THE CURATORS OF THE 35TH BIENAL DE SÃO PAULO: “CHOREOGRAPHIES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE”
Clockwise, from top left: Diane Lima. Photo: Uiler Costa-Santos. Grada Kilomba. Photo: Ute Langkafel. Manuel Borja-Villel. Photo: Joaquín Cortés/ Roman Lores. Helio Menezes. Photo: Georgia Niara.
Por Hélio Menezes, Manuel Borja-Villel, Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba
ARTFORUM
Publicado em: 10 de Outubro de 2023
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE PART OF CURATING AN EXHIBITION ABOUT “THE IMPOSSIBLE”?
DIANE LIMA: The formation of the curatorial team itself and making the impossible forms of art institutionally possible.
HÉLIO MENEZES: Finding time for readings not related to work.
MANUEL BORJA-VILLEL: How to describe what is impossible—who determines what is possible or impossible and for whom.
GRADA KILOMBA: To dismantle the many impossibilities that define our world.
WHAT IS THE SUBJECT THAT COMES UP THE MOST IN CONVERSATIONS YOU HAVE AS A TEAM?
DL: How to survive until the end, together.
MBV: There are many: diaspora, structural violence, commons, territory, enigma . . . but I would say that, consciously or unconsciously, how to work together has been a continuous exercise of learning, unlearning, and humbleness, which has been central in our dialogue.
WHAT WAS THE LAST SHOW YOU TRAVELED TO SEE?
HM: The permanent exhibition of Acervo da Laje’s collection in Salvador.
GK: “Intertwined,” by Wangechi Mutu, at the New Museum, New York.
NAME A CRITICAL BOOK OR TEXT THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE.
DL: The life of Maria Catarina de Souza—the human book that was my great-grandmother.
HM: Quarto de Despejo [Child of the Dark, 1960], by Carolina Maria de Jesus.
MBV: There is not one, but many. Their significance has changed in different moments of my life, and reading them again has always proved relevant. I would mention Frantz Fanon, Aníbal Quijano, and Gloria Anzaldúa, and in the last years Leda Maria Martins and Gladys Tzul Tzul. That said, and to be literal and less poetic, I would say that the book that really conditioned my life is one which at least all Spaniards have read. It is called “Libro de Familia.” It is always written by an anonymous civil servant, who has no relationship with what is written. In it, the names of your parents, and, if any, those of your spouse and children, are annotated. Also, date of birth and death. It is your administrative and dehumanized biography. Without it, you don’t “exist.”
WHAT EXHIBITION COMING UP (BESIDES YOURS) ARE YOU MOST EXCITED FOR?
DL: The one that is yet to come and that is still a challenge for the collective imagination.
HM: The next edition of the Programa de Exposições [Exhibition Program] at Centro Cultural São Paulo, an open call for contemporary art projects that has existed since 1990.
WHAT SONG OR ALBUM ARE YOU LISTENING TO ON REPEAT THESE DAYS?
DL: “Green Grasshopper” [1974] by Marcia Griffiths.
HM: Coisas [1965] by Moacir Santos.
MBV: Sun Ra’s version of “Take the ‘A’ Train” [1976].
GK: The Blue Notebooks [2004] by Max Richter. In particular the song “This Bitter Earth/On the Nature of Daylight,” composed by Clyde Otis and sung by Dinah Washington.
IS THERE A CONVERSATION YOU WISH PEOPLE WERE HAVING THAT THEY’RE NOT, ESPECIALLY WITHIN ART INSTITUTIONS?
DL: How to approach difference without having violence as an erotic method.
MBV: There is still a major need, especially among big art institutions, for museums to question their own structures, to recognize their own contradictions, and to speak critically about themselves and their practices. There is a need to unmake the gap between the discourse of the institutions and their own practices. There is a need to break the asphyxiating homogeneity of the art system. Any change is only possible with the others, with those who are radically different, including other forms of organization and governance.
WHAT BOOK DO YOU KEEP BY YOUR BED?
MBV: I keep several, as I read several at the same time. Now I am reading Toni Negri’s Storia di un Comunista [2015] and Carolina María de Jesús’s Quarto de Despejo.
GK: I always read several books at the same time as well. So now I am reading Ailton Krenak’s Futuro Ancestral [Ancestral Future, 2022], Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes [2023], and Mary D. Garrard’s Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe [2020].
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NON-ART PLACE IN SÃO PAULO?
DL: The airport.
HM: Sunday, lunchtime, at Ocupação 9 de Julho.
MBV: Lina Bo Bardi’s Glass House.
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING A CURATOR CAN DO FOR AN ARTIST?
DL: Don’t pretend to be a god, a saint, or an orisha.
GK: Say nothing.
I THINK WE ALL HAVE SOMEONE (IDEAL OR REAL) IN MIND WHEN WE MAKE SOMETHING. COULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PERSON YOU HOLD IN YOUR IMAGINATION WHEN PLANNING THE BIENAL?
MBV: From the beginning I had in mind Maya Deren. The way she made the camera move in Meditation on Violence [1948] is exemplary. Her approach to Haiti is to me a curatorial and artistic model.
GK: All the people who, like my mother, would never dare to enter a museum—but this time will.
The Thirty-Fifth Bienal de São Paulo will be on view September 6 through December 10 at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion.
