is the mater language of the author. Hopefully,
exclusive to Latin America nor even situated within the continent. There is cataloguing a mutable taxonomy in alphabetical order will not send the
no purity or impurity in the process of enrichment of experience. Geopoliti- reader away, even if it is an incomplete glossary under a double perspective:
cising is a ‘coarse solution’, as alluded by Tunga. However, this historical, if it goes halfway in the recognition of a place it will have accomplished an
political, social and cultural territory, in spite of its moving boundaries (see impossibility in the ever-growing world of cultural exchanges. This glossary
LATIN AMERICA), is a geographical frame of the discussion that is surveyed is an ongoing project. Published here is a selection of existing entries from a
by History. In technical terms Latin America is a geographic subcontinent list which now comprises over 250 terms. The author hopes to publish an
of the Western hemisphere, yet it is dealt with here as a cultural continent. expanded version of this text in the future.
Latino-americanidad should not serve the idea of multiculturalism as a
policy of compartmentalising the ethnicities, by separating and dividing the HESSE, EVA. And also Beuys, Serra, Kiefer, Palermo, Andre, Klein, Manzoni,
one oppressed in relation to the other oppressed, under the same perspective of Kounellis, Bacon, Reinhardt, Newman, Tàpies, Johns, Warhol, Stella, Baselitz,
devaluation. Multiculturalism should be denounced when it imposes opacity Paladino, Cucchi, Haring, de Kooning and many more are just a few of the
over determinant class differences. Cross references serve also to eliminate post-War references. The ‘postmodernist’ trend of quotation set the artists free
repetitions. Yet certain fundamental quotations might have been brought in regarding ghosts of influences, referents and plagiarism. A world without
more than one entry, due to the autonomous character of a source. boundaries, in spite of the challenge of the differentiation within a totalitarian
A reiteration of certain paradigmatic names occurs. This is due to the reality trend, makes no shame in claiming interest in a non-Latin American artist.
that artists, even if not compared, have different qualities and that some are This means neither a denial of specificities and cultural tradition of its own in
founders of the local tradition of art, or are sustaining positions of radical Latin America, nor an uncritical approach (to anyone from anywhere). There
or unmatched importance. The given examples do not encompass all the is hardly any difference between a regionalist purity of sources and an interest
possibilities for a certain subject. This glossary was written for the Winnipeg in Bataille or Klossowski. In one of his many texts, Hélio Oiticica made an
Art Gallery (Canada) in complement to the exhibition ‘Cartographies’, appraisal of references (as precedents, differences, parallelisms) between
curated by Ivo Mesquita. However, the text does not discuss exclusively the Brazilians and non-Brazilians regarding ‘The Transition from Colour in the
participating artists in this show. Some widely accepted or known terms, Picture to the Space and the Sense of Constructivity’ (1960s): Kandinsky,
like Futurism, are not explained on the assumption that the public is aware Tatlin, Lissitzky, Malevich, Pevsner, Gabo, Mondrian, Klee, Arp, Taeuber-
of their meaning. This glossary doesn’t intend to be a general theory of the Arp, Schwitters, Calder, Kupka, Magnelli, Jacobsen, David Smith, Brancusi,
origins of Latin American art. It is intended to address the general public, Picasso, Braque, Gris, Boccioni, Max Bill, Baumeister, Dorazio, Étienne-
and less the scholarly or initiated audience. There, the text ends up being a Martin, Wols, Pollock, Tinguely, Schöffer, Nevelson, Klein, Barré, Bloc,
list of the author’s doubts. Sometimes the entries are collages or converging Slesinska, Pasmore, Herbin, Delaunay, Fontana, Albers, Agam, Tomasello,
positions, or they might be the ongoing building of a problematic issue. Kobashi, Lardera, Isobe di Teana, Vassarely, de Kooning, Rothko, Tobey. (See
The entries are then scattered notes on diverse themes in alphabetical order. UNIVERSE.) A puritanism of Latin American sources finds no support in
The author is deeply indebted to Ivo Mesquita, Jon Tupper and to the reality. So they are sources and resources, plus Matisse (with talc). Brazilian
Winnipeg Art Gallery. The initial commission of a ten-page paper on the Waltercio Caldas proposed an open art book about Matisse with talc spread
theme of sources of Latin American art evolved into this Glossary as an on top of the images. The apparent constraints to the vision blossom in the
autonomous publication. The author also wishes to allude to the extreme problems of perception – that of a lucid and transparent ontology of opacity.

236 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 237
HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICAN ART. In spite of previous denials, from MESSIANISM. Colonisation has transformed Eden into hell (Roger Bastide)
the continent or abroad, the art of Latin America also substantially nourishes and has created the field for the development of several forms of messianism.
itself from the History of Latin America which is a tradition in its own right Messianism was indigenous (studied by Schaden and Metraux), popular
and can be observed in constructive art. The work of the atelier of Torres- (Euclides da Cunha) or European (transposed to America – Bastide).
García in Montevideo, Asociación de Arte Constructivo (1934–40), was key ‘Messianism in South America never moved beyond a first draft of
to the formation (as voluntary identification) of the Buenos Aires groups and nationalism. And has been nothing but a dream for writers in Peru, and for
Madí in the 1940s, whose artists exhibited in Rio de Janeiro (1953) and the populace in Brazil’, Bastide concludes. However, Bastide did not approach
influenced the Brazilian Neoconcretist artists. The Neoconcretist group modernist messianism, even if sometimes it was full of irony and influenced
(Amílcar de Castro, Clark, Pape, Oiticica, Weissmann) is a reference for the by Futurist dreams.
artists of the seventies in Brazil (Cildo Meireles, Antonio Manuel, Ivens
Machado, Waltercio Caldas, Tunga, Fajardo, José Carvalho, Iole de Freitas) MESTIZAGE. Ecuadorian painter Viteri made a work (collage on wood)
on many levels, such as phenomenology, poetics, aesthetics, philosophy and called Mestizage (1987). His work deals with pre-Columbian colour, fabrics
ethics (and less in formal aspects). Younger artists (Jac Leirner, Fernanda Gomes, and materials referring to the colonial past. In this work the intricate cultural
Ernesto Neto, Valeska Soares, Frida Baranek) refer to both previous generations process of mestizage deals with spaces and openings, light and shadow, in a
as well as to other international art movements. In Brazil, this is a cultural poetical, ‘woven’, constructive character. Mestizage, the widespread and
dynamic of transformation of ideas rather than a series of aggressive ruptures. complex cross-cultural process, is a major character of Latin American art. In
this process of absorption, contribution or invention, the words of Brazilian
INDO-IBERIAN AMERICA. A term proposed for Latin America in an poet Oswald de Andrade remain a key: ‘Absorption of the sacred enemy. To
editorial of the Mexican magazine America Indigena (vol.19, no.2, April transform him into totem.’ The mythological process finds its psychological
1959): ‘The name Latin America can suggest that those who inhabit this great counterpart in the Freudian theory, giving a symbolic meaning to the
territorial extension are individuals who descend only from the so-called Latin dynamic politics of forms and an openness to the introduction of other
European peoples. […] We believe in the name Indo-Iberian America, since moral values.
its inhabitants are descendants both of Indians and of ancestors from the
Iberian Peninsula, or rather Spanish and Portuguese.’ NATIONALISM. See INTERNATIONALISM.

INTERNATIONALISM. See UNIVERSALISM. NATIVE. The indigenous presence in Latin American art varied thematically
in the early European representations, from the idea as a source and contri-
LATINO-AMERICANIDAD. Just to turn into a problematic issue what bution to the national identity, to primitivist references, to subjectivity of
seems to be a univocal question, we may recall the Brazilian critic Ronaldo native self-representation and individual self-expression. Cuba has very little
Brito who speaks of the nostalgia of a pre-logical phase: ‘It is current for native heritage, since the indigenous population was exterminated in the
example, for Latino-Americanidad ideology to be marked by a desire to return first decades of colonisation. Also, the mestizage process rendered different
to some pre-Greek period to recover the telluric forces which were crushed by approaches to self-identification regarding the ethnic origin. The native
rationalist European colonisation. What can be done with such a simplistic gaze has been absorbed throughout Latin America, as in the Andean paintings
cultural proposal?’ (from Waltercio Caldas, Jr: Aparelhos, Rio de Janeiro, of the Cuzco, Potosí and Quito schools or in the baroque of the Jesuit
1979, p.153). missions in Paraguay. Some groups have also shown their distaste for the
colonisation of their people, like Guaman Poma de Ayala. The long history
MANIFESTO. Latin America adopted the European modernist strategy of of indigenous art has many chapters. In the nineteenth-century Brazilian
writing manifestos as tactical declarations of principles against conservative academy, as commonly as elsewhere, Indians did not correspond to their
force or opponents, or as an effective social means of circulating ideas. Some ethnic group. This anthropological falsehood was reinforced with Catholic
hundreds of manifestos in all fields, from art to music, were written on the morality. Native nudity would appear only in dying Indians and corpses
continent. Manifestos were intended to give ‘visibility’ to ideas. When art (like in Victor Meirelles’s Moema of 1866), or in a Christian situation, like
historians take exhibitions and manifestos as the sole or main historical process, The Last of the Tamoios (1883) by Rodolfo Amoedo. What was indigenous
they are distorting the cultural dynamics. This unconsciously reflects the Latin gained strength in Andean countries and Mexico in the last century. As early
American literary tradition in dealing with art. Manifestos are not the absolute as 1855 Peruvian Francisco Laso painted The Indian Potter, an individual
source of art and this produces a shadow over isolated artists like the Brazilian full of dignity and an inheritor of history. In Mexico, the indigenous was
Oswaldo Goeldi, certainly the most rigorous Brazilian spirit in modern art from symbolic in nationalism and modernisation. Under the pressures of foreign
the 1910s until his death in 1962. That distortion by national historians leads oppression and exploitation national identity appeared in the last quarter of
to a second wave of opacity with foreign authors quoting the former. They have the nineteenth century in the paintings of José María Obregón, Félix Parra
fallen into the trap of ‘manifestism’, a new manifest destiny, now in art… and Leandro Izaguirre (Torture of Cuauhtémoc, 1893). The muralist movement

238 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 239
brought the indigenous to public spaces, building for Mexico the broadest time, in Buenos Aires, Luis Felipe Noé published his Antiestetica (1965). He
set of symbolic images, with artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente discusses the making of art in a chaotic reality. Art is then an adventure,
Orozco, Siqueiros, Fernando Leal, Jean Charlot and Francisco Goitia, among involving oneself and the Other. (See SOCIAL COMMITMENT.) In the
others. In European primitivism there was a relatively smaller reference to present system of hegemonies, the truth is that the ‘Other’ is always us,
the indigenous heritage of Latin America, as with Henry Moore. Returning never they, observes Cuban art critic Gerardo Mosquera.
from his long European stay, Torres-García came back to Uruguay in 1934
for his final search for universal symbolism in native culture. Modernism in PERVERSIONS OF HISTORY. The first murder of a Native, the first rape,
the region faced the apparent contradiction of looking to the past. This the first descent of an African slave on the continent, the experience of
movement sought to regain the identity which had been lost, distorted or Otherness (see OTHER) is found in the perverse face of history. The complex
constructed in the colonial past. From the Peruvian magazine Amauta DUALITY. Guy Brett has commented on the widespread proposition of ‘a
(1926) by José Carlos Mariátegui (‘El titulo no traduce sino nuestra adhesion Latin American “subject” faced by overwhelming contradictions: on the one
a la Raza, no reflexa sino nuestro homenaje al Incísmo’) to the painting hand between experiences of the immensity and richness of nature’, and ‘on
Abaporu by Tarsila do Amaral and to the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (1928) of the other hand of its waste and destruction by corrupt administrations (in
Oswald de Andrade (see CANNIBALISM) this modernist attitude was league with foreign interests, which have been continuously engaged in
widespread in the continent. Some contemporary artists are absorbed by the robbing the continent for more than 400 years)’. (See UTOPIA.) In the
vast and silent Andean landscape as marked by the pre-Columbian cultures, painting Filho Bastardo (Bastard Child, 1992) Brazilian Adriana Varejão
others with the grief of the Conquest. The aesthetic, which searches for an revisits historical images, like the French painter J.B. Debret, to present
indigenous metaphysical space is evidenced in the work of Peruvian Alfredo perversions in history, such as a negress being raped by a priest, or an Indian
Szyszlos, Colombians Carlos Rojas, Edgar Negret and Ramírez Villamizar, woman prisoner approached by a soldier with his phallic weapons. The artist
Uruguayan Nelson Ramos, in the books of Argentinian Jacques Bedel and in is an agent of history for the politics of gender. Chilean Juan Davila covers
the photography of Brazilian Sebastião Salgado. More recently some artists the male body with signs, symbols and reminiscences of a perverse personal
such as Cildo Meireles, Claudia Andujar and Bene Fonteles in Brazil and history. The signs of degradation of the private world are visibly attached to
Uruguayan José Gamarra, with his literary historical landscapes aligned the body like scarifications and perverse decorations.
their work against the genocide of Indians. In spite of the richness of this
theme, historical domination remains as a constraint to the self-expression POSTMODERN. A term coined by Mário Pedrosa in Brazil in 1966 to refer
of Native groups in Latin America. This appears also in the work of Chileans to the end of modern art (‘Crise do Condicionamento Artístico’, in Mundo,
Gonzalo Díaz and Eugenio Dittborn. On the other hand, ‘art’ as a Western Homem, Arte em Crise, São Paulo, 1975, p.92). (See also CRISIS and ROOTS.)
category is foreign to indigenous cultures. Can we call the symbolic artifacts
of the ceremonial life of such cultures ‘art’? As the German artist Lothar POSTMODERNISM. The term postmodern had been coined and used in
Baumgarten has dealt with in his work, this can touch, as an act of linguistic Latin America before the great discussion in Europe and North America (see
appropriation, the very first movements of the Conquest: the giving of POSTMODERN), however, in the post-modern debate it seems that in
European names to the geography of the New World. Latin America we are only perceiving its arrival, says Néstor García Canclini.
Some others point out that the idea of postmodernity is useless in a continent
NATIVE LATIN AMERICANS. They were born in Latin America: where modernity has neither yet arrived at large nor come for everyone. For
Lautréamont (Uruguay) (see SURREALISM), Lucio Fontana (Argentina) Canclini Latin America has a multitemporal heterogeneity, with contradictions
Öyvind Fahlström (Brazil), Hervé Télémaque (Haiti), Marisol and Meyer between cultural modernism and socio-political modernisation. That
Vaisman (Venezuela) and Saint Clair Cemin (Brazil), Matta (Chile) and the temporality involves the indigenous and colonial traditions with modern
Irish potato. political, educational and communicational activity. According to Chilean
critic Justo Mellado: ‘the eighties and the nineties […] have allowed that the
OTHER. 1492 was ‘an astonishing revelation of Otherness (people, lands, demarxistisation of the artistic discourse be replaced by post-structuralism,
cultures) beyond the confines of the Old World’, wrote Mari Carmen Ramirez. i.e. the North-American version of a group of French authors of diverse
Contemporarily, Heidegger’s influence has been the awareness of an ‘existence epistemological precedence, whose introduction to the American editorial
among Others’ within the irremediable separation between the I and the space gave place to a heterodox body of discourse which has been called
Other. Since the early sixties, Brazilian artists developed, as a strategy for “postmodern theory”.’
dealing with a period of social and political crisis and psychological distress,
an art that was an alliance with the Other. For such artists as Lygia Clark, PRIMITIVISM. The impact of Futurism in Latin America in the first
Hélio Oiticica and Cildo Meireles, among others, art would perfect its decades of the century was gradually replaced by primitivism as a general
existence and realise its full potential as a significant period and an trend. Primitivism was closer to the reality of Latin America, more coherent
irreplaceable experience only through the action of the Other. At the same to the impact of the social Darwinism of Spencer than the Futurist ideas of

