With works that propose the need for reflection on how the planet is being modified, the exhibition brings together works by artists from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, France and Saudi Arabia.
The world's most extensive cultural event – 18,730 km of contemporary art – takes place in 28 countries and more than 70 cities around the world on five continents.
Faithful to the objective of being a different biennial – decentralized, democratic, horizontal and humanist, which addresses the themes of today's world – BIENALSUR 2023 continues to claim the right to culture and diversity, with exhibitions and actions focused on environmental issues, a perspective of gender, construction of narratives and democracy.
“One of the premises of BIENALSUR's work is to explore the international artistic panorama through an open, free and horizontal call that we carry out for each edition. From this call, the main themes on which we work emerge, as well as a set of projects by artists from different cultural contexts, which are selected to be included in the various exhibitions and interventions held in the more than 40 cities in which each edition of BIENALSUR operates simultaneously”, explains Diana Weschler, Artistic Director of BIENALSUR.
From the last open call emerged the dominant theme that guides the selection of artists in this exhibition. The contemporary vital experience is problematized in all the works; In some of them, the environmental issue is fundamental. Brazilian Rochelle Costi, one of the artists featured in the exhibition, sent the series she produced during the pandemic. This work – which interested the selection jury – is unfortunately the artist's last, as she passed away last November in a traffic accident. Her inclusion in this exhibition is a tribute to her artistic eye and her ability to identify our coexistence with the environment, with the small beings that surround us and also leave their 'signs' in the landscape. “In different ways, our view of the natural environment – previously identified among conventional artistic disciplines simply as landscape – is urgent and demands attention. We have known for centuries that human societies have been modifying nature through the extraction of resources, which has a major impact on the planet”, says Diana Wechsler.
In parallel, Aníbal Jozami, General Director of BIENALSUR highlights that “in dialogue with these issues, the memory of recent – or not so recent – forms of authoritarianism resonates in artists' reflections as a warning and an invitation to the construction of a contemporary humanism that embrace diversity and be inclusive, democratic and environmentally conscious”. Signs in the Landscape brings together works by Rochelle Costi and Dias & Riedweg (BRA); Gabriela Golder and Matilde Marín (ARG); Stephanie Pommeret (FRA); Silvia Alejandra González Soca (URY); Gabriela Bettini (ESP); Sara Abdu, Zhara Al Ghamdi and Hatem Al Ahmad (SAU). The works problematize the experience of contemporary life and mostly focus on the issue of the environment.
THE EXHIBITION, BY DIANA WESCHLER
Are we facing the "end of the world"? Or is it the "end of the world" as we have known, thought and imagined it for centuries?
These questions surround many of the news and articles related to the global situation on the planet. However, the amount of information we are continually exposed to often leads us to neutralize our sensitivity. We tend to accumulate information, process it intellectually, but we don't always allow it to reach the sensitive level. It is there, in the place of the "sensitive", that the work of artists and curatorial proposals resides, becoming the places in which to recover this dimension and, with it, be able to see and think again about the issues that concern us, about these aspects that we take for granted and these visions of reality that we don't even question.
The ways in which we position ourselves in relation to the environment are part of these aspects that currently occupy the center of attention, demanding from us an empathetic stance in relation to the coexistence between species (and us as one more among them), respect and environmental Conservation. However, the question arises whether this approach touches our sensitivity or whether they are automated responses, which follow the path of "should be" rather than feeling...?
"Signos na Paisagem" (Signs in the Landscape) is a curatorial report constructed from a selection of artists from different cultural horizons who seek, with their proposals, to challenge our senses, inviting us to look again and, along the way, to think with them. Using our senses implies thinking sensitively, putting our subjectivities into action and leaving, for a moment, the automatism of our reactions so that our ability to perceive our surroundings can flow again.
Then the works of Rochelle Costi and Dias & Riedweg appear, created during the times of confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic. In different ways, they force reality, disturb it and make a dimension emerge from this operation that exposes the complexity of the lived experience in its tension, artificiality and drama.
Observation of the immediate surroundings during the period of social isolation between 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic was the starting point for Rochelle Costi's observations, which led her to develop her series "Casa & Jardim" (House&Garden), of which we present a selection in this exhibition. The "Jardim" (Garden) photos, which were taken during the isolation period, recorded insects found outside his house/studio (located 4 km from the center of São Paulo). The work was not only an observation, but also a 'provocation', as it incorporated embossed plastic plates into the 'landscape' of the domestic garden, creating a topography in an attempt to imitate nature, at the same time attracting and causing strangeness to insects, changing their usual behaviors. The series displays, through the artist's action on these small beings with whom she lives, the counterpoint of what the global community was going through at that time, when everyday routines and landscapes were being changed and the feeling of estrangement dominated society.
The exhibition period is from November 22, 2023 to January 28, 2024 at CCBB SP.
