"Angel", by Mario Cravo Neto. Courtesy Paulo Darzé Gallery.

Seeking to renew the experience with the public through different initiatives, but always keeping photography as a central point, SP-Foto, which has been taking place in person for 14 years, holds its first Viewing Room. Among galleries, publishers and independent projects, the event brings together more than 50 national and international exhibitors between the 23rd and 29th of November.

“With each edition, we promote a meeting of generations between artists and galleries already consolidated in the circuit and young exhibitors and artists who are now flourishing. They are bets, names that we believe will rise more and more”, says Fernanda Feitosa, founder and director of SP-Foto.

In this context, galleries from all over Brazil participate in the event, institutions - such as the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM São Paulo), the Mário Cravo Neto Institute and the Brazilian Association of Contemporary Art (ABACT) -, the publishers Fotô Editorial , Lovely House and Terra Virgin Independent editions and projects, which feature a meticulous selection of photography and video art. 

Still from the video “Singing in the rain”, by Berna Reale. Photo: Courtesy MAM-SP Photography Club.

In order to provide an immersive digital experience, the Viewing Room was designed to allow the visitor to walk through the different exhibition projects. Each gallery, publisher or project will occupy an environment - in this case, online - in which up to 20 works by one or more artists can be exhibited, and content in text, video and audio will be made available, in order to provide a unique narrative and enrich the show. If there is interest in any work available on the site, just one click on “Contact gallery” allows the buyer to start a conversation with the exhibitor.

plural dialogues

One of the highlights of this edition is the participation of independent projects. In dialogue with 01.01 Art Platform (with its look at African and Afro-diasporic productions) and Levante Nacional Trovoa (which is dedicated to inserting women and non-binary black, Asian and indigenous people into the arts circuit) – read the report on the two projects -, is the New Yorker MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, who participates for the first time in a Brazilian event, rrepresenting the voice of women and non-binary Afro-descendants. The collective presents at the SP-Foto Viewing Room works by artists such as Deborah Willis, Dee Dwyer, Jaimee Todd and Tokie Rome-Taylor in an exhibition project that emphasizes the diverse way in which each one approaches African descent and represents their worldview.

Piscina Art focuses on themes related to self-image, representation and bodies, bringing to the fair works produced by young women artists. Finally, among the independent spaces, there is the Veras Cultural Center, conceived after a twenty-year gestation period by the monk and curator Josué Mattos, who had the idea when he lived in a monastery in the mountains of Paraty and ended up specializing in art in France. The works brought by Veras will be sold for the construction of its physical headquarters in Florianópolis.

History of Brazilian photography

Started as a group of amateur photographers, Foto Cine Clube Bandeirantes represented the apex of the photoclub movement in Brazil – which spread, in the 1940s, through the main capitals of the country. One of the outstanding factors of the group's performance was opening the doors to Brazilian photography around the world. This year, the Club is highlighted in SP-Foto.

It was thinking about its importance to the history of photography that several exhibition projects decided to celebrate it in this edition of the Fair. In partnership, the Luciana Brito and Bel Amado galleries exhibit a selection of works by some of the main names in Foto Cine Clube Bandeirantes, such as Gaspar Gasparian, Geraldo de Barros, Gertrudes Altschul, Marcel Giró, Paulo Pires and Thomaz Farkas. The Almeida & Dale Gallery, in The Club's Attendees, pays homage by presenting works by internationally renowned artists who, in common, are passionate club regulars, such as Barbara Mors, Ivo Ferreira da Silva, Julio Agostinelli and José Yalenti. Utopia, in turn, focuses on the member German Lorca, whose works are exhibited alongside photographs by the modernists Fernando Lemos, Annemarie Heinrich, Alice Kanji and Dulce Carneiro, in an experience that unites the visual and the sound in the space. virtual exhibition.  

with an eye on the present

“Queimada I, Barão de Melgaço, Brazil”, Lalo de Almeida. Courtesy Utopian Photography.

In the same event that reminds us of part of the history of Brazilian photography, Documenta Pantanal invites the public to reflect on the present and the urgent environmental issues that surround it. It does so from photographs by João Farkas, Luciano Candisani and Araquém Alcântara who seek to document the Brazilian Pantanal region. The subject extends beyond the exhibition, with the conversation between photographers João Farkas and Lalo Almeida during a cycle of debates and lectures at SP-Foto. With a focus on environmental emergencies, both comment on their works from two different approaches: photojournalism and the document. 

In addition to the virtual exhibition

The chat between the photographers is part of a wide and free program with the cycle of debates and online lectures, the talks, in order to complete the fair experience. Check out the schedule below:

  • 24/11 at 16 pm: The curator Luciara Ribeiro conversation with artist Moara Brasil;
  • 25/11 at 11 am: The curator Luciara Ribeiro talks with the artist duo Takeuchiss;
  • 26/11 at 11 am: The curator Eder Chiodetto talk to the artists Ayrson Heraclitus and Daniel Jablonski;
  • 26/11 at 16:XNUMX pm: With an eye on environmental emergencies, photographers João Farkas and Lalo Almeida comment on their works. 

Interested? For more information, access the SP-Arte website by clicking here.


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