240 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 241
social progress and technology. This ‘modernity offered a possibility of a Juan Davila, a Chilean living in Australia, and Julio Galán, a Mexican living
connection with the past and cultural reality of Latin America. Thus, primitiv- in his native Monterrey. This is implied in Galán’s paintings like Mi papas
ism was not now an approach to the Other, but rather a search for oneself el dia antes que supieran que yo hiber a nacer (1988). For Davila, the primal
through the national identity.’ Furthermore, primitivism was a filter between scene is dislocated from the narcissistic obsession, and moves toward a
Latin America and some tribal societies. Tarsila do Amaral’s painting collective symbolisation. The primal scene is now History, in the chapter of
A Negra (1923) is the major modernist work dealing with Brazilian African the Conquest. Davila takes the character of Juanito Laguna, from the series
heritage. However she found her sources of primitivism in Brancusi’s sculpture of paintings of the Argentinian Antonio Berni, to create images where the
and Blaise Cendrars’ ideas of ‘negritude’ in a sojourn in Paris that year. boy is dressed in the make-up of the ‘exotic’ Latin American style of
painting, says Davila with irony. The artist further writes that ‘I will cast
PSYCHOANALYSIS. ‘As artistic talent and productive ability are intimately him in drawings of Balthus, of Wuthering Heights, as Cathy […] Juanito
connected with sublimation, we have to admit also that the nature of artistic Laguna as a half-caste, mixed breed, arrives in the ‘primal scene of an
attainment is psychoanalytically inaccessible to us’ (Freud). This entry only English novel to enact the return of the outcast’ [sic]. Some paintings of
makes some cross references between art and psychoanalysis as a source. Galán touch deep levels of the individual topic. He plays with the symbolism
Briefly applying the meaning of Freud to Surrealism, we may see, as devised of regression to areas of the ‘primal scene’ and he nods to the ‘mirror state’
by William Rubin in ‘the Freud-inspired dialectic of Surrealism’: ‘what had (Lacan), as if the ego searched for the trauma of the constitutive moment.
been a therapy for Freud would become a philosophy and literary point of The exploration of these inner regions transfers the psychoanalytical recon-
departure for Breton’. Mexico has been a realm for Surrealist visitors struction of the individual history as a pictorial visibility. Brazilian Lygia
(Breton, Buñuel), immigrants (Wolfgang Paalen from Austria, Leonora Clark’s work evolved from an art connected to perception and phenomenology
Carrington from Britain and César Moro from Peru) and the natives (Manuel to an actual practice of therapy with ‘relational objects’, following the
Álvarez Bravo, Diego Rivera at a certain moment, Remedios Varo, who was theory of Sapir. Such objects are defined in the relationship established with
married to French Surrealist poet Benjamin Péret, Agustín Lazo). However the fantasies of the subject. Prior to this, Clark had ideas of the dissolution
Frida Kahlo and Álvarez Bravo did not consider themselves Surrealists. of the figure of the artist, when proposing experiences (see OTHER), in
Dislocation has been a territory for the development of the three ‘last such works as Caminhando (1964) and Sensorial Gloves (1968). Finally, in a
surrealists’ as named by Rubin: the Chilean Roberto Matta, the Cuban radical move, she called herself a ‘non-artist’.
Wifredo Lam, with the Afro-Cuban orixas and the Armenian Arshile Gorky.
In Brazilian modernism, the surrealist aspect brings a level of both a threshold REGIONALISM. See CONTINENTALISM.
repulse and a dynamic incorporation of Freudian psychoanalysis: ‘Before
the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered happiness’ (Oswald RELIGION. The Catholic Church was responsible for the major colonial
de Andrade, ‘Manifesto antropófago’, 1928). Ideally, in this land the ‘beau artistic achievements all over Latin America, such as the temples in Quito,
sauvage’ was not reducible to the Freudian theory because their civilisation Lima, Ouro Preto, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Habana or Mexico. ‘The low
had not experienced certain conflicts: ‘Down with social reality, dressed and anthropophagousness in the sins of the catechism, envy, usury, calumny,
oppressive, registered by Freud – reality without complexes, without prostitu- murder. Plague of the so-called cultured Christianised peoples, it is against
tion and without prisons of the matriarchy of Pindorama’, Andrade adduces. it that we are acting’ has been ironically stated by Brazilian poet Oswald de
(See CANNIBALISM and WOMEN.) The basic anthropophagous surrealism Andrade in his ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (See CANNIBALISM). Peruvian
of Tarsila is a state of vigil, instead of the elsewhere predominant model of José Carlos Mariátegui applied a bruising directness in his appraisal of the
the dream. Finally, the major relationship with the theory of Freud is Indian problem [sic]: ‘Today, however, a religious solution is undoubtedly
established in the fundamental principle that directs Brazilian culture in the most obsolete and anti-historical of all.’ Religion is critically approached
this century: the anthropophagous banquet, ‘the permanent transformation today by such artists as Brazilian Adriana Varejão (the embodiment of suffering)
of taboo into totem’ (Oswald de Andrade). For some other reasons, we find and Peruvian Moico Yaker (the perversion of the Judeo-Christian civilisation).
a similar denial of Freud’s positions for art with Lygia Clark in 1966: ‘We A contemporary position is the approach to Saint Augustine (396–430 AD)
refuse the Freudian idea of man conditioned by the unconscious past and we to whose philosophical thoughts Brazilians Regina Vater and Tunga refer.
stress the notion of liberty. Contemporary Latin American art, as in other Tunga’s exhibition, ‘Desordres’ (Jeu de Paume, 1993) is an installation
continents, is a broad field caught up with psychoanalysis. Otherwise, the which makes reference to Saint Augustine ‘either in theological discussions
psychoanalytical dimension might be raised within certain discussions of an with meditation on the investigation of the meaning of words or in a simple
apparently unrelated source. We should not limit the interest to Freud, since anecdote which itself refers to a meditation (about the Holy Trinity)’. ‘SER
other theorists like Jung and, last but not least, Lacan, have an importance TE AMAVI ’ (Confessions, Book 10, 27–38) of Augustine is the title of the
in their own right. The post-Freudian theories find their place among the installation. Tunga uses the anecdote of the angel, the ocean and the ‘thimble’
sources for Latin American art. To exemplify the individual approach, under as a possibility for discussing the inexorable access to human language,
different circumstances, the ‘primal scene’ was chosen, as dealt with by the transcendence which, in said installation, migrates to the aesthetic fact.

242 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 243
ROOTS. For Mário Pedrosa (see POSTMODERN) the crisis of Modern Art dilemma (to be or not to be) would then find a cultural migration in the
is in the loss of its cultural roots and its submission to unstable and aleatory pun with the Tupi native language (Tupi, or not tupi that is the question).
patterns, like those dominating the market.
TRANSLINGUISTIC DETERRITORIALISATION. This glossary has been
SOCCER. Latin America produces no good art connected to soccer, in spite originally written in English, Portuguese being the mater language of the
of winning the world championship seven times: Brazil (3), Argentina (2) author. This deterritorialisation is meant to compare to the answer given by
and Uruguay (2). the Argentinian artist Miguel Uriburu, when asked by the British customs
to spell his last name: ‘You are I, be you, are you.’ In such babel of otherness
SOCIAL COMMITMENT. It is quite common for the individuality of a and identity, the artist developed his artistic project of dumping green colour
Latin American artist to be denied or required to represent some aspect of in the water of important geographic points (the Hudson River in New
the region. This happens both in regard to foreign expectations and local York, the Grand Canal in Venice, etc.). Colour was the unifying element
demands, to which he/she might be aligned in a ‘South American sensibility’ derived from visual language in a world of growing internationalism and
(Chantal Pontbriand). Living amidst a hard social reality, and yet in a less disrupted by deterritorialisations.
individualistic society, Latin American artists in general never believed in
the absolute autonomy of art. Historically this belief in the social character UNIVERSALISM. See REGIONALISM.
of the cultural project has led artists to search for a national identity and to
engage social change. Ida Rodríguez Prampolini reached the conclusion that UNIVERSE. See EVERYTHING.
‘since Mexico obtained its independence from Spain in 1821, if any quality
has remained around the trajectory of critical and artistic production up to UTOPIA. According to Sir Thomas More, Utopia was very close to South
1950s it is the entailment of art, politics and society’. This commitment has America, just some fifteen miles from its coast. Maybe that is why the
been altered by the historical process. Says Argentinian artist Luis Felipe Americas have been a fertile field for the projection of utopias. Since 1492,
Noé: ‘As a change we are now in a society in which the artist lives with the like utopia under a nightmare, the ‘beau sauvage’ has continuously been
consciousness of the ‘I and the Other’, and the world in front’, ‘I and the faced with and resisted genocide. Since the sixties, Cuba represented a real
Others’, ‘I and world around mine’. This way he finds himself in adventure, and possible social utopia for a continent of great inequalities. The Cuban
not implicitly in a collective adventure but in wonder. He has the tendency artist Ricardo Brey, living in Belgium, has written about present times: ‘I
to meet society, however without halting his own mission, his own sense of was born in Cuba. That was Utopia. The cathedral too. Now we need to
being.’ Brazilian sculptor Carlos Fajardo, with his investigation and invention reconsider things. Maybe there’s no longer a place for cathedrals.’
of the poetic possibilities of materiality, offers a level of sociability that is
pertinent to contemporary times. Working within a tradition, the rigorousness WAR. Civil wars, wars among Latin American countries or wars with the
of his project and the transparency of his method, Fajardo opens new Northern Neighbor (with its application of the Monroe Doctrine) are a source
approaches to knowledge as an experience of clarity. This is the commitment of art. This art, in the realm of the expansion of capitalism, is an act of resist-
to the Other, in a contemporary social dimension. ance. The craft of the Arpilleras of Chile, under the Pinochet dictatorship
(which realigned the country with capitalism) testified for the grief under
SURREALISM. Since the ‘Chants of Maldoror’ (1868) of Lautréamont a the political regime. During the Paraguayan War (1865–70, which opened
video by the Uruguayan Isidore-Lucien Ducasse (1846–70), the Surrealist the country to British capital), Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay committed
process of dissociation was created by ‘the chance encounter of a sewing genocide against Paraguay (an estimated killing of 75 per cent of the popu-
machine and an umbrella on a dissection table’. Quite often Latin America lation), whereas the Paraguayan soldiers resisted by printing newspapers in
is given as a Surrealist continent, as Mexico has been a haven for the their camps and illustrating them with caricatures made by woodblock prints.
Surrealist exile, ‘everyday life in Latin America proves that reality is full of Contemporary Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer takes the Mexican American
the most extraordinary things’, remarked Colombian writer Gabriel García War (1848), through which the United States annexed the present territory of
Márquez. Surrealism and other affinities reinforce the idea of unconsciousness Texas, to deconstruct the opacities of history by building coincidences between
and irrationality, sometimes assigned to Latin American culture. When a historical facts and present-day objects (like a camouflage bag inscribed with
Brazilian poet declares that ‘we had already the surrealist language’ in his Coca-Cola that he bought from a tourist stand at the site of one of the historical
‘Manifesto antropófago’ (1928) (see CANNIBALISM), there is an indispu- events of that war). Argentinian Guillermo Kuitca painted a theatre of
table historical dimension. He was in the process of establishing a national individual anguish towards the distant theatre of the absurdities of war.
project of culture. Therefore the past and native origin (i.e. the language)
had a contemporary meaning (i.e. it was Surrealist, that is to say, it had WATERMELON. The heraldic fruit for Mexico is the watermelon. Quite often
the character of the then predominant international cultural movement). it appears as colour intensity, as in the painting of Frida Kahlo and Rufino
This is Andrade’s dialectical perspective of culture. The Shakespearean Tamayo. The painting of Dulce Maria Nunez takes the fruits of the fertility

244 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 245
of the land as symbols of a historicity derived from artistic tradition. There are presence of Raymond Roussel or Edgar Poe among many others. However,
watermelons and pineapples in Mermaid (1990), bananas in Dutch Huitzilo- Lezama Lima and Godofredo Iommi as poets or ‘theorists’ are still found in
pochtli or corn, deified by the ancient Natives. The Brazilian poet Murilo the fundamentals of the work.’ To this list Bataille and Nerval could be added.
Mendes called the open watermelon ‘the red bread suspended in front of the Romero Brest opened the space for free experiment in Argentina for decades,
mouth of the poor, a spectacle to the stomach, on view’. (See BANANA.) in a position in many ways similar to Pedrosa. In Peru, the critic Emilio
Westphalen gave his support to the indigenous themes of painter Fernando
WOMEN. Brazil profited from the most radical (see ROOTS) participation de Szyszlo. Marta Traba identified with some painting and literature, such as
of women throughout the twentieth century. The first Brazilian-born artist to Guayasamín and Huasipungo respectively in Ecuador, Szyszlo and Vallejo in
have a one-person exhibition of modern art in the country was Anita Malfatti, Peru. In Colombia she compared Garcia Marquez to Alejandro Obregón (in
in 1917. Tarsila do Amaral established the basis for a national modern art that the atemporality of the plot) and Fernando Botero (the treatment of ‘normality’
involved local plastic values and a cosmogony where women have expended that is given to verisimilitude). Poetry and art were interwoven in Brazil
great energy for the creation of a social place for art. During the Pinochet with Poesia Concreta (Décio Pignatari, Haroldo and Augusto de Campos), with
dictatorship in Chile, Nelly Richard developed a criticism of resistance and Concretism (Waldemar Cordeiro, Geraldo de Barros and others), as well as
a highly complex political analysis of the social inception of artistic language. with collaborative works by Hélio Oiticica, Julio Plaza and others. Poet Raúl
In this country, women of different generations (Roser Bru, Virginia Zurita integrates the multidisciplinary Chilean group CADA. For Borges,
Errázuriz, Alicia Villarreal, Catalina Parra, Lotty Rosenfeld, Diamela Eltit after his father, Alejandro Xul Solar was the most persistent person in his
and Nury González), using poetic strategies of ellipses and metaphor, effected memory: ‘Xul has lived recreating the universe’.
a political project for a cultural life under surveillance. Argentinean critic
Marta Traba, active in Colombia, made probably the first major attempt to
understand the artistic process of Latin America within a political totality.
For younger Colombian generations there is María Fernanda Cardoso and
Doris Salcedo, with their perverse disturbance of the systems of objects,
from nature to the domestic environment. In Mexico the new fundamentalist
tendencies (with Rocio Maldonado, Dulce Maria Nunez, Georgina Quintana,
Mónica Castillo and Sylvia Ordóñez, among others) overtly deal with the
female presence in art and life, with the tradition of the country and with
desire. They repeat the broad presence of the female gaze and imagination, as
in the Surrealism of Mexico (Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington
and María Izquierdo) (Abridged.)

WORDS. ‘I insistently recommend, in face of the plastic-fact, the verbal

vacuum’, said Brazilian sculptor Sérgio de Camargo in this continent of the
baroque. However, there are several examples in which the dialogue with an
art critic has been a decisive element or a contribution to the formation of
the art of certain individuals. The crucial moment of Brazilian modernism,
‘Antropofagia’ (See CANNIBALISM) had its starting point in the paintings
by Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu and Antropofagia (1928), developing its
position in the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (1928) by writer Oswald de Andrade.
The poet Murilo Mendes in Brazil was important to the development of the
work of Ismael Nery. Marta Traba said that in many cases ‘The only failure
of the sorcerers is that they were not perfectly followed in the rituals by
officiating aids comparable to Paz for Tamayo, and later for Cuevas, or to
Fuentes for Cuevas.’ In Brazil Mário Pedrosa established ethical standards
through in-depth dialogue with the art system. Neoconcretism in Rio de
Janeiro, and Lygia Clark among the artists of the group, are very much
indebted to the poet Ferreira Gullar for the organisation of their thought.
Since the early 1970s, Ronaldo Brito in Rio de Janeiro has exchanged ideas
and worked very closely with Sérgio de Camargo, Tunga, Eduardo Sued and
Waltercio Caldas. Tunga has written that, ‘More important though, is the

246 Incomplete Glossary of Sources of Latin American Art Paulo Herkenhoff 247
Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States: Andrea Fraser, Reporting from
São Paulo, I’m from the United
Five Broadcasts on the 24th Bienal de São Paulo States, 1998, five-channel video
— Andrea Fraser installation, colour, sound; and
single-channel video, colour,
sound, 24min, video stills
In 1998, Ivo Mesquita invited me to participate in the North American All images © the artist

section of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo, which he curated. This text is a
transcript of my project for the Bienal, a series of short videotapes produced
in São Paulo and edited in New York between September and December
1998. The videotapes, comprised of interviews and commentary recorded
on location, were co-produced by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and TV
Cultura, a cultural station supported by a private foundation, and were
supposed to be televised nationally in Brazil by TV Cultura. Due to a
number of adverse circumstances, many of which are represented on the tapes
themselves, as well as scheduling conflicts created first by national elections
and then by the Free Jazz Festival, shooting was not completed until three AF: In Europe and the US I’d never be able to work on TV, so it’s a great
weeks after the exhibition opened and editing continued until three days opportunity.
before the show closed. The tapes were never broadcast.
— [Andrea walks back to her first position, speaks to her right, then smiles.]

1. ‘The only things that interest me are those which are not mine.’ 1 AF: That’s great.

[The opening of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo, 2 October 1998. A series of [Two-second freeze-frame. Cut to Andrea on the top floor of the Pavilhaõ
shots show the well-dressed crowd at the invitation-only pre-opening Matarazzo (Matarazzo Pavilion), with Choi Jeong Hwa’s Encore, Encore, fig.10, 27 and 40
cocktail party.] Encore (1997), an inflatable column with an angel on top, all in gold,
flapping its wings in the background.]
Andrea Fraser [voice-over]: Boa noite. The 24th Bienal de São Paulo opens
this evening with a private gala event at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, in AF: The Bienal has always been about fostering international exchange. This
São Paulo’s Parque Ibirapuera. Among the hundreds of cultural luminaries year’s instalment attempts to thematise that process by focusing on the concept
visiting from all over the world is the US artist Andrea Fraser. of cannibalism. According to the organisers, cannibalism is not a diet, but a
metaphor for our relationship to others [cut to wide shot of ground floor from
[Cut to Andrea 2 standing on the central ramp of the Matarazzo Pavilion, the central ramp]: to differences of culture, identity and status [cut to a large
designed by Oscar Niemeyer, with the atrium behind her. Throughout the group of young women, all wearing black dresses and jackets, walking down the
broadcasts she is wearing the same black dress and jacket and holding a ramp]. Anthropophagy is a process of confiscating another’s values to construct
microphone bearing the TV Cultura logo.] one’s own [cut to the group of women in black in a reception area with Bienal
logo in background; Andrea walks into the frame], of legitimising oneself in
AF: Andrea’s project is to produce news reports about the Bienal for TV relation to [cut back to Andrea on the top floor] – or opposition to – what is
Cultura. [Andrea turns to address an interviewee off-camera to her right.] given as legitimate in society.3
Andrea, what led you to select reportage as your medium for the Bienal? —
3
This interpretation of cannibalism was offered by Mari Carmen Ramírez in her
[Cut to counter-shot of Andrea, now standing to the right.] press release for the exhibition of works by David Alfaro Siqueiros that she curated
for the Bienal. Ramírez has elsewhere written: ‘The efforts undertaken in the last
decade to integrate Latin American countries into the dynamics of a new world order
— have necessitated the exchange of cultural capital for access to financial and economic
1
All of the segment titles, including this sentence, are quoted from Oswald de privileges. One of the unacknowledged forms in which this exchange has taken place
Andrade’s ‘Manifesto antropófago’ (‘Anthropophagite Manifesto’), originally has been through art exhibitions.’ Further on in the same essay, she notes: ‘Whereas,
published in Revista de Antropophagia, May 1928, São Paulo. [Editors’ Note: in the past, the visual arts functioned as banners of prestige for nationalist states,
For Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’, see this volume, pp.222–29.] today they can be seen to embody a type of marketing tool for Latin American neo-
2
My use of first names in these shot descriptions follows the convention of the liberal economic elites. […] The erasure of the conflict-ridden sixties and seventies
Brazilian media, where even the president is referred to by her first name. from the ensuing mainstream account of Latin American art can only suggest two

248 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 249
 gallery of the ‘Modernismo Brasileiro’ section of the exhibition, showing its
visitors and guards.]

AF: It was Fernando Henrique Cardoso who first described neo-colonialism

as resulting from an internalisation of external interests and values.
According to Fernando Henrique, external interests are represented and
enforced internally by local elites who identify foreign values as their own.
This process of internalisation led internationalised elites in peripheral
countries to adopt models of development based on the consumption
patterns and lifestyles of central capitalist economies.4

[Cut to a photograph of Francisco ‘Ciccillo’ Matarazzo Sobrinho at the

entrance of the Bienal offices. Camera pans left and travels down corridor to
the Bienal logo. Andrea can be seen walking through frame towards camera.]
[Cut to interview with Paulo Herkenhoff, Chief Curator of the 24th Bienal.
Andrea and Paulo are seen walking along an enormous wall plastered with AF [voice-over]: The history of the Bienal itself reveals a process of
fragments of the words ‘totem’, ‘taboo’ and ‘roteiros’.] anthropophagy. Founded by the Italian-born industrialist Francisco ‘Ciccillo’
Matarazzo in 1951, the Bienal de São Paulo was inspired by such influences as
Paulo Herkenhoff: Every cannibalistic act, every anthropophagic act, is a the Venice Biennale and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.5
symbolic act. That means, eating the other in order to get the force of the
other, the values of the other, into yourself. [Cut to interview with Paulo.]

fig.94–95 [Cut to Andrea in front of Tropicália Penetráveis (1967) by Hélio Oiticica, PH: The country came out of the war with an economic surplus in the
an installation of fabric-walled huts and tropical plants on gravel and balance of payments. Of course, there was a bourgeoisie that was willing to
sand. One of the huts contains a television set.] act in a modern way.6
—
AF: Among the hundreds of interpretations of cannibalism offered by the 4
Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in
organisers of the 24th Bienal is of anthropophagy as a strategy of emancipation Latin America (trans. Marjory Mattingly Urquidi), Berkeley: University of California
from a colonial past – or within a neo-colonial present. Press, 1979. In ‘The Consumption of Dependency Theory in the United States’
(Latin American Research Review, vol.XII, no.3, 1977, p.13) Cardoso summarised
the position of ‘dependentistas’ as follows: ‘If imperialism was embodied in the
[Cut to interview with Evelyn Ioschpe, Director of Art Education for the penetration of foreign capital … it also implied a structural pattern of relations that
24th Bienal. Andrea and Evelyn are seen in the Bienal offices, seated in “internalised” the external and created a state which was formally sovereign and
front of a large poster with one of the Bienal’s slogans: ‘Only anthropophagy ready to be an answer to the interests of the “nation”, but which was simultaneously
unites us.’ ] and contradictorily the instrument of international economic domination.’ In this
way ‘alliances are established within the country, even though in contradictory form,
Evelyn Ioschpe: This is a perfect moment to think about this: how we – to unify external interests with those of the local dominant groups’ and, as a result,
all the colonised countries – have to deal with the anthropophagy of ideas; ‘the local dominated classes suffer a kind of double exploitation’.
5
Another influence was clearly Nelson Rockefeller, president of MoMA and a
how you as a being deal with a culture when you feel that your culture is friend of Matarazzo. The first paragraph of a 1951 letter co-signed by Rockefeller
somehow a dependent culture. and Matarazzo reads: ‘Realising the great need for increased understanding in the
field of international relations, the Museum of Modern Art and the Museu de Arte
[Cut to Andrea in front of Tropicália Penetráveis. Shortly after she begins Moderna de São Paulo last October entered into an agreement to cooperate with
speaking camera pans right, past the installation and around the central each other in every way possible. The purpose of this agreement is to supplement
the existing cooperation in the sphere of economics and politics with cultural
— interchange.’ Letter from Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho and Nelson A. Rockefeller
things: first, the neo-liberal elites’ search for legitimation of their origins in an essen- to Albert V. Moore, 8 March 1951, Fundação Bienal Archive. However, after a few
tialist, ultimately reductive, account of the cultural achievements of the twenties and years of close cooperation between the Bienal – then a programme of the Museu de
thirties; second, the recognition of the positive achievements of their modernisation Arte Moderna – and MoMA in New York, Matarazzo caused a split by refusing to
project.’ M.C. Ramírez, ‘Brokering Identities: Art Curators and the Politics of hire a curator recommended by Rockefeller.
Cultural Representation’, in Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Furguson and Sandy Nairne 6
Herkenhoff went on to say: ‘Of course, there were some models, like the
(ed.), Thinking about Exhibitions, New York: Routledge, 1993, pp.25 and 30–31. Museum of Modern Art in New York, for these institutions, or the Biennale in

250 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 251
 [Cut to an interview with Jens Olesen, Vice-President of the 24th Bienal
as well as President for Latin America of the advertising firm McCann
Erickson. Andrea and Jens are seen seated in his office. Behind Andrea is a
large yellow lithograph of Marilyn Monroe. Behind Jens is a painting
depicting Mao Tse-tung and Whitney Houston.]

AF: Jens, how long have you been involved with the Bienal de São Paulo?

Jens Olesen: I’ve actually been involved for the last seven years. For the 22nd
Bienal I was invited to come in as the National Director and try to regain
some of the prestige and respect of the Bienal in the world, to bring big
names for special exhibitions, to get the big public to come, because the
Bienals in the past had gotten to a level that I don’t think was too satisfactory.
They were not international Bienals on the highest levels. And it’s not
[Cut to interview with Oscar Landmann, the first President of the Bienal enough to have a Brazilian or Latin American Bienal. You have to have
following Ciccillo’s death and the father of the 24th Bienal’s President, a worldwide international Bienal.8
Julio Landmann.]
[Cut to camera following Andrea as she walks through a service corridor,
AF: Tell me about Ciccillo. What kind of person was he? past surprised service staff and cleaning supplies, into exhibition galleries,
merging with the opening crowd. Cut back to interview with Jens.]
Oscar Landmann: He was a total dictator, I would say.
JO: I would say overall that the Bienal is a very professional, disciplined
[Cut to interview with Paulo.] organisation that is as good as any other international organisation in the
world [cut to a series of images of people at the opening]. This has happened
PH: I think the Bienal educates, in a way, the bourgeoisie, and now the over the last six years, where now that, in terms of security, in terms of
enterprises. No? Transforming financial capital into symbolic capital. having a [cut to a series of images of guards at the opening, ending with a
caterer shutting a door on the camera] museum that has temperature and
[Cut to VIPs leaving the pre-opening cocktail party in the Bienal offices. humidity controls, and security…
The photograph of Ciccillo can be seen in the background.]
[Cut to Andrea on ground floor of the Pavilhão Matarazzo. Behind her,
AF [voice-over]: While ranked ‘tops in prestige’ in its early years, the military people and press crowd into the area where opening speeches are being
dictatorship and the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s led to a decline which the delivered by various officials. Andrea addresses an interviewee off-camera
Bienal only recently began to reverse.7 to her right.]

— AF: Are you enjoying the opening this evening?

Venice, but I think that with its half-century of history the Bienal has developed
a history of its own. In the beginning it was a place where the country could see [She steps to her right and passes the microphone to her left hand.]
what was going on around the world – let’s say to update itself – but nowadays
it’s more a place of discussion where also the world can see what [is going on in
Brazil]. It has formed an audience. It has formed many artists.’ AF: Well, it’s great to be surrounded by the most important people in Brazil.
7
In his 1967 review of the 9th edition, Hilton Kramer first blamed this ‘decline’ on It’s great to have the attention of the media. It’s great to see people here
the influence of the Bienal itself: ‘Brazilians are just catching up on the impact of
the last exhibition when the new one wipes the slate clean again and imposes new —
influences, new conceptions and new fashions. … What one finds very, very little ‘Art and Politics in São Paulo’, The New York Times, 24 September 1967.
of is art of an authentic personal vision or cogency. One sees only synthetic ill- 8
Roberta Smith’s 1994 review of the 22nd edition continues in the same vein with
digested ideas often executed with a startling vulgarity and ineptitude.’ Kramer remarkable seamlessness: ‘Does this hodgepodge of weak art and mixed messages
then provides a stunning example of this ‘influence’ in action: ‘It happens that the want to be, like its European counterparts, a survey of the artistic mainstream … ?
American exhibition here, called “Environment U.S.A: 1957–1967”, a spectacular Does it want to redefine the megashow concept into something more egalitarian
survey of Pop art spectacularly installed, is the smash hit of the Bienal, and in the and genuinely international? Or does it want to remain the amateurish exercise in
reaction of visiting officials and artists one can see that mixture of envy, admiration, nationalism and regionalism that is had tended to be in recent years?’ R. Smith,
fear and outright hatred that has its political analogy the world over.’ H. Kramer, ‘Signs to a Global Village in Progress’, The New York Times, 30 November 1994.

252 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 253
 PH: The conquering of souls for Christianity was like cannibalism: you
should have this drive to devour the other into your own ideas. Of course,
this is a notion from Christianity in the seventeenth century, but what
I think is very interesting – that is being developed now, here, at the Bienal –
is that in the ‘Manifesto antropófago’ there is a moment in which it says
‘Only anthropophagy unites us.’ It says, we need the other, the values of the
other, to mingle, to mediate, to absorb. But also the manifesto says ‘I am
interested only in what is not mine.’

[Cut to interview with Evelyn.]

EI: All I’m interested in is what is not mine. That’s what the Anthropophagic
movement tells us. So that is what we are exploring with the teachers.

I know from all over the world. I feel like I’m who I’m supposed to be, where AF: To try to encourage them to look at art that way?
I’m supposed to be. I feel justified in being what I am.
EI: Yes, and not… Without any bias.
[She steps to her left and passes microphone to her right hand.]
[Cut to counter-shot of Andrea, looking at the shoes, hair, etc., of interviewee.]
AF: That’s great. That must be very satisfying. I envy you.
— EI [voice-over]: In a country as Brazil, where you have an economic gap –
meaning also an educational gap [cut back to Evelyn] – when you’re dealing
2. ‘Only anthropophagy unites us.’ with art education, you’re dealing with literacy, you’re dealing with all other
subjects, which means social inclusion. [Cut to counter-shot with the producer
[Cut to Andrea on the ground floor of the Pavilhão Matarazzo. The opening of the programme, a young black woman, sitting in as interviewer, listening.] If
crowd can be seen walking towards the camera from behind her.] you have an educated people, you will have people who fight for their rights,
you will have the land reform [cut back to Evelyn], you will have a situation
AF: This Bienal understands education as its major responsibility. Education which is decent for all people.
is understood as the formation of new audiences and the integration of culture
into society as well as work with schools, libraries and public networks. [Cut to interview with Paulo.]

[Cut to pan of a school group walking through the pavilion’s atrium, PH: It’s about developing, let’s say, a critical citizenship.
then to another school group walking towards the camera at the entrance
to the Bienal.] [Cut to interview with Brazilian Minister of Culture, Francisco Weffort.
Andrea and Francisco are seen standing at the pre-opening cocktail party,
AF [voice-over]: Half a million visitors are expected at the 24th Bienal. with a poster for the first Bienal in the background.]
40 per cent of these will be visiting an art exhibition for the first time.
Francisco Weffort: For us Brazilians, the development of culture is among the
[Cut to interview with Evelyn; counter-shot of Andrea.] duties of the state, as well as education, for example.

AF: What kind of experience is that, that first encounter with art? [Cut to school group walking past the Bienal gift shop.]

EI: It’s always a very odd experience, that people would come for the first AF [voice-over]: The Bienal is now seen as a major educational tool in the
time, and somehow I think that they’re not conquered by what they see. efforts of the city, state and federal governments to improve the quality of
life for all of Brazil’s citizens.
[Cut to a member Bienal’s education staff looking blankly at camera. He
is wearing the official education staff T-shirt with the words ‘Tira-duvidas’ [Cut to interview with Francisco.]
(Strip of Doubt). Cut to interview with Paulo.]

254 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 255
 AF: How do you weigh support for traditionally ‘elite’ culture, like exhibitions
of contemporary art, against support for more popular cultural forms?

FW: No, we don’t have this kind of dilemma, the dilemma among cultural
popular sectors and visual arts for elite people. [Cut to a billboard outside of
fig.2–3 the pavilion with the slogan ‘Only anthropophagy unites us.’ ] A lot of these
people are poor people of popular classes [cut to T-shirts and tote bags in the
gift shop with the slogan ‘I’m only interested in what is not mine’ ] and working
classes in Brazil. So even if, even if the criteria is the criteria of elites [cut
back to interview] this is a thing very open to the public.

[Cut to ticket booths outside of the Bienal, with the entrance turnstiles
in the background. At the bottom of the screen, a title reads: ‘Source:
TV Cultura news report, October 4, 1998’.]
3. ‘Tupy or not Tupy…’
AF: Brazilians always like to do things at the last minute. This saying is
demonstrated again at this school where you can see long lines just a short [The 24th Bienal’s ‘Núcleo Histórico’ section on the top floor of the Pavilhão
while before the close of the polls. Elsewhere in the city today, an almost Matarazzo. Andrea is standing in front of Tarsila do Amaral’s painting
festive atmosphere prevailed as Brazilians from all social groups and walks of Antropofagia (1929).]
life went to the polls to exercise the democratic right – and legal obligation –
to cast their votes on this election day [Andrea turns to an off-camera AF: In what organisers describe as a political project, the 24th Bienal is the
interviewee to her left]. And why did you come to vote so late today? 9 first edition in the exhibition’s almost fifty years of existence to propose
— Brazilian culture as its starting point.

[Cut to an interview with Julio Landmann, President of the 24th Bienal.

Andrea and Julio are seen seated in the Bienal’s press room. The wall in the
background is painted with an image of the pavilion’s central atrium and
— the words ‘XXIV Bienal de São Paulo’.]
9
From a TV Cultura report broadcast on the programme National, October 1998.
General elections, including presidential elections, were held throughout Brazil on
Julio Landmann: I want to make a Bienal which, for the first time, explores
the day after the opening of the 24th Bienal. Voting has been mandatory in Brazil
since the country’s transition from military dictatorship. In a splendid example of how a Brazilian concept.
a conservative press directly influences electoral politics, O Globo and other right-wing
media consistently reported opinion polls showing the Workers’ Party candidate for [Cut to interview with Paulo.]
governor of São Paulo, Marta Suplicy, trailing a distant fourth, with Paulo Maluf, a
notoriously corrupt former governor, on top. Returns, however, placed Suplicy a PH: In Brazil, antropofagia is very much concerned with our historical culture,
tenth of a percentage point behind second place, and thus shut out of second-round the idea that we are formed by several cultures – the native, the European,
voting, leading many to assume that if voters had not been led to cast their ballots the Afro-Brazilian – and among those cultures there was one that had the
for the candidate they considered best placed to beat Maluf, Suplicy might have won.
Instances of skewed opinion polls may have also influenced voting for governors in
symbolic practice of cannibalism.
two other states. In addition, O Globo may have broken the law by releasing opinion
polls predicting Cardoso’s victory before polls closed on the day of elections. See Paula [Cut to Andrea standing in front of four portraits by Albert Eckhout in the fig.52–53
Schmitt in the English-language internet report ‘Brazil this Week’, 7 to 13 October Bienal’s ‘Núcleo Histórico’ section: Mameluke, Tupi Woman, African
1998, Net Estado. In the week before elections, 23 to 29 September 1998, ‘Brazil Woman and Tarairiu Indian Woman (all 1641).]
this Week’ asked: ‘Are you reading anything about [Brazil’s] current crisis? About
our debts and the IMF’s demands? Are you seeing that on TV? We are not. (But AF: Anthropophagy is an ironic and irreverent interpretation of how foreign
whoever read the British Daily Telegraph the past week got to know that the media
influences are incorporated into a native ‘body’. Brazilian cultural identity
is hiding the economic crisis.) We also have not been informed about the pantheon
of artists and intellectuals who published a manifesto in favour of Lula (Workers’ has been described as the product of the aggressive, sometimes amorous
Party), the opposition candidate. Among Lula’s supporters are singer and composer encounter of Europeans, Indians and Africans, which fed on each other to
Chico Buarque, architect Oscar Niemeyer, prominent philosophers, sociologists, produce a new being.
economists and even important businessmen. From the media, just oblivion.’

256 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 257
 Henrique has said that despite the ‘cultural fusion of Portuguese with African
and Amerindian traditions…’

[Cut to Andrea standing in front of Desvio para o vermelho wearing

a mostly red Parangolé by Hélio Oiticica.]

AF: ‘…we Brazilians are an extremely homogenous people in cultural terms.

Our regional differences are mere variations on a basic theme.’12
—

4. ‘Against all importers of canned consciousness.’

[The entrance area of 24th Bienal, where Andrea is standing just inside
the turnstiles. In the background, a crowd of people wait to pick up film at
[Cut to a wide shot of the portraits, then a series of pans up each one.] a Kodak booth.]
fig.6
JO [voice-over]: I came to Brazil like everyone else. In the beginning, I had a AF: Of the 24th Bienal’s twelve-million-dollar budget,13 approximately one
very rough time, a difficult time, and then I got married to a Brazilian and I got third comes from private sponsors, with the remaining two thirds divided
Brazilian children. [Cut to interview with Jens.] Then I always loved the country, between public sources and earned income. In addition to the usual display
because the people, the Brazilian people, have some qualities. [Cut to pan down of sponsors’ logos and the privilege of throwing private parties at the Bienal,
a painting – after Albert Eckhout – in Jens’ office of the interviewee dressed as this year corporate patrons have been provided with their own spaces to
an Indian.] First of all they’re very open, they’re nice, they have no prejudices display products and services: [gesturing] they’re conveniently located in the
on a big scale, they’re very musical, they love the outdoor life, they play good entrance corridor, next to the education and security centres.
football, at least until now. 10 [Cut to back to interview with Jens, in close-up,
looking at the camera] Brazil has… It’s not a country. It’s a continent. [Cut to interview with Jens.]

[Cut back to Andrea standing in front of Antropofagia.] JO: If you don’t have sponsors, you don’t have a Bienal, so therefore, you
have to have sponsors. And that was a big job that we tried to do: to try to
AF: Anthropophagy rejects the notion of national culture, claiming instead get the major Brazilian and international corporations to find out that it’s
that cultural identity is a buffet of diverse influences. But that hasn’t prevented worthwhile investing in art, and to invest in art is not only good business,
a broad range of national public figures from making it their own. it’s good for their business… [Cut to wall of names of sponsors at the top of the
exterior entrance ramp.] We let the sponsors sponsor an artist and exhibition
fig.87 and 96–97 [Cut to series of shots of Cildo Meireles’s Desvio para o vermelho (Red Shift, [cut to Kodak booth]: a van Gogh [cut to Folha booth], or a Matisse [cut to
1967–84 ). Desvio para o vermelho, a living room furnished entirely in Gazeta booth], or a Bacon [cut to Sudameris booth], or Giacometti [cut to first fig.6
red with a faucet continuously pouring red liquid into a sink, was produced aid booth], or CoBrA [cut back to interview] or Eckhout. Just by doing that,
in response to the murder of a journalist by the military during Brazil’s we told them about the particular exhibitions, and then they got interested
military dictatorship.] in the artist as someone who had relevance to their business.

AF [voice-over]: According to Minister of Culture Francisco Weffort, ‘Anthro- [Cut to wide shot of Albert Eckhout’s four portraits, then one detail of each,
pophagy signifies our capacity for synchrony, openness and tolerance, therefore including a shot of body parts sticking out of a basket.] fig.52–53
something intrinsically democratic in our cultural process.’11 And, Fernando
AF [voice-over]: Albert Eckhout is sponsored by ABN AMRO, a prominent
— universal banking group with a strong international focus and a worldwide
10
From the interview with Evelyn Ioschpe: ‘There is a somewhat folkloric image of network of branches and subsidiaries. Its corporate culture is based on the
Brazil: carnival, soccer and popular culture. That is Brazil, but there is something
else also in Brazil. There is an elite thinking [in] the country and a creating of new —
forms and new thoughts. So, I think those who [come to the Bienal] and the infor- broadcast by TV Cultura on the programme Metropolis, March 1998.
mation which might get out to the world is very important. This is the Brazil that 12
F.H. Cardoso, inaugural speech, Brasília, January 1995.
the world doesn’t know.’ 13
Editors’ Note: A total budget of fifteen million real was reported at the time of
11
From a speech by Francisco Weffort at a press conference for the 24th Bienal, opening, equivalent to the same amount in US dollars at the time.

258 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 259
 four values of integrity, teamwork, respect and professionalism.14 [Cut to images
of works in ‘Núcleo Histórico’: details of two etchings by Theodore de Bry depicting
fig.56 cannibalism from his America series (1592) and the painting América (artist
unknown, c.1650), also depicting cannibalism.] Siemens has sponsored the
exhibition of art from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Over the past 150
years, Siemens has grown to become one of the largest electrical engineering
and electronics companies in the world. With increasing globalisation, Siemens
is represented worldwide by production sites and sales organisations in over
190 countries. At Siemens, the customer always comes first.15 [Cut to wider
shot of América, with a woman and child leaning in to read the wall label.]

[Cut to interview with Paulo.]

PH: We say that capitalism is savage in a country like Brazil, in the third
world. So a savage capitalism can sometimes correspond to a savage sponsor- with the Coca-Cola bottle and the whole American Pop art movement
ship, a savage marketing. I’m not saying that this is the case with the Bienal… was very much around Coca-Cola, one way or another. Listen to a man like
Andy Warhol! You can use him for anything – on caps, on posters, on display
[Cut to interview with Francisco.] material and all that – and it has a certain relationship. So we hope many
of the Coca-Cola drinkers will come and drink Coca-Cola at the Bienal as
AF: Do you see corporate sponsorship of art as a necessary evil or as a positive well as see what Coca-Cola has sponsored.
development in itself?
[Cut to pan of a vitrine containing Surrealist works on paper and public- fig.71
FW: No, I would say that it is a positive development. ations. Pan ends on a hand holding up an issue of Business Week with the
headline ‘Bank Eat Bank’.]
[Cut to counter-shot with Andrea standing in front of the Banco Bradesco
booth in the entrance corridor of the Bienal. A translation of a sign in the AF [voice-over]: The exhibition on Dadaism and Surrealism, sponsored by
background appears at the bottom of the screen: ‘Reception area for exclusive Coca-Cola, introduces cannibalism as a result of ‘civilisation’ – celebrated,
use by clients of Bradesco Bank.’ ] ironically, as joy and happiness and represented with greedy devourment,
gluttony and vomit.16
AF: And how will corporate sponsorship affect the kind of culture that’s
supported? [Cut back to interview with Jens, seen in close-up, looking at the camera.]

FW: We don’t have any problem of private enterprise influence on the JO: I’m very happy for nearly 33 years to be associated with Coca-Cola.
character of visual art. But we have, on the contrary, the chance, the oppor-
tunity, for arts to have an influence on the life of private enterprise. [Cut to the ground floor of the 24th Bienal, where national representatives
are exhibited. Andrea is standing in the atrium. Work by the German
[Cut to interview with Jens.] representative, Mischa Kuball, is visible in the background.]

AF: One of the sponsors you’ve been dealing with for the Bienal is Coca- AF: The United Nations released its 1998 Human Development Report this
Cola. Can you tell me how sponsorship fits into their marketing strategy for week. Canada, France and Norway top the list, which rates countries according to
Brazil or for Latin America? levels of health and education as well as wealth. [Cut to pan of the ‘Arte Contemp-
orânea Brasileira’ section, on the pavilion’s first floor.] Brazil has jumped the line pp.78–99
JO: Coca-Cola is a product which is sold to the young generation, is a product from ‘Medium Development’ to ‘High Development’, moving to the 62nd
that is very much associated with art. I mean, a man like Andy Warhol place from the 68th. The bad news is that, in terms of income distribution,
Brazil is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. The good
—
14
ABN AMRO, annual report, 1997. ABN AMRO has been pursuing a particularly —
aggressive strategy of acquisitions in Latin America. In September 1998, for example, 16
From Paulo Herkenhoff, ‘Introdução geral’ / ‘General introduction’ (trans.
ABN AMRO acquired a partial stake in the Brazilian Banco Real. Veronica Cordeiro), in XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia
15
Siemens, annual report, 1998. e Histórias de Canibalismos (exh. cat.), São Paulo: A Fundação, 1998.

260 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 261
news is that Brazil is still more equal than the world as a whole [cut to shots of AF [voice-over]: [shot of Dangerous Relationship (Touch Me) (1998) by Choi fig.31–32 and 35
the US, Swiss and Belgian representatives 17 ], in which the top 20 per cent of the Jeong Hwa] Asian economies have collapsed. [Cut to photographs by the Russian
world population – primarily the US, Europe and Japan – consume 86 per cent representative Oleg Kulik]. Russia has plunged down a black hole. [Cut to pan
of the resources, while the bottom 20 per cent consumes only 1.3 per cent. of galleries containing Hélio Oiticica’s Relevos Espaciais (Spatial Reliefs, 1959), fig.97–98
[Cut back to Andrea.] Compare that to 2.3 per cent in Brazil. ending on guards.] The question now terrifying world financial markets is
whether Brazil, and with it Latin America, will be next. At stake is not only
Advertising has caused expectations to go global. But affluence has not. Not the health and wealth of national economies and stock markets. [Cut to Andrea
everyone was invited to the party. And now, the party may be over. 18 But, standing against the top-floor atrium railing]. The future of globalisation
according to the president of the National Institute for Land Reform in itself now depends on Brazil. As Brazil goes, so goes the world. [Cut back to
Brasília, ‘We’re in the international dance hall now, and we have no choice pan of the gallery showing works by Alfredo Volpi; then works by Valia Carvalho, fig.88–90
but to dance.’19 the Bolivian representative; and then Cecilo Thompson, the Paraguayan represen-
tative.] When Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s lowered their rating on Brazil to
Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States. Back to you, Gilberto. negative – putting it in the same category as Bolivia and Paraguay – foreign
— capital began fleeing the country at a rate of one billion dollars per day. 21

5. ‘The capitalist modus vivendi. Anthropophagy.’ [Cut back to Andrea on the top floor. The gold statue can be seen in the
background.]
[Cut to Andrea standing in the area just outside of the entrance to the
Bienal. A title appearing at the bottom of the screen reads: ‘Source: TV AF: Boa Tarde Maria. BOVESPA is suffering from a climate of complete
Cultura news report, September 1998’.] instability today. After minimal rise of 0.12 per cent, it resumed its fall with
the announcement that the United States Congress voted to proceed with
AF: This is the entrance to the Volkswagen factory of São Bernardo do Campo, impeachment hearings on the conduct of President Clinton. [Cut to camera
quiet today as 20,000 workers take a ten-day collective holiday, to be taken out walking past guards, surveillance screens, plaques of sponsors and turnstiles into
of the year’s vacation time. The reason is this. [Cut to pan of the central the ‘Núcleo Histórico’.] Analysts believe that the markets will not stabilise
atrium of the Pavilhão Matarazzo.] Demand, already weak, collapsed when until programs for fiscal adjustment are announced. The finance Minster
the government raised interest rates to 50 per cent to protect the real. admitted today that these measures will include tax increases, but he has
Consumers disappeared. Fiat, Ford, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz are stopped short of announcing capital controls. 22
also imposing collective vacations for their workers. [Cut back to Andrea.]
According to the president of the auto worker’s union, lay-offs cannot begin [Cut to Andrea in the Bienal’s exhibition of paintings by van Gogh.] fig.62–63 and 73
until the end of the year.20
AF: The 24th Bienal continues the tradition begun in the first editions of
bringing masterpieces from foreign museums to Brazil. These jewels of the
— Bienal are sheltered in the museological space on the [top] floor. Among the
17
Judy Pfaff, Sylvie Fleury and Johan Muyle. stars is van Gogh, represented with a large group of important paintings,
18
See United Nations Development Program, ‘Human Development Report which only arrived in Brazil after exhaustive negotiations.
1998’, available at http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/259/hdr_1998_
en_complete_nostats.pdf (last accessed on 16 February 2015); Barbara Crossette, [Cut to details of works by van Gogh.]
‘Most Consuming More, and the Rich Much More’, The New York Times,
13 September 1998.
19
Roger Cohen, ‘Brazil Pays to Shield Currency, and the Poor See the True Cost,’ —
The New York Times, 5 February 1998. 21
Bill Wellman, ‘Diary,’ The New York Times, 13 September 1998. On 14 September,
20
From a TV Cultura report broadcast on the programme National, September President Clinton, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
1998. See also Diana Jean Schemo, ‘Brazil’s Once-Robust Auto Industry Struggles set out to address what he described as ‘the biggest financial challenge facing the
as Sales Skid’, The International Herald Tribune, 28 September 1998. In August world in a half-century’. While calling for pro-growth rather than anti-inflation
1998, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture released a study claiming that the cultural policies and for the reform of the international financial system, he also
sector employs more people than the automobile industry and at average wages at emphasised that ‘no nation, rich or poor, democratic or authoritarian, can escape
twice the national average – although lower than in the car industry. A report on the the fundamental economic imperatives of the global market. No nation can
study noted that ‘since unemployment is one of the greatest fears among Brazilians, escape its discipline.’ He additionally stated: ‘What is at stake is more than the
cultural activities have acquired importance in the political platforms of the candi- spread of free markets and their integration into the global economy. The forces
dates for the presidential elections to be held on Oct. 4’. Mario Osava, ‘Economy – behind the global economy are also those that deepen democratic liberties.’
Brazil: Culture Creates More Jobs Than Cars’, Inter Press Service, August 1998. 22
From a TV Cultura report broadcast on the programme National, October 1998.

262 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 263
 [Cut to parking lot outside the Bienal. Regina Silveira’s mural of receding fig.1–3
animal tracks can be seen on the side of the pavilion. A title appearing
at the bottom of the screen reads: ‘Source: TV Cultura news report,
September 4, 1998’.]

AF: Last night at 1.30 am, 30 per cent of the ceiling of this church, an old
theatre rented six months ago, collapsed suddenly, bringing almost one
thousand square metres of wood, plaster and concrete crashing down on
hundreds of worshippers. Some people managed to leave the building only
moments before the catastrophe, alerted by the sound of creaking and the
sight of cracks in the ceiling, but most were taken by surprise. All the doors
were closed, making it difficult to exit. Moments of panic and chaos followed.
[Andrea passes the microphone to her right hand and extends it in front of her].
You were inside. What was it like? 24
AF [voice-over]: International loans are extremely important to the Bienal.
Without international loans of world famous art, the Bienal would not be [Cut to pan of the exterior of Bienal building starting at a billboard that
able to raise the money necessary to meet the standards of international reads ‘Only anthropophagy unites us’ and ending on the parking lot.]
lenders necessary to get international loans.
AF [voice-over]: After months of negotiations, the IMF has announced a two-
[Cut to interview with Julio.] billion-dollar package of loans to stabilise the Brazilian economy. The release
of the funds, however, depends on the further privatisation of industry in
JO: Of course, it’s very complicated. We had to have dinners and lunch in Brazil [cut to main entrance, where a sign with the Ford logo points to the
embassies. [Cut to a reaction shot of Andrea, then back to Julio.] After the ticket office] as well as the enactment of politically painful spending cuts.
22nd Bienal it was clear that people were coming here for these big names.
It showed that if you bring important artists, you get sponsors. Art is an [Pan down an Estado de São Paulo newspaper rack installed in the entrance
investment after all. area. In addition to the supplement on the Bienal (‘Cannibale’) sponsored
by the paper, the rack also contains other newspapers inserted for the shot,
[Cut to a guard opening the door to a section of the Bienal. Cut to a surprised including one showing a headline on IMF negotiations above a photograph
caterer closing the door to the pre-opening cocktail party.] of a flooded village, and another a with photograph of a poor child below
the headline ‘A Map of Exclusion.’ ]
AF [voice-over]: The Minister of Finance is also in Washington today attending
a meeting with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. One While the effects of cuts in health and education are already being felt by
objective of the meeting is to show that Brazil is different from Russia and millions of poor Brazilians [cut to shots of guards around Bienal building],
deserves the flow of international capital. government officials continue to award themselves maximum compensation­–
like the 47,000 dollars that will be paid members of congress for a special
[Cut back to Andrea with paintings by van Gogh.] three-month session to debate spending cuts.

AF: But a climate of frustration has dominated the IMF meeting here, where Government officials also continue to spend lavishly on other benefits of
nothing has yet been done to stop the exit of capital from emerging markets. office. [Cut to pan of the Bienal’s Francis Bacon exhibition]. These Persian carpets
For Brazil, however, there’s good news. The director of the IMF gave a green and top-of-the-line decorative accent pieces were recently purchased by the
light to the policies of fiscal adjustment that the government promises to Supreme Court for a new reception area. [Cut to installation shot of the Bienal’s
implement by the end of October. He praised Brazil for making moves to ‘Roteiros…’ exhibition, including La DS (1993) by Gabriel Orozco.] According fig.28
cut spending and adjust finances without altering exchange rates, saying to the president of the Supreme Court, the furnishings are necessary because
these policies would bring the right reaction from international investors in visiting dignitaries frequently dropped in for cocktail parties. [Cut to camera
these times of crisis.23 following Andrea through crowd in pre-opening cocktail party.] But now, he

— —
23
From a TV Cultura report that was broadcast on the programme National, 24
From a TV Cultura report that was broadcast on the programme National,
October 1998. September 1998.

264 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 265
says: ‘We just give them coffee, maybe a glass of juice.’ [Cut to second shot AF: Well, thank you very much.
of cocktail party; camera finds Minister of Culture Francisco Weffort talking to
a man in a business suit.] Private banks in the United States and elsewhere [Camera zooms out to show Andrea and Jens shaking hands.]
who have lent large amounts in Brazil will be the biggest beneficiaries of any
plan that stabilises the economy. It is still unclear what Brazil will offer as JO: Thank you very much. And thank you for the programme. [Laughing,
collateral for the loans.25 looking at camera.] Thank you, TV Cultura.

