Ismael Nery, Decomposed Figure, 1927
Ismael Nery, Decomposed Figure, 1927

by Maykson Cardoso
Berlin-based art researcher
PhD student in Visual Arts at the School of Fine Arts at UFRJ

Fabio Cypriano is one of the last bastions of courageous art criticism in Brazil. I read his criticism of the current edition of the Venice Biennale, “Stranieri Ovunque”, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and I feel honored to see how some of the curatorial problems were addressed there. I write this text in dialogue with Cypriano’s critique, opening up other questions based on one of the points he highlights: a certain curatorial effort to frame uncritically the production of artists from the global south in a category that starts from and converges with a vision of the history of Western/colonial art.

Since the announcement of the team of Brazilian artists who would be part of the exhibition, one could already anticipate some curatorial inconsistencies. Not because of the individual quality of these artists, but because, as a whole, one could already see that the [“Italian-”]Brazilian wing would not question, from current and urgent questions, the clichés and problems of our complex “national identity”, as the title of the exhibition “Foreigners Everywhere” seemed to suggest. Which, from the outset, already placed us before two curatorial holes: first, because a collective curation is valued by the set of its works; second, by how much this set somehow resonates with the general concept based on their singularity.

In this sense, Cypriano points out, for example, that

“Those selected in all these sections would not be creating alternatives to the so-called official history, but their insertions into genres and movements defined by Western standards end up becoming just a list of paintings that want to join the official club. This is the case of the Brazilians Tarsila do Amaral, Ismael Nery, Candido Portinari and Di Cavalcanti, to name just four. The chosen works, respectively Study (1923), Decomposed Figure (1927), Mulatto's Head (1934) and Three Mulattos (1922) bring little friction to the current narrative”.

It is from this incongruity that Cypriano concludes — and herein lies the great merit of his text — that the curatorial discourse seeks to fit the production of artists from the global south “in the modernist narrative, as if insertion into this story were in fact a significant achievement”. Regarding this, it is worth following the discussions of Rafael Cardoso, who in his most recent research shows the popular origins of Brazilian modernism, challenging the current official narrative that attributes modernism only to the bigwigs of the São Paulo elite.

Without a doubt, this curatorial premise is the first [deliberately?] blind spot in Pedrosa’s proposal… When looking at peripheral modernisms, especially in the Brazilian case, his sympathy, to speak with Walter Benjamin, is immediately with the winners! Contrary to the [a]esthetic demand of our time, to read the COLONIAL history of art against the grain, what Pedrosa does is to settle the bristling hairs of the best in our contemporary artistic production, finishing the hairstyle with a bit of plaster to ensure that they don’t bristle again.

But the ineffectiveness of his curatorial discourse does not stop at this first point… Even in the general title of the exhibition, “Foreigners Everywhere”, there seems to be a certain “disposition” for a political debate. However, when examined critically, what we see and what is expressed there is precisely the opposite: if we are all foreigners, NOBODY is a foreigner. And so we fall, once again, into the hell of the always-same: if we are all foreigners, are war or climate refugees just as foreign as we are, those who have the privilege of carrying a passport? If we are all foreigners, are those who flee poverty just as foreign as we are? Those who seek asylum due to political persecution in their own countries?

A statement of this nature is reminiscent of Susan Buck-Morss’ reflection in “Hegel and Haiti”, especially when the author refers to the motto of the French Revolution “liberty, equality, fraternity”. By using the same motto that had served the purposes of the revolution in France, the Haitians welcomed Napoleon’s troops to put an end to their revolt. For the revolutionary Napoleon, the motto that was supposed to be “universal” only served France and did not extend to the Haitians who were fighting against their own slavery. In other words: a title that says “we are all strangers” arrogates a similar principle of universality, when we, the peripherals of the global south, know very well who the winners always are.

Adriano Pedrosa does not fail, therefore, in the quality of the artists he presents to the public, but in the curatorial discourse without any depth and, therefore, without effectiveness, without the strength to lead the public to question the injustice embedded in the very idea of ​​borders. His title is a slogan, that is to say — to point out, as Cypriano does —: it is nothing more than a marketing strategy. modus operandi whose result is none other than to cool down contradictions and conflicts. It does not take us, in the slightest, away from the comfort and hell of the always-the-same. There is there, to recall a term once coined by Miwon Kwon, only the “performance of a criticality”.

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And, so that they don't say I didn't mention the flowers, in terms of editing, compared to the previous edition, “O Leite dos Sonhos”, curated by Cecilia Almani, Pedrosa brings to Venice a good feature of our Brazilian modernist architecture: he manages to create breathing spaces in the face of a baroque excess, without, however, appeasing what, aesthetically, should be presented as this “excess”.

And speaking of baroque, La Chola, for me, is the biggest highlight of the exhibition. Like few others, the artist manages to create a dialogue that updates — she does, critically! — the discourse of Latin American art history. La Chola appropriates the aesthetics of the Andean baroque, creating complex (and extremely well-executed!) allegories that denounce the violence of the colonial norm that founded our idea of  nation, while at the same time subverting it, taking on elements of colonial aesthetics to celebrate the strength and resistance of those who rise up against its validity in our days — as, in fact, can be seen in Pedrosa's curatorial discourse.

Venice Biennale - Foreigners Everywhere. Work by La Chola Poblete
The Poor Chola

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All this shows us that the time has come to differentiate curators who are committed not only to the cause, but to the field of art itself, to the history of art, to thought, to the detriment of those who act as mere producers of shallow content for social networks or CEOs of large institutions. We need, we deserve more, much more than that!


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