RESIST, REEXIST
The first show of Associação Cultural Videobrasil’s 2017 exhibitions program turns to video productions by Latin American artists who carry on the tradition of landscape representation in a critical light, in connection with the region’s history of territorial disputes.
Curated by Gabriel Bogossian, RESISTIR, REEXISTIR (RESIST, REEXIST) features twelve artworks from the Videobrasil Collection and a set of documental photographs and interviews with researchers and activists. Hinting at an “aesthetics of resistance,” the show attempts to incorporate political signs and situations into the art scene, thereby producing a more complex and prolific conflation of different forms of poetical articulation and political enunciation. The selection comprises works by Cao Guimarães, Luiz Roque, Jorge La Ferla, Eder Santos, Marcellvs L., Ana Vaz, and Aurélio Michiles, among other artists.
RESISTIR, REEXISTIR opens on February 1, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Galpão VB, and will be on show through March 18, 2017, from Tuesday to Saturday, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.; and on the first Wednesday of each month (except holidays), from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The exhibition’s title is a nod to resistir = (re) existir, a piece created by Marcelo Cidade in 2005. At artist Daniel Lima’s invite, Cidade joined one of several art interventions designed to give a media existence—and thereby political momentum—to the Prestes Maia squatter settlement. The occasion saw Cidade write the phrase “resistir = (re) existir” on 2,000 sheets of paper, and then pile them up atop the building so the wind would blow them across downtown São Paulo. The number of paper sheets matched the number of squatters, at once evoking the unsurmountable divide upon which those people’s lives would unfold, and the weight of the individual/group relationship in a context of social struggle.
Incorporating the title and context of Cidade’s piece, RESISTIR, REEXISTIR brings to Galpão VB artworks that approach territory in myriad ways: from the presence of naturalist travelers in Brazil to the implosion of Pruitt-Igoe, the iconic St. Louis (USA) housing complex. The show includes A idade da pedra (2013), by Ana Vaz (Brazil); Uyuni (2005), by Andrés Denegri (Argentina); O sangue da terra (1982-1984), by Aurélio Michiles (Brazil); Concerto para clorofila (2004), by Cao Guimarães (Brazil); Pilgrimage (2010), by Eder Santos (Brazil); Lin e Katazan (1979), by Edgard Navarro (Brazil); Andinia 9º2 (1992), by Jorge La Ferla (Argentina) and Jorge Amaolo (Argentina); Filme dourado (2010), by Luiz Roque (Brazil); Superbloques (2010), by Luis F. Ramírez Celis (Colombia); Panorâmica 01 (2007), by Letícia Ramos (Brazil); Rizoma 0667 (2004), by Marcellvs L .(Brazil); and La Physique Générale (2010), by Vinicius Duarte (Brazil).
In addition to the video works, the exhibition features documental materials, photographs, and interviews conducted with activists, researchers, and representatives of social movements, such as those of struggle for land and natives, composing a mosaic in which art, journalism, and personal testimonies complement and oppose one another. Among the interviewees are João Paulo Rodrigues, national leader of Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST); Cármen Silva Ferreira, of the Struggle for Housing Front (FLM) and leader of many occupations in central São Paulo; the photojournalist Douglas Mansur, who for over 30 years has been dedicating himself to the political activism and the photographic documentation of the MST; and the architect Paulo Tavares, who focuses on researching and discussing the relationships between spacial practices, visual cultures, and political ecology.
The exhibition RESISTIR, REEXISTIR is an undertaking of the Brazilian Federal Government’s Ministry of Culture along with Associação Cultural Videobrasil, and is made viable through the Federal Law for Cultural Incentive, with support of Bloomberg. The exhibition is done in partnership with Electrica Cinema e Vídeo and in collaboration with Christie, Olho Digital and Ovo.
SEMINAR - REGARDING LATIN AMERICA | POLITICAL AND CULTURAL OVERVIEW
The public programs of exhibition RESISTIR, REEXISTIR will include the seminar Regarding Latin America | Political and Cultural Overview, comprising an open-to-the-public inaugural class and four registration-only meetings. The activities are designed to elaborate on exhibition themes and concepts, and to consider this territory and its identities, which permeate so many of the artworks in Videobrasil’s collection.
FACT SHEET
WHAT: RESISTIR, REEXISTIR exhibition | Videobrasil Historical Collection artworks
Curated by Gabriel Bogossian. Featuring artwork by Ana Vaz, Andrés Denegri, Aurélio Michiles Cao Guimarães, Eder Santos, Edgard Navarro, Jorge Amaolo, Jorge La Ferla, Letícia Ramos, Luis F. Ramírez Celis, Luiz Roque, Marcellvs L. and Vinicius Duarte
WHEN: February 2 to March 18, 2017.
OPENING: February 1 (Wednesday), 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
DATES AND HOURS: February 2 to March 18, 2017, Tuesday to Saturday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.