[Cut to interview with Francisco.] [Cut to a TV Cultura weather report. Roll credits, over weather report.]27

AF: I’m here at the opening of the Bienal with Minister of Culture Francisco
Weffort. Minister Weffort, why is supporting the Bienal important for the
federal government?

FW: Well, for us, this is probably the most important exhibition of visual
art that we have in the country and we are sure that this is one of the two or
three most important exhibitions of visual art in the world. Public support for
this kind of exhibition you have here in the Bienal is necessary for the develop-
ment of the country from a cultural point of view. So we can manage with a
double point of view. This is no contradiction at all.

[Cut to Andrea against the top floor atrium railing with the gold statue
in background.]

AF: By most accounts, the 24th Bienal is the best instalment of the exhibition
yet. After a year and a half of intensive work, the organisers can finally rest
assured, without fear of being happy.26

[Cut to interview with Jens.]

—
25
D.J. Schemo, ‘Dry Bread for Brazil, but for Its Lawmakers, Jam,’ The New York
Times, 12 November 1998.
26
This magnificently ambivalent phrase was the slogan of Lula, the head of the
Workers’ Party, during his first run for president. Lula lost against Cardoso in 1994,
and again in the elections the day after the opening of the 24th Bienal. By most
accounts, the noisy support for Cardoso from the ‘international community’ during
the economic crisis – drowning out Lula’s warnings that Cardoso was ‘selling the
country to fill the bellies of foreign banks’ – contributed enormously to Cardoso’s
first-round victory. Cardoso visited the 24th Bienal – and met with ‘business —
leaders’ there – the day before the second-round of voting in late October. There is 27
The 24th Bienal de São Paulo closed on 13 December 1998 to generally
still much debate on the question of whether Cardoso underwent an ideological positive reviews abroad and negative press within Brazil. The following week, MoMA
transformation in his passage from a (Marxist) sociologist to a (neo-liberal) president, in New York announced that the 24th Bienal’s Chief Curator, Herkenhoff, would
or whether he simply carried through on a political pragmatism he always espoused. be the first to fill a newly created five-year curatorial position at the museum. On
José Luiz Fiori has suggested that ‘Cardoso is right when he says that at no point 15 January 1999, the Brazilian government, ‘reeling under a hemorrhage of dollars
has he renounced or cast aside his sociological analysis. What he has done is perhaps from its foreign reserves in a losing battle to defend the nation’s currency’, lifted
more profound. He has chosen a new ethical and political option by abandoning his exchange-rate controls and allowed the real to float. BOVESPA’s initial 33 per
reformist idealism to embrace the position of his former object of study, the Brazilian cent rally (joined by stock market rallies around the world) proved to be another
business class. Simultaneously, he assumes as an unquestionable fact the current instance of short-lived, speculative economic euphoria. See D.J. Schemo, ‘Exchange
international relations of power and dependency.’ J.L. Fiori, ‘Brazil: Cardoso Controls Lifted: Brazil Stocks Rise by 33%’, The New York Times, 16 January
Among the Technopols’, in Fred Rosen and Deirdre McFadyen (ed.), Free Trade 1999. Within two weeks the real lost half of its value, then stabilised. Despite
and Economic Restructuring in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press, multiplying calls for currency controls, the global economic order weathered the
1995, p.99. Brazilian crisis.

266 Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from the United States Andrea Fraser 267
 Andrea Fraser in conversation with David Morris, about what I did and what I wanted to do as an artist upside down. Almost
November 2014 everything we recognise as critical art practice is rooted in a Brechtian tradition
of alienation or estrangement. Even when that estrangement is enacted as
over-identification, the aim is to produce a distancing through which
David Morris: How did you come to be involved in the 1998 Bienal? critical consciousness can develop. I started to realise that such distancing
is part of the problem, not part of the solution! [Laughs.] At least, if we get
Andrea Fraser: Ivo Mesquita invited me to participate in the North American stuck there. It’s only a halfway point. That distancing may allow us to recognise
pp.100–13 section of the ‘Roteiros…’ exhibition. I first went to São Paulo in the spring certain impulses or structures, but the most important step is to be able to
of 1998, so it was a very short lead time. I actually think of it as one of my recognise them as part of ourselves, to recognise our own investments in
failed projects, but the whole experience was very important to me and to them, to reintegrate that understanding into our actions. That’s a perspective
my development as an artist.1 I develop in the essay ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ that I wrote for the
2012 Whitney Biennial, which is actually the first biennial I’ve been in since
DM: What was important about the experience for you? the Bienal. In fact, it’s a pretty Kleinian perspective, although one also finds
it in Freud.
AF: The concept of anthropophagy and how it was interpreted by Ivo and
Paulo Herkenhoff led me to a whole new way of thinking about my own DM: How did you understand your own relation to this institution,
work. Ivo’s selection for this section of the exhibition, which also included the Bienal, that was in 1998 intent on devouring foreign influences?
fig.17–18, 63 Michael Asher, Sherrie Levine and General Idea, 2 was rooted in an
and 34 interpretation of Institutional Critique and strategies of appropriation as AF: Well, the Bienal had been devouring foreign influence since its inception.
anthropophagy. Among the many different frameworks in which Ivo and I think the 24th edition was more intent on influencing foreigners. Certainly,
Paulo were interpreting anthropophagy was a psychoanalytic framework, and I felt more influenced than devoured by it. In many ways, the strategies of
more specifically a Kleinian and object relations framework. I had read a lot Institutional Critique developed as attempts to resist being devoured by
of Freud and Lacan, but at the time I didn’t know anyone who was reading such institutions. They aim to appropriate rather than be appropriated.
that stuff, which had a much broader reception in Latin America than in the Large-scale exhibitions are difficult contexts to produce new work in.
US and Europe. And that interpretation, which emphasises the ambivalence But it’s not just ‘the institution’. There is also the crazy competition for
of incorporation and, by implication, of appropriation and critique, had a attention and space and resources among artists that those exhibitions entail.
tremendous impact on me. That is, ambivalence in a strong sense, as the So, making a work about the exhibition was also a strategy to take myself
confrontation of opposing affects and impulses. To cannibalise may be to out of that.
destroy something with one’s mouth, with one’s teeth, by ingesting it, but it’s
also to take it in and make it a part of one’s self, to incorporate. That helped me DM: The resulting work was titled Reporting from São Paulo, I’m from
understand that artistic critique, which invariably involves some form of appro- the United States.
priation, is never only the rejecting, destroying, aggressive fault-finding that
we tend to identify as ‘critical’. The attached, identificatory, desiring and AF: I developed a plan to produce television news reports about the exhibition.
incorporating investment is always there as well, and it is absolutely necessary Originally it was supposed to be with Brazilian HBO or something, and then
to own that part of it. we had one meeting with them and I think I was not to their taste! [Laughs.]
So I started working with TV Cultura, which is a non-profit foundation-run
DM: And you can locate that in your work since? cultural station. I also had some existing video works in the exhibition, Museum
Highlights [1989] and May I Help You? [1991]. Unfortunately, Reporting from
AF: Oh, absolutely. It led pretty directly to my focus on artistic ambivalence São Paulo… was never broadcast or included in the exhibition.
in works like Art Must Hang [2001], Official Welcome [2001] and Projection
[2008], and to the understanding of Institutional Critique as an enactment of DM: The video reflects upon the Bienal and its history and how it
a love-hate relationship with art and its institutions that I developed in essays functions within broader social and economic conditions. I wonder
in the early 2000s. And that understanding eventually turned my thinking how your experience as an artist working with an institution like the
Bienal influenced your thinking?
—
1
Editors’ Note: The film script from Andrea Fraser’s project at the 24th
Bienal, with additional notes by the artist, is included in this volume, AF: In a way, the Bienal was the end of my engagement with that kind of
pp.248–267. institution. I had been thinking about biennials and globalisation since the
2
EN: This section of ‘Roteiros…’ also included work by Janet Cardiff and early 90s, when I did a project for the Austrian pavilion at the Venice
Jeff Wall. See pp.100–13. Biennale. After the Bienal de São Paulo, I felt sort of done with that line of

268 Andrea Fraser in conversation with David Morris 269

investigation. My approach also shifted away from site-specific engagement
with specific institutions to what I call situational or relational specificity,
which is more about the here and now of an encounter (a shift that was also
influenced by psychoanalysis). By the late 90s, a lot of people were questioning
the way artists and curators working site specifically were ‘parachuting’ into
complex contexts and presuming to be instant experts. I do think that
describes how I had been working and what I tried to do for São Paulo as
well. I collected lots of books and set out to understand an incredibly huge
and complex country in a few months. I finally had to recognise how absurd
that was. I remember saying at some point, ‘I took on Brazil and I lost.’

DM: Is that why you consider it a failed work?

AF: Partly. There’s also the fact that it wasn’t finished until the show closed!
One of the things I aspire to in my work is to be able to identify, articulate and
perform complex structures with enough coherence to enable them to become
more broadly intelligible and available for reflection. I don’t think I achieved
that with my work for the Bienal. I’m afraid it remained quite fragmented.

DM: And you don’t think the fragmentation might be a necessity of

the subject matter?

AF: I suppose. If you’re an artist and you’re doing something that really is
site specific and you really are engaging in a situation, then that situation is
going to challenge and maybe transform your work and your criteria. I think
that did take place for me with the Bienal, but maybe in some ways that
I wasn’t able to incorporate. I’ll have to watch the videos again and see what
I think today.

DM: What meaning do you think the 1998 Bienal has, sixteen years on?

AF: I think it had a huge impact internationally. It led to the partial rewriting
of twentieth-century art history from a Brazilian perspective. It expanded
international awareness of Brazilian artists and art movements exponentially.
The show also still stands out in my mind as one of the most successful of the
genre that I have seen. I think other curators have tried to emulate its
accomplishments but I’m not sure anyone has succeeded. Paulo’s genius was
to find a very specific and coherent principle, anthropophagy, that could
contain all the diverse parts of a huge exhibition that a curator can’t control
and that usually end up flying off in a hundred different directions. And
what was really brilliant about his approach is that anthropophagy was both
very specific geographically and culturally and also generally pertinent, and
that it functioned both on the level of content and as a broadly pervasive
structure that was able to frame, in a reflexive way, its own mode and field
of operation. In fact, there may be very few principles like that, too few for
all of the exhibitions that are being made. The truly historic exhibitions
are the ones that can capture that kind of principle, and the 24th Bienal
was one of them.

270
Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard, Dias & Riedweg, Devotionalia,
1994–2003, public art project and
January 2015 video installation with 2500 plaster
and wax castings, Museu de Arte
Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, 1995
Line Ellegaard: Could you give me an impression of your situation All images © the artists
prior to your participation in the 24th Bienal de São Paulo?

Mauricio Dias: I was born and studied in Rio de Janeiro. In 1986, when
I was 22, I left Brazil, and after a year of travelling in Europe, I arrived in
Switzerland. In 1990, I met Walter. He was working with performance and
theatre then and mostly based in New York, but in 1993 we decided to start
collaborating, and began a project called Devotionalia [1994–2003] on our
own – it was not curated or commissioned by anyone – where we spent
about a year with a mobile workshop in Rio working with street children in
the favelas. 1 This work became very popular because there were not many
people working on the street with visual art in Brazil at that time. Whilst we
were working on this I sent our outline for the project to Mary Jane Jacob,
who had just finished ‘Culture in Action’ [1993] in Chicago. A few months
later, to our surprise, we received a very long fax from her inviting us to take
part in ‘Conversations at the Castle’ in Atlanta, the exhibition she did with Dias & Riedweg, Os Raimundos,
os Severinos e os Franciscos
Homi Bhabha in 1996. 2 And actually she was the one who told Paulo
(The Raimundos, the Severinos
Herkenhoff about our work. and the Franciscos), 1998,
public art project and video
Walter Riedweg: Paulo saw Devotionalia when it was first shown at the Museu installation, video still
de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro in 1996. Ten years later, when Paulo was
director of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio, he opened the doors for
Devotionalia, which by then consisted of 2280 fragile objects and casts –
weighing about 2500 kilos – to become part of the national collection. In this
sense, Paulo had a final and very important role in that project.

MD: But it was not until 1997, when we attended the opening of Catherine
David’s documenta X in Kassel, that we met. I­ remember very well, we were
both standing at the entrance and Paulo waved at us, and I looked back to the
other side thinking he was waving at someone else, because I did not know
that he knew us. He laughed and told us right in that room that he wanted us
to make a project for his 1998 Bienal. Shortly after we left for São Paulo.
LE: The 24th Bienal set out to rewrite art history from a Brazilian perspec-
—
1
Editors’ Note: In 1995, the artists made casts of the hands and feet of over 600
tive, and in this context your work appeared in the ‘Arte Contemporânea pp.78–99

children and teenagers living in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, to function as ex-votos. Brasileira: Um e/entre Outro/s’ [‘Brazilian Contemporary Art: One and/
Those cast were each asked to express a wish, which was recorded on video and among Other/s’] element. As a Brazilian and Swiss duo, how did you
inscribed on his or her ex-voto mold. Subsequently, the work was shown in the understand your position here?
Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, and workshops were carried out with
children in these countries. Over the years the project has gone through numerous WR: I found that very beautiful. The Swiss had their own official representation
iterations including collaborations with social workers and NGOs. For a discussion in the Bienal that year, and they could not understand how we got to be there,
of this project, see Suely Rolnik, ‘Otherness Beneath the Open Sky: The Political-
or at the Venice Biennale a year later, since our work did not fit any of the
poetic Laboratory of Maurício Dias &  Walter Riedweg’, in Dias & Riedweg:
Possibly Talking About the Same (exh. cat.), Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani criteria they put up! I remember very well there was this Swiss guy, when I
de Barcelona, 2003, pp.211–44. met him the first time I wore a Brazilian artist badge. He looked at me and
2
‘Conversations at the Castle’, for the Arts Festival of Atlanta, Georgia, 28 June asked, ‘And how is it to be a Brazilian?’ [Laughs.] I said, ‘It’s fine, it’s perfect!
to 29 September 1996. I’m still whatever I was before.’

272 Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard 273

 MD: I think it had more to do with our methodology than with our LE: Can you specify how you saw the relationship between the doormen
national identities… and the locals living in the building as a form of social cannibalism?

LE: The work you presented at the 24th Bienal, a multimedia installation MD: We wanted to emphasise the anthropophagical aspect of relationships
fig.16 and p.273 titled Os Raimundos, os Severinos e os Franciscos [The Raimundos, the between the different classes in the metropolis of Brazil in terms of alterity,
Severinos and the Franciscos, 1998], was made with doormen and janitors. in terms of otherness. In São Paulo there is a huge divide between the
Do you recall how the idea for this work came about? proletarian class – the strong presence of Northeastern people working as
doormen, maids, drivers, waiters – and the locals being served by them. The
MD: Paulo invited us to do a new project, something somehow connected to interaction stopped there; there were not many other connections. On the
the city of São Paulo and anthropophagy. We decided to focus on a social one hand, we tried to show how identities had shifted from a geographical
form of cannibalism and to make a project on how the social classes may territory into a social territory, and, on the other, how a doorman or a maid
somehow eat and digest each other in the Brazilian metropolis. We were could or could not interact with the people they were serving.
very intrigued by the fact that in São Paulo about eighty per cent of the
population live in tower buildings and all of them have porteiros, doormen WR: Our work did not seek to reaffirm the social hierarchies in place and did
or janitors who take care of the building in terms of keeping it clean and not try to compensate for the many abuses that this society inflicts on a big
safe. They are always at the entrances of the buildings. Yet, the people living part of its population by placing these subjects in a ‘social project corner’,
in the buildings often do not interact with them. where you could do something to help them or to bring them their voice.
Instead, the audience was challenged to look at the porteiros at eye level – to
We were also very curious about the fact that many of these janitors came see them not as objects of social need, but to really encounter them.
from the Northeast of Brazil. Throughout the twentieth century (when most
of these towers were built), proletarian workers from that poorer region MD: Another peculiar aspect was how this cannibalistic relationship was
immigrated to São Paulo to work in the construction industry and simply somehow embedded in the architecture of the metropolis. Whereas the
stayed on, creating new families and a new cultural background to the city. We inhabitants of the towers lived in fancy apartments, the doormen only had a
noticed that many of them were named Raimundo, Severino or Francisco – very small room, roughly four by five metres. Some of them lived there alone,
three very popular names in the Northeast – and that became our criteria to some with an entire family. Except for the shower and the bathroom,
approach and choose the guys we worked with. everything was in this room: bedroom, kitchen and living room. Often this
room was located in the garage or under the roof, and this, again, underlined
We chose thirty different areas on the map of the city in an attempt to outline the focus of our work.
some of the social and cultural differences of this huge place, then started
walking from door to door. We had this stupid question: ‘I heard that there LE: The last scene of the video was shot at the Ciccillo Matarazzo
is an apartment for rent here, is it true?’ The doormen would answer ‘yes’ or Pavilion. How was it to make the work with the doormen there? I’m p.278
‘no’, and then our second question would come immediately after: ‘Ahh, also curious about your sense of how they understood your work and
you are from the Northeast, aren’t you?’ And he would say ‘yes’, and I would how they felt about the Bienal?
ask: ‘Is your name Severino?’ Sometimes they would say ‘yes’ and sometimes
‘no, not at all’, or ‘no, it is not Severino, it is Francisco’. In this way, we MD: The documentary part of this work consists of about forty minutes of
invited them to take part in our art project. Depending on the interaction, video shot at building entrances – right at the sidewalk, where they worked –
we would go back the following day and start a deeper conversation focusing and partially in the spaces where they lived. Halfway through the project we
on their work and their interaction with the people in the tower buildings. identified that every doorman had a story that included an object connected
We stayed in São Paulo for three to four months doing this daily, until we to the Northeast, which culturally and politically is a very strong region in
had found thirty doormen. Brazil. We asked if we could borrow some of these objects, and also invited
all the doormen to come together to record a final scene in the Bienal
LE: Your final installation included gossip about the doormen played pavilion, the last five minutes of the work. It was during the 1998 [FIFA]
through intercoms installed on the outside of the screening space. World Cup, two months prior to the opening of the Bienal. We had to record
just after one of the Brazilian matches because most of them were given time
WR: We did that mainly in public parks and along sidewalks, asking people off for that. We arranged the transportation and they arrived to find a replica
if they lived in a building with a doorman and if they had any stories to tell of the space that they lived in with the furniture we had borrowed from them.
about their doorman. It was amazing. People would stand in line to listen to That was also when they met for the first time. One would go, ‘Hello, my
these little stories played out of the intercoms. name is Francisco’, and the others would go, ‘Me too’, ‘Me too’, and so on.

274 Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard 275

 Dias & Riedweg, Funk Staden, 2007, MD: The educational programme and the choice of artists opened the 24th
public art project and video
installation, video still
Bienal to a wider audience. Our work was somehow a prototype of this, and
although the work exposed prejudices about the doormen, they came with
their families. They came to the opening, and later. They brought people from
their building to see it, too, to show they were capable of subjective reflection,
not only service. The local media also wrote about it, how it was the doormen
of São Paulo and not the bourgeois who were portrayed in this work.

WR: Just because people have no access does not mean they have no idea.
The porteiros knew very well that the Bienal existed even though they never
had been there. The fact that they became part of it is maybe more natural
than we imagine. What I like very much about Brazil is that the popular
culture is imbued with immense self-esteem and has a very close relationship
to poetic existence. There is an osmosis of popular culture and the intellectual
and academic world, and I think it is part of the same interconnection that
made the porteiros come to the Bienal, which then maybe again relates to the
anthropophagical question ­– showing an interest in all that which is not
ours. Today it is different. The major cultural institutions in Brazil, like the
WR: It was very pleasant to witness the doormen learning how their names Bienal de São Paulo, have thousands and thousands of visitors every day, a
were part of our artistic conspiracy to make them partake in our project. It huge part of which relates to schools and education. For a young person in
turned out to be a mirror exercise in a very complex sense, a reflection on the major cities, it is very common to go to a museum, even if he or she is
who they are, who we are, and how we look at each other. This mirror motif not well off.
has been present in almost all of our projects since then.
LE: Do you think the 24th Bienal posed a significant challenge to
The idea to build a space, a living space of one family, also had to do with dominant readings of Brazilian history and culture?
the fact that if you shoot video everything looks great, you have no real idea
of the dimensions of the space. We placed a semi-transparent screen in front MD: Paulo’s Bienal was not the first manifesto about anthropophagy in the
of the stage set, onto which we projected the video. During the last scene, history of Brazilian culture. There was also Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto
the light in the back turned on and revealed the projected image to be antropofágo’, from 1928. Although separated by decades, both were similarly
identical with the set behind. With the change of view from the two- effective in how they approached a postcolonial comprehension of high
dimensional video projection to the actual living space, the real space then culture and of art history at large.
appeared amazingly small.
LE: …of Brazilian culture?
Using footage of the pavilion was a way of situating the audience in relation
to the projected image. If you are in the Arsenale of the Venice Biennale and MD: Not just in Brazil, but how to think about culture in a postcolonial era
you look at a thing that was filmed in it, this changes the situation and adds and in a world that has been colonised and recolonised in many ways.
another sense of presence for yourself looking at that thing. It was the same Colonisation has been a great axis of the European economy for the past
at the Bienal de São Paulo. It was as important to talk about doormen as it 500 years. Today we live in a globalised world, but we cannot deny that what
was to show how we talk about them. The privilege of art, which is important is going on in economic terms does not differ that much from what happened
to insist on, is that we do not need to convey a specific message – we can in the sixteenth century when the Europeans reached the original native
think about how we communicate a message. That also includes the idea of cultures in the Americas. The trade routes continue and the trade of people
questioning which part of this is an act and which part is truth. also goes on – not as slaves but as refugees. I think an understanding of
anthropophagic culture in the context of immigration would be a breeze in
LE: Did the doormen go and visit the exhibition when it opened? the heads of world politicians, if they could see it as we artists see it.

WR: I remember we saw many of them with their families, and their LE: Even if Herkenhoff was not the first to come back to this idea of
brothers, coming to the Bienal and showing them the work and also laughing anthropophagic culture, did his Bienal have an impact in the Brazilian
a lot watching it. art world, or elsewhere?

276 Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard 277

 Dias & Riedweg filming the last MD: For Walter and me, the Bienal had a strong impact on our way of
scene of the video for Os Raimundos,
os Severinos e os Franciscos
constructing a new body of work. We found a new language. I will tell you
(The Raimundos, the Severinos an anecdote that made it both peculiar and unforgettable for us, that not
and the Franciscos), at Ciccillo even Paulo knows about. We were very young and insecure in the art system
Matarazzo Pavilion, 1998 then. We received money to do the project, had moved to São Paulo to do
the work, and then our apartment was burgled and the entire sum went. We
already had the outline of the concept we wanted to make with the doormen,
but even our video camera was stolen, so we didn’t know what to do. We
talked about this to our closest friends, but we wouldn’t go to the Bienal’s
staff or to Paulo because we were afraid that they wouldn’t believe us and
eventually dismiss us from the show. Instead we made the work with almost
nothing and rented a flat as small as the average doorman’s room. It was just
one room with a shower and toilet right next to the elevated highway that
people call Minhocão – the big worm – because it is loud and dusty and has
destroyed the neighbourhoods it passes through. Afterwards we went back
to Switzerland to teach again in order to raise money to pay for the work we
MD: I think its impact might have been as strong as Andrade’s ‘Manifesto’, did! That experience helped us better understand the reality of the living
because of its scale. We were just not aware of it then. conditions of the porteiros.

fig.62–63 and 67 I remember that there were paintings by van Gogh and Yves Klein, and We had always been interested in the concept of anthropophagy, even before
many original paintings that you rarely see outside of Europe because their the Bienal. We are both migrants and see the migrant as a poetic figure.
value is so high. Paulo showed them with pieces of contemporary Brazilian Anthropophagy, and the relation to otherness, has always been part of our
art. For instance, next to masterpieces you would find a small and ironic framework, of our thinking, not just because of our biographies but because
piece by Cildo Meireles – thus proposing another scale of art understanding. we initially worked together teaching foreigners in the Swiss public school
You would encounter these as pauses to think, like pauses in history or like system. This was during the Yugoslav Wars. The schools were filled with kids
counter-reflections. Paulo called them ‘contaminations’. It was very clear and from Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and so on, due to the conflict.
very dense. The museum that he is directing now is doing the same, just on Because there were children from very different cultural and religious
another, extended scale. At Museu de Arte do Rio, he is making a museum backgrounds in the same classroom, we had to create channels of communi-
with universal ambitions, where specific subject matters are presented in a cation where there were none. We realised we had the ability to do that
type of Warburgian tradition, also on a local basis for local audiences. He through art and that became our main tool.
often refuses to travel. Culturally this is very strong and rare, and I sympathise
very much with that. WR: The Brazilians are able to articulate this concept very precisely in relation
to their own historical specificity. However, this anthropophagic way of
The 24th Bienal also coincided with a moment in which Brazil had its first thinking is not just true for Brazil, it is what happens to you if you are open and
generation of young artists exporting into the international art system. It you go into a new place: it eats you up and you eat it up. For me it made total
was also one of the few events that did not seek to raise the differences sense. When we did Devotionalia, I was only just learning to speak Portuguese
between art markets and culturally important exhibitions. Roger Buergel, as and a street child told me, ‘Now you are speaking my tongue.’ I said, ‘Yeah,
p.276 artistic director of documenta 12 – in which we showed Funk Staden [2007], more or less’, and he said, ‘Yes you do, but tell me, now that you talk my tongue
a video piece that directly revisits the subject of anthropophagy – largely are you still able to talk yours?’ I found that a very good question. At that
employed such strategies. But perhaps that was different and important in moment, I answered him, ‘Sure, I still know how to talk’, but later on I perceived
2007. In 1998, in Brazil, Paulo actually involved the art market and also that the question was much more profound. I no longer speak as I did before.
invited many independent curators to participate at the Bienal. He did not
become dependent on anybody. On the contrary, he was the one who
effortlessly dealt the cards; he became the ‘joker’ leading the game.

LE: You mentioned that this experience and your participation in this
Bienal was crucial for your later body of work and your career. How
was taking part in the so-called Anthropophagy Biennial significant for
you as artists?

278 Dias & Riedweg in conversation with Line Ellegaard 279

Afterword: For What, For Whom importantly, in addition to becoming conscious of the intervention the book
— Pablo Lafuente was attempting, the parameters used to assess what made that past edition
relevant also shifted. Now ‘possibility’ could not be defined by the rules and
values of the art system, by general criteria developed in relation to past practice,
The questions of what and whom an exhibition is for are relatively easy to but rather by the particular political conjuncture of the São Paulo and the
answer with a repertoire obtained from within the art system. What it might do Brazilian situation. This meant, to some extent, not playing the game, or
for those immediately involved, as core participants or initiators, for art and its playing it wrongly.
history, for what we might understand as relevant in what we do, as people
who make it, organise it, administer it, discuss it… Answering these questions What if this perspective was adopted when writing the history of exhibitions?
with what, from an insider perspective (artistic, professional or academic), What if the comprehensibility, relevance or exemplarity of an exhibition from
might be considered secondary or external is a harder task, one that often goes the past were articulated in terms that are exogenous to the discourses that
neglected. The work that we have done with the Exhibition Histories project constitute contemporary art as we know it? What if we assume that the funda-
until now, in these books and the events that have accompanied them, has not mental engine was not the interest of those ‘involved’ but the interest (or
exhausted these questions. Today, in retrospect, I understand the project with forced, abstract or ghostly interest) of those who are not immediately interested?
the help of an image, or an assumption: in the same way a game is not equal to Perhaps because of its strong emphasis on pedagogy, it is, I think, possible
the toys, tools or players that are involved in it, ‘art’ is more than the objects of to look at the 24th Bienal de São Paulo through this lens. Although, in order
art and those who make them, own them, arrange them. The choice of the word to do so, we would need to undertake a series of suspensions: we would need to
‘game’ is not accidental: ‘art’, or what the complex, at times very concrete step aside from the history of a Bienal that likes to think of itself as the funda-
and at times ghostly system of art identifies as art, functions in many ways as mental art event in Brazil and beyond, in Latin America; from the work
a game. As in a game, the end is often itself, its goal self-reproduction – securing, done by a very extensive curatorial team with an intense expertise in art and its
even if as an alibi, the independence of the game from the need (or, rather, histories; from a list of works and artists that proposed something equivalent
possibility) to produce anything beyond it.1 to a ‘parallel’ art history; and from a system of national representation that
is a fundamental problematic within the history of biennials.
Being consequent with that image, the Exhibition Histories project has, since
its beginning, attempted to address art from the moment it enters into contact If we abstracted from all those points – points that this book has addressed –
with publics, through an approach that brings together different disciplines we could perhaps suggest a reading that is beyond the art logic, one that is
and different voices – those who were involved, and those we asked to look into instead urged by the class structure of Brazilian society and the position of what
what had been done and how, into the ways the curatorial, artistic or discursive is considered contemporary art and culture within it – at the time of the 24th
work had left something behind. At the core was a belief, not always explicit Bienal in 1998, but also, in slightly different constellations: at the time of the
or conscious, in the need to intervene into practice through discourse. Using foundation of the Bienal in 1951; at the time of the publication of Oswald
Henri Lefebvre’s words, the exhibitions we selected as case studies can perhaps de Andrade’s ‘Manifesto antropófago’ in 1928; and still, today, in 2015.
be seen as ‘total phenomena’, 2 events from the past that make things possible
in the present, and whose historical character resides in the realisation of In a society with an intense and resilient class divide that overlaps with a racial
these possibilities. The task of the Exhibition Histories project, then, is not divide, often in conflict with, when not camouflaged by, a dominant national
only to point at these moments of realisation, but to also render some of the narrative of miscegenation and ‘racial democracy’, the position and under-
events’ possibilities more likely. standing of art, as a system, acquires aspects that are at least uncomfortable. The
Bienal itself is here exemplary: an institution created by business elites – and
This absence of innocence in the historiographic task, what Lefebvre calls still, sixty years later, ‘owned’ and run by them – using public funding to
‘objective relativism’, became for me clear when working on this book on disseminate and promote a vanguard culture (a culture made for and embraced by
the 24th Bienal de São Paulo and, at the same time, being involved in the the elites) to a mass audience of around half a million people who, in their
development of another edition of the biennial, the 31st. 3 Perhaps more majority, belong to what could be identified, in shorthand, as the lower classes.
—
1
See Roger Caillois, Les jeux et les hommes (1958), Paris: Gallimard, 1991. The questions this raises – questions that could be posed to the art system as
2
See Henri Lefebvre, ‘What Is the Historical Past?’, New Left Review, issue 90, a whole, worldwide, even considering the differences between the class structures
March–April 1975, available at http://newleftreview.org/I/90/henri-lefebvre-
of diverse territories – are not easy to answer. How is a culture made by and
what-is-the-historical-past (last accessed on 24 June 2015).
3
I was one of the curators of the 31st edition of the Bienal in 2014, as part of a promoted by the dominant class of benefit to other classes? What mechanisms
team that began with five people working horizontally (Galit Eilat, Charles Esche, of mediation need to be established in order to allow for a critical reception?
Nuria Enguita Mayo, Oren Sagiv and myself ) and expanded to include two more Whose interests does this construction respond to, which interests does it
(Luiza Proença and Benjamin Seroussi). incite or promote, and how?

280 Afterword: For What, For Whom Pablo Lafuente 281

 Historically in the Bienal de São Paulo, and in an emphatic way in the 24th cannibalism – and a display strategy of contamination. Together, they did
edition, the answers to these questions were articulated through a word and a away with the linearity, progression and coherence of modern art history, and
practice: ‘education’. Education was one of the three pillars of the 24th Bienal opened the doors for a game in which, following Andrade, anything could
(together with the exhibition and the publications, all considered by the orga- be done, if joy was the result. (A joy that was also the effect, in the exhibition
nisers of equal importance), the fundamental framework through which the as well as the ‘Manifesto’, of an intense rigour of construction.4)
construction of sense, discursively but most importantly politically, was
secured. An educational impulse that, in Brazil, is a response to the perceived This approach didn’t question who was allowed or able to create an emancipa-
deficit within the general education system (one of the ongoing effects of tory culture, but it proposed that this culture could be articulated differently,
the dictatorship that finished in 1985). For the contemporary art context in ‘inconsistently’, playfully, and that any hierarchy was a sterile pretence. And
the country, and for the majority of those who run, fund and work in it, it created a system of mediation that helped enact this through the work of
educational activity is essential: it is a constituent part of many of the a large number of educators or mediators, the training of schoolteachers and
initiatives, projects and institutional policies in place. For Brazilian art institu- an intense programme of guided visits. The tension was present throughout:
tions, audience relations are not a question of marketing, as they seem to be between, on the one hand, academic texts on the wall, books in vitrines and a
in large institutions in, for instance, the Anglo-American context, or an issue main catalogue that functioned like a book of art history, and, on the other,
of communicating to those already at least interested, who seem to be prioritised an ambition to create a situation that allowed for direct access, without the
by most of the Western art system. It is a matter of reaching those who are tools and knowledges of art history; between this direct access and that
far from being invested, through applying a set of pedagogical tools and facilitated by the large and complex system of mediation set in place; and
with an emancipatory remit. between the attempt to undo hierarchies within cultural materials while the
long-standing institutional hierarchies persisted, especially in relation to
In Brazil, where it could be said that art’s fundamental relation to audience is those for whom the exhibition was intended.
through education, a different game is created, where funding determines
practices that are assessed through quantitative measure and a humanist Brazil had to wait until 2013 for the tension between class interests to be
ideology of individual emancipation through culture. If games operate either expressed publicly, at a large scale, in its streets – a manifestation that echoed
according to rules or by adopting fictions, in the game of ‘contemporary art recent, similar cries in many parts of the world. But this conflict, despite its
as education’ the rules of inclusion, exclusion, formalisation and operation scale and intensity, and echoes that continue two years later, still hasn’t found
continue, but accompanied by a fictional narrative of the emancipation of strong echoes in the system of contemporary art, which by and large responds
those who are allowed only as spectators. to the interest of the dominant classes – not just the ‘1 per cent’, but those who
are comfortable enough to access a certain level of education (that is, income).
For the 24th Bienal, the choice of Andrade’s ‘Manifesto antropófago’ as a The 24th Bienal de São Paulo, in its unresolved tensions, was perhaps a test
leitmotif, as a curatorial method and as a topic complicated this Brazilian of sorts, able to question the logic of the game of art by embracing a set of
art-education equation (then in its initial stages) in a manner that offered a mechanisms (discursive, thematic, operational) that undermined it from
set of alternatives that are still to be explored to their full potential. Because, both inside and outside. And, as a test, it shows how those ‘external’ questions
while the adoption of education as one of the exhibition’s three fundamental are consistently ignored by those who decide what and whom art and its
pillars can be seen as responding to a historical lag, as an attempt to secure exhibitions are for.
finances through the appeal of education and as an emancipatory strategy from
above (the above of an art history of objects by artists, rewritten by experts),
the irreverence of Andrade’s thought – its playfulness, its populism and its
anti-academic stance – sabotaged the machine. A partial sabotage, but one
that filled the exhibition with possibilities.

pp.114–73 The ‘Núcleo Histórico’ that constituted the core of the exhibition, and which
remains responsible for its reputation, was the inheritor of a populist initiative —
of a different kind: the historical rooms that were introduced in previous 4
A possible question is whether Andrade’s modernism was, in 1998, a popular
editions as an attempt to increase visitor numbers, a remedy to the limited construct, one that was able to echo the culture of those who attended the exhibition
from the periphery of a city with an extremely deficient transport system, and with
appeal of the languages and forms of contemporary art. Paulo Herkenhoff ’s
stubborn (also material) social barriers. The leisurely aspect of the ‘Manifesto’
response was to use this platform to create an alternative history of art, one was present in the exhibition, as it is in the contemporary art system as a whole;
that was radical not in its elements – nothing that was included in the ‘Núcleo’ the conflict that is present within the words of the ‘Manifesto’ and that could also
was too eccentric to be assigned a historical role – but that employed a be found within the display of the exhibition remained on the level of culture,
grammar dictated by a modernist construction – anthropophagy, or cultural and did not travel to class relations.

