Associação Cultural Videobrasil

editorial

Caderno Videobrasil is a publication that unites works of art and articles written by both art critics and historians, as well as other professionals who also hold strong ideas about contemporary art. This publication is part of a set of initiatives undertaken by the Associação Cultural Videobrasil, with a view to promoting an art discussion forum within the southern hemisphere's art scene. In spite of being topic-based, the idea behind each issue is not to be exhaustive. On the contrary, we expect to provide views that stand out from the clichés that are rife amongst the professionals concerned. This time, we have focused on performance art.

A performance can generate dance, theatre, musical presentations or the reading of a text. It can also be present in the making of a painting, a video, a photograph, in the screening of a film, and it can also combine elements from two or more media. Such an interdisciplinary approach lies along side other key interpretations of the term performance, namely that of accomplishing a pre-established task by letting it take form in an open-ended arrangement, as well as that of a temporary and ephemeral presentation designed to be watched as it unfolds, or to be enjoyed as the physical remains - not necessarily documental evidence - of that action. Establishing limits in the field of performance art is far from easy. Consequently, we chose to draw on the reflections by those who have written about the visual arts, another field where artistic creation emerges on the border between different media. To a certain extent, this is just a reformulation of the same problem, namely that of the interaction between different artistic practices.

Associação Cultural Videobrasil. Caderno Videobrasil. , nº 1, pp.4, São Paulo, 2005.