VIDEOBRASIL + EXPOPROJEÇÃO + ZANINI
In Brazil, the consolidation of video as a language and its insertion into the contemporary visual arts scenario is closely connected with a few characters and their initiatives in mapping out, grouping up, and exhibiting artwork to large audiences. Bringing these people together to reflect about these events and their contribution to the arts in Brazil is the aim of a historical meeting, titled VIDEOBRASIL + EXPOPROJEÇÃO + ZANINI. The activity is part of the Public Programs of the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil.
As Solange Farkas celebrates the Festival’s 30th anniversary with a historical edition, which opened on November 06 at Sesc Pompeia, the show EXPOPROJEÇÃO 1973-2013, opened on October 22 at Sesc Pinheiros, revisits an original project by Aracy Amaral, this time with backing from Roberto Moreira S. Cruz in updating the artworks and artists featured. Rounding out the triumvirat of pioneers in fostering and disseminating video in Brazil is Cacilda Teixeira da Costa, one of the coordinators of the country’s first-ever video center, created by initiative of WALTER ZANINI in 1976 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC/USP). Costa will join Farkas, Amaral and Cruz to reflect on Zanini’s contribution to video and contemporary art in Brazil, at a meeting mediated by the curator Eduardo de Jesus. The event will take place on November 26, 8:00 pm at the Sesc Pompeia Warehouse, and will be open to the public.
Service:
VIDEOBRASIL + EXPOPROJEÇÃO + ZANINI
with: Solange O. Farkas, Cacilda Teixeira da Costa, Aracy Abreu Amaral, Roberto Moreira S. Cruz e Eduardo de Jesus | 11.26, Tuesday, 8:00 pm / Sesc Pompeia / Warehouse (Clélia Street, 93, Pompeia).
Tickets must be collected 1 hour prior to the start of the event.
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18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil
Videobrasil is celebrating the festival’s 30th anniversary with a historical edition retracing the changes and development undergone by video and the contemporary arts in the domestic and international scenarios. Back in the early days of video art in Brazil, it was the first festival to feature this art form, encouraging its production, enabling its establishment and promoting public access. Later on, the event came to include electronic art, performance, and hybrid practices. In 1992, the year in which SESC became its co-producer, the festival expanded and went international, pioneering discussions about a new confluence of forces and geopolitical organization of the Southern Hemisphere countries, the mainstay of the competitive show. Since 2011, the Festival embraced all art languages, in keeping with video’s insertion process as an artistic product and its relationship with other art fields, and becoming one of the country’s leading events, as well as one of the most respected worldwide, and highlighting the diversity and multiplicity of mediums and languages in contemporary art.
On celebrating its three-decade history, apart from the Southern Panoramas competitive show, introducing 106 pieces by 94 artists from 32 countries in the geopolitical south of the world, on the second floor of the Sesc Pompeia sports complex, the festival features the show 30 Years, a video installation comprising 234 screens at Sesc’s Warehouse, in a polyphony of sounds and images from different shows, performances, meetings, and other relevant moments from its seventeen editions. The same venue also hosts restagings of historical performances and a Video Library, offering the audience 1300 works featured in past editions, and including a precious selection of exhibits by artists like Nam June Paik and Gary Hill.
The 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil will remain open from November 06 to February 02, occupying the Sesc Pompeia, Cine Sesc and SescTV venues.
EXPOPROJEÇÃO 1973/2013
In 1973, Aracy Amaral organized and coordinated EXPOPROJEÇÃO at the “Grife” (Portuguese acronym for Experimental Filmmakers Group), Brazil’s first major audiovisual show, regarded as a watershed event by researchers due to its featuring various artists who worked primarily on Super 8 and 16mm. Now, 40 years later, she revisits the project alongside Roberto Moreira S. Cruz, broadening and updating the original proposal in the show EXPOPROJEÇÃO 1973/2013, at SESC Pinheiros.
The show comprises two nuclei: one historical and one contemporary. The historical nucleus features the collection from Expoprojeção 73, including photographs, texts, recordings, the original catalogue, letters, and the selection of works shown in that first exhibit, as well as pieces restored especially for the project. The show features artwork by Cildo Meirelles, Antonio Dias, Antonio Manuel, Abrão Berman, Anna Bella Geiger, Carlos Vergara, Claudio Tozzi, Donato Ferrari, Frederico Morais, Lygia Pape, Raimundo Colares, among others. The historical nucleus also features pieces dating from after the Expoprojeção show, from 1974 to 1999, created by Sonia Andrade, José Roberto Aguillar, Regina Vater, Rafael França, Miguel Rio Branco, Tunga, Sandra Kogut, Eder Santos, Carlos Nader and Tadeu Jungle. The contemporary nucleus features works created in the 21st century, including installations, objects, and projections on large screens, created by the artists Cao Guimarães, Rivane Neuenschwabder, Marcellvs L, Lia Chaia, Letícia Ramos, Ricardo Carioba, Cinthia Marcelle and Rosângela Rennó.
EXPOPROJEÇÃO 1973/2013 opened on October 22 at the Sesc Pinheiros Exhibition Venue, on the 2nd floor.
WALTER ZANINI
Walter Zanini (São Paulo, 19251–2013), Brazilian historian, art critic, and curator, full professor at the University of São Paulo, was the first director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo – MAC/USP, inaugurated in 1963, where he remained until 1978. At the museum, he became close with groups of young artists by hosting shows such as JAC's (Portuguese acronym for Young Contemporary Art), which focused on experimental production, especially in video art. In 1974, Zanini was invited by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania to select participants for the show Video Art, and referred pieces by Anna Bella Geiger, Angelo de Aquino, Sônia Andrade, Ivens Machado and Fernando Cocchiarale. The venue Espaço B, created by Zanini in 1976, housed the Video Tape Center, coordinated by Cacilda Teixeira da Costa and Marília Saboya, the first of its kind in a large institution in Brazil, providing artists with equipment, including a Sony portapak, a then-groundbreaking piece of equipment. Zanini parted ways with the MAC in 1978, as the museum was temporarily shut down and Espaço B was deactivated. In that year, he curated the 1st International Video Art Meeting at the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo (MIS-SP), featuring artists like Regina Silveira, Gabriel Borba Filho, Jonier Marin, Carmela Gross, Marcello Nitsche, Julio Plaza, Gastão de Magalhães, Flávio Pons and Sônia Andrade.
Zanini has curated two editions of the São Paulo International Art Biennial (in 1981 and 1983), setting out to exhibit works which focused on research on new languages and experimentation. He wrote the two volumes of the General History of Art in Brazil (1983), among other publications in national and international books and periodicals. He died at age 87 on January 29, 2013, in São Paulo.
This year, a tribute show in his memory is scheduled to take place at MAC/USP.
About the participants:
Aracy Abreu Amaral _ Critic and curator, former director of the São Paulo State Art Gallery (Pinacoteca), of the MAC/USP, and curator of the 8th Mercosur Biennial and the Triennial of Chile.
Cacilda Teixeira da Costa _ Curator and writer, former coordinator of MAC/USP and the XVI São Paulo Biennial.
Roberto Moreira S. Cruz _ Curator, professor and cultural producer, consultant to Itaú Cultural for audiovisual, films, and artist videos.
Solange O. Farkas _ Founder and curator of Associação Cultural Videobrasil, former director of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, and guest curator to the Biennials of Sharjah and Cerveira.
Eduardo de Jesus (mediator) _ Curator and professor at the postgraduate program of the School of Communication and Arts at PUC-MG.