Associação Cultural Videobrasil

In a passage of Literatura expandida – arquivo e citação na obra de Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Expanded literature – archive and quotation in Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s work), the artist addresses one of her favorite writers: “The alternance between his own life and the world in his stories is always intermingled with the exploration of the gigantic library the world has turned into.” The description concerns the Spaniard Enrique Vila-Matas, but could just as well apply to the artist herself. The huge flow of information in contemporary times has taken the practice of appropriation in art to new heights, in such a way that the artistic discourse can build itself up amidst quotations and corrupted references, as done by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Straddling the lines between film, video, and installation, the artist is known by the way through which she composes atmospheres and landscapes evocative of the meaning of dystopia, and of our relationship with space. This book takes an in-depth look into her theoretical prerrogatives.
As the subject of Ana Pato’s master’s research, conducted under the guidance of Lisette Lagnado, the artist seemed to provide her with a particularly inspiring case: being personally interested in science fiction literature and professionally in charge of organizing an archive (the Videobrasil Collection), in Literatura expandida Pato proposes, under an essayistic approach, that we pay heed to the potentialities of contemporary archives.

To the author, the artist’s uniqueness is revealed in the way she articulates experimentation with literary text by transposing it into the visual arts field. It is in the exhibition venue that this “method” gives rise to a new form of literature—no longer circumscribed to the word or linguistic communication, but multidimensional. An expanded understanding of literature that can manifest itself in different ways: in a quasi-literal way, when the artist creates an affective library of sorts in the exhibition venue (as in the installation Tapis de lecture, 2000); or in a subtle way, as in her 2009 pieces, in which she creates environments that materialize images and sensations from literary texts (chronotopes & dioramas); or else in a perhaps more complex manner, as when she appropriated works by other artists in order to create her major intervention, TH.2058 (2008), at the Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern.

Physically speaking, the book also sets out to translate issues that Ana Pato’s research investigates: highlighting the constitutive character of the quotation, the archive, and the reference in Gonzalez-Foerster’s oeuvre, Daniel Trench’s graphic design and Teté Martinho’s editing include color-highlighted quotes, bibliography in the beginning of the book (rather than at the end), a still from the piece Textorama (a mural of quotes from 2009) on the cover, and reproductions of pages from another publication (as in a book within the book). Some of the research work by Ana Pato, a lengthy interview with the artist, and reproductions of artwork are included.

A new publishing project

The book inaugurates an initiative of Videobrasil’s in association with Edições Sesc to build a Brazilian contemporary art library, particularly covering previously unpublished academic production. Director and curator Solange Farkas emphasizes how pertinent it is that the project is opening with this title, because it reflects an issue germane to the managing of the Videobrasil Collection: at a time when “the archive becomes a dynamic device, inspiring are the artistic proposals that feed upon the idea of the world as a collection and which exalt it by regrouping and reinterpreting fragments.”

This initiative is a continuation of our publishing policy, based on the fostering of reflection and diffusion of contemporary art and cultural issues surrounding it, whether artistic, social or political. Among our products we have: Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil, a space for expanded curatorial proposals; books dedicated to artists we exhibit – such as Joseph Beuys, Olafur Eliasson and Isaac Julien; and the Festivals catalogue. Literatura expandida inaugurates our new segment dedicated to theoretical works, addressed under a non-academic rapprochement.

About Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Born in Strasbourg, France, 1965. Lives and works in Paris. One of the leading names in contemporary art, she has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Guggenheim Museum (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (Castile), among others. Her work features in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Musee d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (France), Dia Art Foundation (New York), Tate Modern, MUSAC (Spain), Instituto Inhotim (Brazil), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), and 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Japan), among others.

About the author

A doctoral candidate at the University of São Paulo’s School of Architecture and Urbanism and the holder of a master’s degree in the visual arts from Faculdade Santa Marcelina (2011), Ana Pato graduated in social communication from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (1994) with a specialization in cultural management from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (1996). Parallel to her academic research on the relationship between archive and contemporary art, she works in cultural management. From 2000 to 2012, Ana Pato was the executive director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil.