Exhibition design and visual identity
With Solange O. Farkas as chief curator, assisted by guest curators Ana Pato, Beatriz Lemos, Diego Matos, and João Laia, the 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil runs through January 14, 2018, occupying the multiple spaces of Sesc Pompeia. From the Convivência area, the Festival branches out to the Theater Hall, Main Street, and Oficinas de Criatividade, all venues comprising one of the main cultural centers in the city of São Paulo.
The Sesc Pompeia architectural complex, an iconic project conceived by the Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, was born out of a former factory, restored and transformed into a cultural center in 1982. It has welcomed thousands of visitors interested in culture, sports, and recreation every day, ever since. The architect André Vainer, who assisted Bardi in renovating the factory, conceived the exhibition design of this edition of the Festival.
The idea was to “comprehensively integrate the exhibition space with the Convivência area, the most important site in Sesc Pompeia, frequented by all visitors,” explains the architect. “We tried to establish an intimate relationship between the artworks and people, triggering curiosity and fostering enjoyment. Thus, the work of art is not restricted to the museum space, but is part of a daily routine of experimentation.”
The exhibition gathers over seventy works by 50 artists from 25 countries in the global South, including two- and three-dimensional pieces, video installations, performances, and video programs, as well as open lectures and talks with artists and curators.
Based on the core concepts Cosmovisions, Ecologies, Reinvention of Culture, Politics of Resistance, Invisible Stories, and Other Modernisms, the 20th Festival features works that explore the idea of the expansion of knowledge, affording a comprehensive interpretation of art, culture, astronomy, biology, history, and other fields of knowledge, pointing to the broadening of worldviews as a condition to restore freedom to human imagination, unfettered by Western models of production and legitimation.
The visual identity of this edition establishes a dialogue with the exhibition’s core concepts. Conceived by Vitor César and Felipe Kaizer, it starts with the “dis-hierarchization” of concepts established by Western models of thought and goes on to define a vocabulary for the signage, furnishings, publications, and other graphic material of the exhibition.
For César and Kaizer, “this process stems from curatorial reflections—decisions on concepts, but also on artists. A particular universe is identified in the chosen production. Such an attitude does not prevent the project as a whole from eventually finding an individual form, considering the way each idiom expressed inherits traits from its predecessors and incorporates new elements.”
View images of the exhibition here and here.
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