282 Afterword: For What, For Whom Pablo Lafuente 283

Authors’ biographies de Arte Moderna da Bahia (MAM), Salvador, 2002), ‘Arte brasileira na coleção
Fadel: da inquietação do moderno à autonomia da linguagem’ (Centro Cultural
Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, 2002) and ‘Trajetória da Luz
Dias & Riedweg have worked together since 1993 on collaborative and na arte brasileira’ (Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, 2001). His writing has
interdisciplinary public art projects, videos and performances. The duo, appeared in periodicals, catalogues and books published by such institutions
consisting of Mauricio de Mello Dias (born in 1964, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) as Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’Art
and Walter Stephan Riedweg (born in 1955, Luzern, Switzerland), live and Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona.
work in Rio de Janeiro. Their work explores issues of social politics and
subjectivity using experimental practices that connect the centre with the Lisette Lagnado is a writer and curator, holds a PhD in philosophy from
margins of urban society. They have realised art projects and exhibitions the University of São Paulo, and was chief curator of the 27th Bienal de São
worldwide, and have participated in the biennials of São Paulo (1998 and Paulo in 2006. She also curated ‘Desvíos de la deriva: Experiencias, travesías
2002), Istanbul (1998), Venice (1999), Havana (2003) and Gwangju (2006); y morfologías’ (‘Drifts and Derivations: Experiences, Journeys and Morphol-
they also took part in documenta 12 in Kassel (2007). Major solo exhibitions ogies’) at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in
have taken place at the Museu d’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Madrid in 2010. Between 2001 and 2011, she co-edited the online art
Kiasma in Helsinki and Le Plateau in Paris. Recent projects include solo exhi- magazine Trópico. In 1993, Lagnado established the Projeto Leonilson to start
bitions at Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen and at the Americas Society in the catalogue raisonné of the artist; in 1999, she was invited to coordinate the
New York, and a retrospective at Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland. online platform of Hélio Oiticica’s writings, Projeto HO, Instituto Itaú Cultural.
She is currently director of the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (EAV)
Line Ellegaard is associate editor of the Exhibition Histories and One Work in Rio de Janeiro.
series at Afterall Books. She previously worked at IMO projects, an artists-led
space in Copenhagen, where she contributed to the programme of exhibitions Pablo Lafuente is a writer, researcher and curator based in São Paulo, where
and events; in 2013, she curated the exhibition ‘Reading Vogue’ at SixtyEight he moved in 2013 to be part of the curatorial team for the 31st Bienal de São
in Copenhagen. She holds an MA in Visual Culture from the University of Paulo (2014). He was previously an editor for Afterall journal and Afterall’s
Copenhagen, and trained as an artist. Exhibition Histories series, and a reader at Central Saint Martins, University
of the Arts London. He was also associate curator, from 2008–13, at the
Andrea Fraser is professor of New Genres at the University of California, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) in Oslo. He has curated such
Los Angeles (UCLA). Books featuring her writings and projects include exhibitions as ‘A Singular Form’ (Secession, Vienna, 2014), ‘Beware of the
Andrea Fraser: Works 1984–2003 (Dumont, 2003; edited by Yilmaz Dziewior), Holy Whore: Edvard Munch, Lene Berg and the Dilemma of Emancipation’
Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser (The MIT Press, 2005; edited (Norway’s representation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, with Marta
by Alexander Alberro) and Texts, Scripts, Transcripts (Walther König, 2013; Kuzma and Angela Vettese), ‘The State of Things’ (Norway’s representation
edited by Carla Cugini). Her performance Not just a few of us was featured in at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, with Marta Kuzma and Peter Osborne)
‘Prospect.3: Notes for Now’ (2014–15) in New Orleans. Retrospectives of her and ‘Forms of Modern Life: From the Archives of Guttorm Guttormsgaard’
work will be presented at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in 2015 and the (OCA, Oslo, 2011, with Marta Kuzma). He is the editor of, among other
Museu d’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in 2016. books, A Singular Form (Secession and Revolver, 2014) and Whatever Happened
to Sex in Scandinavia? (OCA and Walther König, 2011).
Paulo Herkenhoff was chief curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo. An
art critic and curator, he is presently cultural director of the Museu de Arte do Mirtes Marins de Oliveira holds a PhD in the history and philosophy of
Rio (MAR). From 1983–85, he was director of the National Institute of Fine education. She is currently a professor and researcher at the postgraduate
Arts Funarte (INAP); from 1985–90, chief curator of the Museu de Arte programme in design at the Universidade Anhembi Morumbi in São Paulo.
Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM); from 1999–2002, adjunct curator in the Previously, she coordinated the MA in visual arts at the Faculdade Santa
Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Marcelina (FASM) in São Paulo, where, between 2008 and 2013, she co-
in New York; and from 2003–06, director of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes edited, with Lisette Lagnado, the publication marcelina. In 2014, she curated
(MNBA) in Rio de Janeiro. Among the exhibitions he has curated are ‘Guignard the exhibition ‘contra o estado das coisas – anos 70’ at Galeria Jaqueline
e o Oriente: China, Japão e Minas’ (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, 2010), Martins in São Paulo. Alongside curator Ana Maria Maia and historian and
‘Guillermo Kuitca’ (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), psychoanalyst Sybil Douek, she is a member of the Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisas
Madrid and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), em Histórias das Exposições, at Casa do Povo in São Paulo, which studies
2003), ‘Tempo’ (MoMA, New York, 2002), ‘Cildo Meireles, geografia do Brasil’ manifold aspects of the curatorial process by means of historical research on
(Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães (MAMAM), Recife and Museu art and design shows.

284 Authors’ biographies 285

David Morris is a writer, researcher and teacher. He is co-editor, with Sylvère Selected bibliography
Lotringer, of Schizo-Culture: The Event, The Book (Semiotext(e)/MIT Press,
2014) and has been working with the Semiotext(e) archive since 2011. He
was co-curator, with Katherine Waugh and Paul Pieroni, the exhibition Catalogues for all the editions of the Bienal de São Paulo to date, as well as
project ‘Cracks in the Street’ (SPACE, London, 2014). His writing has been other publications by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, are available at the
published in publications including Cabinet, Art Monthly, frieze, A Circular Fundação's website; many, including those for the 24th Bienal, are bilingual
and the Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as in exhibition texts and catalogue editions. See http://www.bienal.org.br/publicacoes.php (last accessed on
essays. He is an editor for Afterall journal and Afterall’s Exhibition Histories 18 May 2015). An archived version of the official website for the 24th
series and an associate lecturer at University of the Arts London. Bienal is available at http://web.archive.org/web/19991010090543/http://
www.uol.com.br/bienal/24bienal/ (last accessed on 18 May 2015).
Carmen Mörsch is trained as an artist, educator and researcher. Her research
interests include museum and gallery education as critical practice; collabor- XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Arte Contemporânea Brasileira:
ative practices in art and education; and post- / de-colonial and queer Um e/entre Outro/s (exh. cat.), São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1998
perspectives and histories of art education. She worked as a freelance gallery
educator and artist-educator between 1993 and 2003. In 1999, she cofounded XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Núcleo Histórico: Antropofagia e Histórias
the group Kunstcoop©, which comprised seven artists seeking to conceive de Canibalismos (exh. cat.), São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1998
gallery education as critical arts practice. Kunstcoop© conducted the education
programme of the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (NGBK Berlin) from XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Representações Nacionais (exh. cat.), São Paulo:
1999–2001. Since 2003, she has been conducting several team-based research Fundação Bienal, 1998
projects, including, in 2007, the research and consultation of education for
documenta 12. From 2003 to 2008, she was professor in the department of XXIV Bienal de São Paulo: Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
cultural studies at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Since 2008, Roteiros. Roteiros. (exh. cat.), São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 1998
she has worked as head of the Institute for Art Education (IAE) at Zurich
University of the Arts. Francisco Alambert and Polyana Canhête, Bienais de São Paulo:
Da era do Museu á era dos Curadores, São Paulo: Boitempo, 2004
Catrin Seefranz was educated in Latin American studies and cultural studies
and is a research associate at the Institute for Art Education (IAE) at Zurich Aracy Amaral, ‘Brasil: Commemorative Exhibitions – or, Notes on the
University of the Arts. She researches transcultural transfers within Brazilian Presence of Brazilian Modernists in International Exhibitions’, paper
modernism with a focus on critically historicising and decentring now-cele- given at the conference ‘Grand Expositions: Iberian and Latin American
brated practices such as artistic research or education. She is also engaged in Modernisms in the Museum’, Yale University, New Haven, 26 to
participatory, practice and art-based research into the field of higher art 27 October 2001, available at http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/
education and its inequalities and normativities, as well as in the transnational v08/amaral.html (last accessed on 18 May 2015)
research project Another Roadmap. She has worked extensively in the fields
of arts and culture, for example as head of communications for documenta Aracy Amaral and Paulo Herkenhoff, Ultramodern: The Art of
12 (2007) and the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale). Contemporary Brazil (exh. cat.), Washington DC: National Museum
of Women in the Arts, 1993
Renato Sztutman is professor in the department of anthropology at the
University of São Paulo. He has authored O profeta e o principal (Edusp, Oswald de Andrade, Do Pau-Brasil à Antropofagia e às utopias:
2012); edited Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: Entrevistas (Azougue, 2008); pub- Obras Completas, Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1978
lished writings in academic journals and essay collections; and participated,
as anthropological consultant, in creative processes of theatre and dance. His Carlos Basualdo and Vincent Martin, ‘The 24th São Paulo Biennial’, Nka:
main research areas are political anthropology; the anthropology and history Journal of Contemporary African Art, no.10, Spring/Summer, 1999, pp.58–61
of lowland South American Indians; anthropological theory; and anthropology
and cinema. From 1997–2006, he was co-editor of the independent journal Bienal de São Paulo 50 anos, 1951–2001 / 50 years of the São Paulo Biennial,
Sexta Feira, and since 2013, he has been the editor of Revista de Antropologia, São Paulo: Fundação Bienal, 2001
a publication of the University of São Paulo.
Elena Filipovic, Marieke van Hal and Solveig Øvstebo (ed.), The Biennial
Reader: An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary
Art, Bergen and Ostfildern: Bergen Kunsthall and Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010

286 Selected bibliography

Anthony Gardner and Charles Green, ‘Biennials of the South on the Ivo Mesquita and Ana Paula Cohen, ‘Relatório da curadoria da 28a Bienal
Edges of the Global’, Third Text, vol.27, issue 4, 2013, pp.442–55 de São Paulo’, April 2009, available at http://www.forumpermanente.org/
event_pres/exposicoes/28a-bienal/relatorio (last accessed on 18 May 2015)
Sara Giannini, ‘“J’est unt Autre”: Notes on Cannibalism and
Contemporary Art’, in Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg and Peter Weibel Gerardo Mosquera, ‘Beyond Anthropophagy: Art, Internationalization,
(ed.), The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds (exh.cat.), and Cultural Dynamics’, in Andrea Buddensieg and Peter Weibel (ed.),
Karlsruhe and Cambridge, MA: ZKM | Center for Art and Media and The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds, Hans Belting
The MIT Press, 2013, pp.239–45 (exh. cat.), Karlsruhe and Cambridge, MA: ZKM | Center for Art and
Media and The MIT Press, 2013, pp.233–38
Paulo Herkenhoff, ‘The Biennial in São Paulo, Past and Present’,
in Mika Hannula (ed.), Stopping the Process? Contemporary Views on Benedito Nunes, Oswald Canibal, São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1979
Art and Exhibitions, Helsinki: NIFCA, 1998, pp.153–62
Katrin H. Sperling, Nur der Kannibalismus eint uns: Die globale
Paulo Herkenhoff, ‘Enlightenment’, in Paulo Herkenhoff (ed.) Kunstwelt im Zeichen kultureller Einverleibung: Brasilianische Kunst
Amazônia: Ciclos da Modernidade (exh. cat.), Rio de Janeiro: auf der documenta, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2012, pp.163–66
Vinicius Spricigo, Modes of Representation of the São Paulo Biennial:
Paulo Herkenhoff and Adriano Pedrosa, ‘The Brazilian Curator Private /  The Passage from Artistic Internationalism to Cultural Globalisation / 
The Carioca Curator’, in TRANS>, no.6, New York: Passim Inc., 1999, Modos de Representação da Bienal de São Paulo: a passagem do
pp.6–15, available at: http://www.transmag.org/nuevo_transmag/ internacionalismo artistico a globalizacao cultural (Fórum Permanente
nuevodiseno/content/tablecontents.php?vol=TRANS%3E6&codigovol=7 Series), São Paulo: Hedra, 2011
(last accessed on 18 May 2015)
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brasil (fifth edition), and Divinity in an Amazonian Society (trans. Catherine V. Howard),
Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1969 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992

Carlos A. Jáuregui, Canibalia, Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia Rachel Weiss et al., Making Art Global (Part 1): The Third Havana
cultural y consumo en América Latina, Madrid and Frankfurt a.M.: Biennial 1989, London: Afterall Books, 2011
Iberoamericana and Vervuert, 2008

Caroline A. Jones, ‘Anthropophagy in São Paulo’s Cold War’,

ARTMargins, vol.2, no.1, February 2013, pp.3–36

Lisette Lagnado, ‘On How the 24th São Paulo Biennial Took on
Cannibalism’, Third Text, vol.13, issue 46, Spring, 1999, pp.83–88

Edward Leffingwell, ‘Report from Sao Paulo: Cannibals All’,

Art in America, vol.87, issue 5, May 1999, pp.46–55

marcelina, vol.1, São Paulo, 2008, available at

http://www.sophiamarchetti.com.br/index.php/PDF/1/32/
(last accessed on 18 May 2015)

Martina Merklinger, Die Biennale São Paulo: Kulturaustausch zwischen

Brasilien und der jungen Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1949–1954),
Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2013

Ivo Mesquita, Paulo Herkenhoff and Justo Pastor Mellado (ed.),

Cartographies (exh. cat.), Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1993

288 Selected bibliography 289

Picture credits © David Alfaro Siqueiros, DACS 2015 (fig.75 and 76)

© Estate of Robert Smithson / DACS, London / VAGA,

All artworks © the artists New York 2015 (fig.78)

© The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2015 © Collection of the Franz West Privatstiftung (fig.87 and 94–95)
(fig.58, 62 and 73–74)
Photography: © Rômulo Fialdini (fig.14)
© Corneille, ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2015 (fig.45)
Photography: © Juan Guerra, courtesy Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / 
© Constant, DACS 2015 (fig.45) Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (fig.1–3, 7, 12–13, 16–17, 19–21, 23–26,
29, 38–39, 41–51, 54–82, 84–91, 93–96 and 98)
© The Estate of Alberto Giacometti (Fondation Giacometti,
Paris and ADAGP, Paris), licensed in the UK by ACS and DACS, Photography: © Vicente de Mello (fig.22)
London 2015 (fig.41 and 43)
Photography: © Gal Oppido, courtesy Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / 
© Anna Bella Geiger, courtesy Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (fig.8, 11, 27, 32, 40, 52 and 83 )
(fig.16 and 49)
Courtesy Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de
© Donation Jorn, Silkeborg / billedkunst.dk/ DACS 2015 (fig.45) São Paulo (fig.4–6, 10, 15, 18, 28, 30–31, 34–37, 53, 92 and 97)

© Sherrie Levine. Courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (fig.63) Courtesy Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi (fig.33)

© Leonilson, 1957 Fortaleza – 1993 São Paulo (fig.26) Courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery, London; Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz;
and Kimsooja Studio, New York (fig.9)
© René Magritte, ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2015
(fig.69 and 72)

© Esko Männikkö, courtesy Galerie Nordenhake Berlin / 

Stockholm (fig.30)

© Piero Manzoni, DACS 2015 (fig.66)

© Estate of Maria Martins / Nora Martins Lobo (fig.40, 46–47 and 49)

© André Masson, ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2015 (fig.72)

