Launch of the book on the exhibition Unerasable Memories - a historic look at the videobrasil collection marks the next Public Programs meeting
The second Public Programs meeting of the Unerasable Memories – a historic look at the videobrasil collection exhibition will be held on October 21, 2014 at 8pm. Solange Farkas, director and general curator of Associação Cultural Videobrasil, will join art critic Fabio Cypriano and researcher Eduardo de Jesus to discuss the “Videobrasil Collection: Activation Strategies.” The subject is also tackled in the Unerasable Memories publication, to be launched during the meeting, featuring essays about the exhibition artworks by 18 researchers and curators. In an interview published in the book, Cypriano and Solange Farkas will discuss the exhibition now showing at Sesc Pompeia and other strategies devised to circulate the collection of 3,000-plus titles – including artworks, documents, recordings and publications – gathered by Videobrasil in the last thirty years. The meeting is free and open to the public and will take place at the Reflection Zone, within Sesc Pompeia’s Galpão, where Unerasable Memories is showing until November 30, 2014.
Much more than a catalog, the Unerasable Memories book is a set of critical essays about the artists and artworks featured in Unerasable Memories – a historic look at the videobrasil collection. For the first time in 30 years, Sesc São Paulo and Associação Cultural Videobrasil – partners since 1992 – have produced a curatorial project based on Associação’s own Collection. The exhibition is curated by the Spanish historian Agustín Pérez Rubio (currently art director for the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires – Malba), the first guest to immerse himself into Videobrasil’s collection. He has handpicked 18 pieces, including videos, video installations, documentaries and recordings of performances by artists from various countries – such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, USA, France, Morocco, Kenya, Lebanon and Zimbabwe – that revisit conflict episodes through memories and personal accounts. The selection comprises artworks by Brazil’s Rosângela Rennó and Jonathas de Andrade, Argentina’s León Ferrari, the United States’ Coco Fusco and Lebanon’s Akram Zaatari. Unerasable Memories is testament to the power of art against historical amnesia.
Agustín Pérez Rúbio wrote the book’s opening essay, on Rosangela Rennó’s Vera Cruz. Other contributors to the publication include the anthropologist Lilia Schwarcz, with an essay on A Arca dos Zo’e, by Vincent Carelli and Dominique Gallois; the curator Pablo León de la Barra, on Projeto Pacífico, by Jonathas de Andrade; the curator Gabriela Salgado, on Barrueco, by Ayrson Heráclito and Danillo Barata; the researcher Ivana Bentes, on Unforgettable Memory, by Liu Wei; the curator Octavio Zaya, on Letter to My Father (Standing by the Fence), by Carlos Motta, among others. The book also features an essay by the German professor and researcher Andreas Huyssen on media, politics and amnesia, a text by the sociologist and regional director for Sesc São Paulo, Danilo Santos de Miranda, plus the interview with Solange Farkas. Check out the full list of collaborators at the bottom of this page.
Unerasable Memories is a publication co-edited by Edições Sesc SP and Associação Cultural Videobrasil, organized by Agustín Pérez Rubio, editorial coordination by Teté Martinho and graphic design by Celso Longo + Daniel Trench.
Unerasable Memories: a historic look at Videobrasil Collection
Organization: Agustín Pérez Rubio
Associação Cultural Videobrasil; Serviço Social do Comércio em São Paulo
São Paulo : Edições Sesc São Paulo : Videobrasil, 2014
320 pages, bilingual (Portuguese/English)
ISBN 978-85-7995-142-8
R$ 86,00
Following its launch, the publication will be available for sale at Sesc SP units, in major bookstores and also on www.sescsp.org.br/livraria
Videobrasil Collection: activation strategies | Public Programs
The Videobrasil Collection comprises approximately 3,000 titles – including artworks, documentaries, documents, records and publications – gathered over the past three decades. The pieces include nearly 1,300 video works and recorded performances. Although the collection incorporates international video art classics, its great strength lies in placing together the memory of audiovisual productions from the geopolitical South, which is the focus of the Southern Panoramas exhibition of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, spanning countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Due to the recurring participation of some artists in the Festival, the Collection contains small collections by authors such as Lebanon’s Akram Zaatari. It also features several pieces by Lenora de Barros, Cao Guimarães, Carlos Nader, Kiko Goifman, Lucas Bambozzi, Shaun Gladwell, Gregg Smith, Bouchra Khalili, Guillermo Cifuentes and Fernando Meirelles.
On occasion of the Festival’s 30th anniversary celebrations, in 2013, historical international video art pieces, by artists such as Nam June Paik (1932-2006), Bruce Nauman, Gary Hill, Vito Acconci, Bill Viola, Dan Graham, Joan Jonas, John Baldessari and Paul McCarthy, were purchased. Although these pieces were shown at the Festival, they were not part of the Collection. Videobrasil’s Collection also comprises donations, such as the works of Rafael França (1957-1991), Marina Abs (1962-2002), and Eder Santos.
The collection has also incorporated Videobrasil’s own productions, such as interviews with artists and performances recorded during the Festival, as well as the documentaries of the Videobrasil Authors Collection – VCA series, including films about South Africa’s William Kentridge, Lebanon’s Akram Zaatari, Cuba’s Coco Fusco and Brazil’s Rafael França, Chelpa Ferro and Mau Wal (Maurício Dias & Walter Riedweg). The filmmaker Karim Aïnouz is creating the upcoming edition, the short film Domingo, about the work of Olafur Eliasson, set for release in October 2014 at the Festival do Rio (Rio de Janeiro State), with later screenings in São Paulo (São Paulo State) and Fortaleza (Ceará State).
It was precisely the understanding of the need to activate and safeguard its Collection that led to the establishment of Associação Cultural Videobrasil in 1991, eight years after the Festival’s first edition. Over the past few years, Associação has held several video exhibits at the behest of organizations from Brazil and abroad, showcasing works from its Collection across several Brazilian states and overseas, in keeping with its mission of publicizing video productions by artists from the Global South. Videobrasil has held exhibits in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Australia, USA and others.
Associação is also striving to weave a sophisticated web of contents around the artworks from its Collection, such as references and critical texts. Apart from PLATFORM:VB, which evidences the connections between the contents approached by Videobrasil, setting out to help create new mediation structures in contemporary art production, Associação also produces ff>>dossier. The dossier is an online publication featuring vast research material about 52 artists and eight curatorial projects, including critical essays, interviews and images from the contemporary art scene – it is an initiative of the institution with the purpose of documentation, collection-building and content production.
SERVICE:
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
“Videobrasil Collection: activation strategies” + meeting and “Unerasable Memories” book launch
With Solange Farkas, Eduardo de Jesus and Fabio Cypriano
October 21, 2014, Tuesday, 8pm
Sesc Pompeia — Galpão — Reflection Zone
Rua Clélia, 93, São Paulo, Brazil
EXHIBITION BOOK
UNERASABLE MEMORIES – A HISTORIC LOOK AT THE VIDEOBRASIL COLLECTION
Essay
By: Andreas Huyssen
Interview with Solange Farkas
Interviewer: Fabio Cypriano
Vera Cruz | 2000
Rosangela Rennó
By: Agustín Pérez Rubio
A Arca dos Zo'e | 1993
Vincent Carelli & Dominique Gallois
By: Lilia Schwarcz
Barrueco | 2004
Ayrson Heráclito & Danillo Barata
By: Gabriela Salgado
Contestado, A Guerra Desconhecida | 1985
Enio Staub
By: Manuela Moscoso
Projeto Pacífico | 2010
Jonathas de Andrade
By: Pablo León de la Barra
Face A Face B | 2002
Rabih Mroué
By: Inti Guerrero
Casa Blanca | 2005
León Ferrari & Ricardo Pons
By: Inés Katzenstein
O Sangue da Terra | 1984
Aurélio Michiles
By: Cristiana Tejo
The Loudest Muttering is Over: Documents From The Atlas Group Archive | 2003
Walid Raad
By: Chus Martinez
In This House | 2004
Akram Zaatari
By: Manuel Segade
Untitled (Zimbabwean Queen Of Rave) | 2005
Dan Halter
By: João Laia
Unforgettable Memory | 2009
Liu Wei
By: Ivana Bentes
Lucharemos Hasta Anular La Ley | 2004
Sebastian Diaz-Morales
By: Sophie Goltz
Letter to My Father (Standing by the Fence) | 2005
Carlos Motta
By: Octavio Zaya
Bare Life Study #1 | 2005
Coco Fusco
By: Magda Gonzalez-Mora
The Mapping Journey Project | 2008-2011
Bouchra Khalili
By: Omar Berrada
My Possession | 2005
Mwangi Hutter
By: Marcos Hill
O Samba do Crioulo Doido | 2013
Luiz de Abreu
By: Ana Francisca Ponzio