© Roberto Matta, ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2015

(fig.73 and 75)

© Bjarne Melgaard, courtesy Galleri Riis, Oslo (fig.31)

© Vik Muniz / VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2015 (fig.17 and 70)

© 2015 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

and DACS, London (fig.80 and 81)

© 2015 Robert Ryman / DACS, London (fig.68)

290 Picture credits 291

Acknowledgements Index

A 21st (1991) 202

Afterall would like to thank the authors, artists, curators and photographers ‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’ 22–23, 114, 22nd (1994) 46n130, 253, 264
for their contributions to this book. 130–31 23rd (1996) 46n130, 49n143, 50, 51, 179, 193
Adéagbo, Georges 100, 113 25th (2002) 60, 188
Ades, Dawn 25, 40, 116, 149, 152 26th (2004) 50, 60, 188n4
For support in the research process that led to this publication we are Aguilar, Nelson 45, 47, 68 27th (2006) 31, 61, 178n10, 203
additionally grateful to: Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de Albán, Vicente 115, 136 28th (2008) 61
São Paulo; Atelier Soto; Bart de Baere; Marta Bergamin; AA Bronson; Daniela Álvarez Bravo, Manuel 40, 242 31st (2014) 59, 204, 280
Castro; Sandra Cinto; María Iñigo Clavo; Martin Corullon; Fernanda Curi, Amaral, Aracy 19, 32–33, 36–37, 43, 45, 116, 185 Bienal do Mercosul 44, 56, 62, 204
Amaral, Lilian 193–94 Bienal Latino-Americana de São Paulo
Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo; Fabio Amaral, Tarsila do 9, 11, 12, 18, 114, 116, (1978) 36, 37n98
Cypriano; Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi; Catherine David; Dias & Riedweg; the 160–66, 198, 230–32, 235, 240, 242, 246, 257 Bill, Max 32, 115, 237
Estate of Egill Jacobsen; the Estate of Eva Hesse; the Estate of Francis Bacon; ‘America: Bride of the Sun, 500 Years Latin Blake, William 25, 115, 141
Nicole Fletcher, Winnipeg Art Gallery; Fondation Giacometti; Fondazione America and the Low Countries’ 41, 40–44 Bo Bardi, Lina 10
Lucio Fontana; Franz West Privatstiftung Archiv; Andrea Fraser; Marcos Gallon, Américo, Pedro 15, 15–16, 19, 93, 115, 138 Bois, Yve-Alain 26–27
Andrade, Mário de 13, 235 Botero, Germán 42, 232
Galeria Vermelho; Cayo Honorato; Instituto Alfredo Volpi de Arte Moderna; Andrade, Oswald de 12–16, 19, 23–27, Bourgeois, Louise 26, 28, 114, 156, 180
Kimsooja; Julio Landmann; Laura Lima; Nora Martins Lobo; Ana Maria Maia; 29–30, 32, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 60, 62, 64–65, Bratke, Carlos 60
Anne Maier, Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Antonio Manuel; Júlio Martins; 128, 178, 182–83, 185, 206–11, 214–15, 219–20, ‘Brazil: Body and Soul’ 20–21
Marco Antonio Mastrobuono, Instituto Alfredo Volpi de Arte Moderna; Nuria 222–29, 231, 234, 239, 240, 242–43, 244, 246, Brett, Guy 39–40, 241
277, 278, 281–83 Bry, Theodore de 18, 115, 260
Enguita Mayo; Ivo Mesquita; Vik Muniz; César Oiticica, Projeto Hélio
Andujar, Claudia 78, 88, 98–99, 240
Oiticica; Fernando Oliva; Filipa Oliveira; Rachel Pafe; Adriano Pedrosa; Ariane Anthropophagy, see Andrade, Oswald de C
Figueiredo Pesquisa, Projeto Hélio Oiticica; Pedro Cid Proença; Projeto Antunes, Arnaldo 115, 159 Calder, Alexander 33, 237
Leonilson; Tania Rivera; Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp; Regina Silveira; Araki, Nobuyoshi 100, 111 Cannibalism, see Andrade, Oswald de
Edgard de Souza; Marion Strecker; Delson Uchôa; and Carla Zaccagnini. ‘Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste 25, 115
Um e/entre Outro/s’ 10, 25, 49, 54, 64, 78–99, ‘Cartographies’ 41–43, 42, 236
122, 261, 273 Carvajal, Rina 43, 52, 53, 101, 185, 231
Lisette Lagnado would like to thank Tainá Azeredo, Casa Tomada; Ilana ‘Art in Latin America’ 40 Carvalho, Flavio de 22, 114, 233
Goldstein; Shirley Paes Leme; and Isabella Prata, Escola São Paulo. Asher, Michael 52, 79, 82, 88, 89, 92, 94, 98, Castro, Eduardo Viveiros de 13, 26,
100, 268 212–15, 219
Cendrars, Blaise 13, 114, 242
For her support of the project from the outset Afterall would like to thank
B Cerviño, Rodrigo 48
Marie-Claude Beaud. Research assistance for this publication was made Bacon, Francis 18, 25, 49, 114, 116, 138, 142, Césaire, Aimé 184
possible through the kind support of Inge and Philip van den Hurk. 151–52, 237, 259, 265 Chiavatto, Milene 195
Baere, Bart de 51–52, 101, 185 Choi Jeong-Hwa 69, 77, 99, 100, 107, 108–09,
The Exhibition Histories series has been generously supported by: the Academy Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 17, 53 112, 122, 125, 249
Balka, Miroslaw 68, 74 Chougnet, Jean-François 43, 116, 132, 136
of Fine Arts Vienna; Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; Barbosa, Ana Mae 195, 200 Christanto, Dadang 100, 112
the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; MUDAM Luxembourg, Musée Barr, Jr, Alfred H. 18 Cinto, Sandra 78, 95
d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean; the National Lottery through Arts Council Barrio, Artur 18, 37, 49, 78, 114, 152 Clark, Lygia 26, 28, 40, 78, 114, 115, 131, 180,
England; and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Barsotti, Hércules 115, 146, 147 235, 238, 240, 242–43, 246
Bataille, George 13, 19, 26, 53, 149, 237, 247 CoBrA 114, 116, 127, 259
Belluzzo, Ana Maria 43, 116, 132, 136, 185 ‘Colour in Brazilian Modernism’, see
Beuys, Joseph 48, 237 ‘A Cor no Modernismo Brasileiro’
Bienal de La Habana 44, 56, 62, 177, 184 Concrete art 33–34, 146, 232, 247
Bienal de São Paulo, previous editions: Concrete poetry 178, 247
1st (1951) 10n5, 11n8, 23, 30, 33, 191, 255, 281 Constant 114, 127
2nd (1953–54) 8, 33, 57, 58 Contamination / ‘contaminações’ 19–20,
3rd (1955) 34 49–50, 114, 116, 130, 135, 137, 149, 152–54, 157,
10th (1969) 36, 178 170, 176, 180, 278, 283
13th (1975) 188, 192 Corneille 114, 127
16th (1981) 37, 38, 178, 193 Costi, Rochelle 78, 88, 90, 94, 99
17th (1983) 37, 38, 178 Craig-Martin, Michael 68, 77, 79, 82–83
18th (1985) 29, 179, 193 ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’ 18
19th (1987) 48n142, 193 Cypriano, Fabio 46

292 Index 293

D J Montaigne, Michel de 13, 18, 19, 20, 115, S
‘Dada e Surrealismo’ 18–19, 114, 116, 149–50, 261 Jacob, Mary Jane 116, 156, 180, 272 136, 222, 227 Sala Educação 66, 188–89
Dadi, Iftikhar and Elizabeth 100, 108, 110 Jacobsen, Egill 114, 127, 237 Moreau, Gustave 11, 19, 25, 115, 140–41 Salcedo, Doris 101, 112, 246
Danto, Arthur 187 Jaukkuri, Maaretta 51–52, 101, 185 Mosquera, Gerardo 44, 183–84, 241 Schendel, Mira 115, 157
David, Catherine 21n41, 61, 101, 116, 177, Jáuregui, Carlos A. 186–87 Munch, Edvard 23, 25, 105, 115 ‘Século XIX’ 24, 27, 115, 116, 136–142
234, 272 Jorn, Asger 114, 127 Muniz, Vik 18, 78, 88, 98, 115, 149 Segall, Lasar 22, 114, 131, 230
Dias & Riedweg 78, 87, 273, 276, 278, Semana de Arte Moderna 12, 59, 60
272–279 K N Senise, Daniel 78, 83
Dias, Antonio 114, 115, 121, 124, 146, 147, 168 Kahlo, Frida 40, 242, 245, 246 Nassar, Emmanuel 78, 86, 232 Serpa, Ivan 34, 55n167
Dictatorship (Brazil) 35–36, 39, 43, 178, 181, Kassel, see documenta Nauman, Bruce 26, 69, 115, 116, 158 Silveira, Regina 48, 64, 78, 82, 265
192, 230, 252, 258, 282 Kimsooja 69, 76 Neoconcrete art 27, 34, 238, 246 Siqueiros, David Alfaro 34, 49, 115, 116,
documenta 34, 177, 199, 203, 272, 278 Klein, Yves 11, 19, 115, 146, 237, 278 Neto, Ernesto 78, 92, 98, 115, 153, 238 153–54, 232, 240
Krauss, Rosalind 26 Neuenschwander, Rivane 78, 91–92, 98 Skulptur Projekte Münster 199
E Kuball, Mischa 69, 98–99, 261 Niemeyer, Oscar 10, 33, 248 Smith, Courtney 78, 94, 122
Eckhout, Albert 18, 20, 43, 114, 116, 132–36, Kuitca, Guillermo 114, 116, 124, 130, 231, ‘Núcleo Educação’ 54–55, 195 Smithson, Robert 116, 156, 180
158, 257, 259 234, 235 ‘Núcleo Histórico’ 9–30, 40, 43, 49–50, 53, 59, Soto, Jesús Rafael 115, 146, 147, 232
Ekisian, Chaké 192–93 Kusama, Yayoi 11, 19, 115, 146 62, 114–73, 181–82, 185, 197, 257, 260, 263, 282 Souza, Edgard de 78, 92, 96–98
El-Hassan, Roza 101, 104–05 Spricigo, Vinicius 45n129, 201
Eliasson, Olafur 68, 72–73 L O
Landmann, Julio 9–11, 45, 50–51, 60, 179, O, Honoré d’ 101, 104, 106 T
F 189–90, 252, 257 Oiticica, Hélio 18–19, 22, 24, 37, 39, 40, 49, Tamayo, Rufino 34, 245, 246
Fernandes, Iveta 197 Landmann, Oscar 11, 36n97, 252 115, 145, 154–55, 170, 173, 231, 232–35, 237–38, Tarsila, see Amaral, Tarsila do
Ferreira, Edemar Cid 45–47, 61, 179 ‘Latin American Architecture since 1945’ 35 240, 247, 250, 258, 263 Torres-García, Joaquín 11, 33, 40, 115, 144,
Flusser, Vilém 188n1, 193 Leirner, Sheila 29, 193 Omar, Arthur, 78, 90, 92, 94, 98–99, 104 146, 231, 238, 240
Fontana, Lucio 11, 19, 115, 146, 147, 231, 237, 240 Leonilson 48, 78, 97, 198 ‘The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Traba, Marta 41, 43, 246–47
‘Formless: A User’s Guide’, see ‘L’Informe: Léry, Jean de 13, 18, 115, 136 Post-War Britain’ 177 Tropicalismo 32, 178
mode d’emploi’ Lévi-Strauss, Claude 13, 60, 216 Orozco, Gabriel 101, 104 Tunga 20–21, 78, 91, 97, 116, 135, 233–34,
Fraser, Andrea 52, 100, 248–267, 268–70 Levine, Sherrie 52, 100, 116, 143, 268 Orozco, José Clemente 34, 40, 235, 240, 265 236, 238, 243, 246–47
Freeman, Andrew, see Asher, Michael Lima, Laura 49, 78, 91, 96, 125
Freitas, Iole de 78, 97, 114, 129, 238 Loureiro, Raul 48 P U
Freud, Sigmund 16, 17, 19, 24–25, 53, 149, 211, Luo Brothers 100, 108 Paalen, Wolfgang 114, 149, 242 Uchôa, Delson 116, 168, 169, 232
222, 225, 226, 229, 231, 239, 242–43, 268–69 Lyotard, Jean-François 28–29, 55 Pedrosa, Adriano 10, 19, 24, 25, 47, 51, 53,
64, 78, 82, 180, 226n1 V
G Pedrosa, Mário 232–33, 241, 244, 246, 247 Varejão, Adriana 21, 49n144, 78, 93, 116,
Galán, Julio 42, 243 M Pfaff, Judy 69, 72–73, 74–75 137, 241, 243
Geiger, Anna Bella 78, 87, 114, 130, 231 ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ 40, 43, 44, 177 Picabia, Francis 19, 114, 149, 206, 231 Vargas, Getúlio 30, 178n9
General Idea 52, 100, 111, 268 Magón, José Joachim 115, 137 ‘Portinari of Brazil’ 35 Venice Biennale 8n1, 31, 51, 56, 58, 61, 62,
Géricault, Théodore 19, 25, 115, 139–40, 180 Magritte, René 115, 116, 148, 150 ‘“Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: 251, 269, 273, 276
Giacometti, Alberto 114, 116, 123, 125, 180, 259 Malevich, Kazimir 24, 115, 146, 232, 237 Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern’ 177 Vergara, Luiz Guilherme 195–96, 200–01
Glissant, Édouard 184 Malfatti, Anita 22, 114, 230, 246 ‘Princípio Potosí’ 21 Volpi, Alfredo 18, 19, 22, 116, 165–68, 232, 263
Goeldi, Oswaldo 22–23, 114, 232, 238 ‘Manifesto antropófago’, Psychoanalysis, see Freud, Sigmund
Gogh, Vincent van 9, 18, 19, 114, 116, 142–43, see Andrade, Oswald de W
151, 259, 263–64, 278 Männikkö, Esko 101, 106 R Week of Modern Art (1922),
Goya, Francisco de 19, 24–25, 115, 141 Manuel, Antonio 78, 85, 238 Ramírez, Mari Carmen 34, 39, 116, 153, 249n3 see Semana de Arte Moderna
Grilo, Rubem 78, 84 Martins, Maria 11, 26, 115, 116, 122, 128–29, 180 Rêgo Monteiro, Vicente do 22, 114, 130–31, 232 Weissmann, Franz 34, 232, 238
Gross, Carmela 78, 82–83, 114, 121, 129 Masson, André 19, 114, 149, 150 ‘Representações Nacionais’ 10, 51, 68–77, West, Franz 101, 116, 165, 170
Matarazzo, Ciccillo 11–12, 31, 35, 46, 56, 58, 82, 86
H 59, 251 Resende, José 78, 97, 115, 123–24 Z
Herkenhoff, Paulo 8–10, 12–14, 16–30, 34, Matta, Roberto 115, 116, 151, 153, 240, 242 Reverón, Armando 19, 23, 24, 115, 116, 144, 232 Zanini, Walter 37, 178, 193
43–62, 64, 78, 82, 100, 116, 120, 145, 149, 165, Meireles, Cildo 18, 22, 37, 39, 40, 61, 78, 97, 115, Richter, Gerhard 115, 116, 126
170, 176–83, 186, 187, 189–91, 203, 230–47, 116, 165, 172, 173, 181, 183, 238, 240, 258, 278 Rio Branco, Miguel 78, 95, 101 Please note that not all artists involved
250, 268, 272, 277, 282 Melgaard, Bjarne 101, 107 Rivera, Diego 34, 40, 232, 240, 242 in the 24th Bienal de São Paulo are
Hesse, Eva 28n65, 114, 116, 156, 180, 237 Mendes da Rocha, Paulo 47, 70 Rockefeller, Nelson A. 34–35, 251n5 mentioned here; full lists of names can
Holanda, Sérgio Buarque de 11, 14, 176, 187 Mesquita, Ivo 41, 42, 52, 61, 82, 100, 188, 192, Rodin, Auguste 11, 24, 25, 115, 139 be found on the title pages for each
194, 236, 248, 268 Rolnik, Suely 202 section of the exhibition, see pp.63–174.
I Michel, Régis 24–25, 27, 59, 116, 138 ‘Roteiros…’ 10, 43, 47, 49, 51–53, 69, 77, 79,
‘Information’ 37, 39 Milhazes, Beatriz 78, 115, 164, 169 82, 89, 90, 100–13, 116, 122, 143, 165, 184–85,
‘L’Informe: mode d’emploi’ 26–27 Military rule, see Dictatorship 265, 268
Ioschpe, Evelyn 10, 54, 189, 197, 250 Moffatt, Tracey 101, 108 Ryman, Robert 11, 19, 115, 146, 147
‘Monocromos’ 19, 23–24, 115, 116, 144–47

294 Index 295

Notes
 The 24th Bienal de São Paulo remade art history from a
Brazilian perspective, and presented a new model for
exhibition-making in the era of post-colonial globalisation.
The show employed the Brazilian notion of anthropophagy
as both concept and method; it encouraged ‘contamination’
and ‘cannibalisation’ of the canon and attempted to
rethink the role of exhibition-based education. Detailed
documentation reconstructs the Bienal, with extensive
analysis provided by Lisette Lagnado. Further contributions
are made by Dias & Riedweg, Andrea Fraser, Paulo
Herkenhoff, Pablo Lafuente, Mirtes Marins de Oliveira,
Carmen Mörsch and Catrin Seefranz, and Renato Sztutman.

ISBN 978-3-86335-554-8

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