Exhibition and activities structure defined for
8th Mercosul Biennial
The Biennial opens to the public on September 10. Seven
exhibitions and events will be organised in Porto Alegre and several
other cities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. A highlight will
be the Casa M space, where activities begin in May
The theme of the 8th edition of the Mercosul Biennial – Essays in Geopoetics is territory and
its critical redefinition from an artistic viewpoint. It will assemble around 100 artists from
several countries dealing with topics related to this discussion: mapping, colonisation, frontier,
customs, transnational alliances, geopolitical constructs, locality, scientific travels, nation and
politics. According to José Roca, the chief curator for this edition, “The 8th Biennial wants to
show alternatives to the conventional idea of nation and discuss new cartographies, the
relationships between political and geographical conditions, a positioning between the regional
and the global, the routes of circulation and exchange of symbolic capital, citizenship in nonurban areas, the political status of fictional nations and the relationship between science, travel
and colonisation.”
The curatorial concept is being developed across seven major actions, approached through two
strategies – exhibitionary and activating. In the latter (which may also result in an exhibition),
there is an emphasis on the relationship between artist and public. In the former the emphasis
lies in the artwork and its relationship with the works of other artists and the proposed theme.
The city of Porto Alegre and the territory of Rio Grande do Sul are thus seen as places to be
discovered through art. The intensive actions of artists and their works in these territories
envisages the participation of the community and collaboration with cultural institutions –
independent or institutional – and local artists, as in the projects entitled Continents, Travel
Notebooks and the exhibition Beyond Frontiers in which artists will develop works based on
the cultural landscape of Rio Grande do Sul, In addition to these actions, the exhibition of the
featured artist Eugenio Dittborn, which will be shown at Santander Cultural in Porto Alegre,
will also tour to three other cities in the state: Bagé, Caxias do Sul and Pelotas.
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One of the key projects of the 8 Mercosul Biennial is the creation of Casa M, a meeting space
for the local art community, people interested in art and culture, teachers and students of art
and related subjects. The proposal is based on a desire to create a temporary community
around the exhibition, promoting reflection and dialogue and encouraging exchange and the
creation of networks. In addition to the period of the 8th Biennial, Casa M run for seven months,
offering the community a programme of curatorial residencies, small exhibitions, discussions,
workshops and other activities. The location will include a social space, a reading room, library
and studio. Programming for Casa M will be designed by the 8th Biennial curatorial team in
partnership with the Education Program and supported by board of seven artists, theorists and
cultural agents from Porto Alegre.
More than ten Rio Grande do Sul towns are to receive artists, works, exhibitions and education
activities, including Bagé, Caxias do Sul, Ijuí, Montenegro, Pelotas, Santa Maria, Santana
do Livramento, São Miguel das Missões and Teutônia.
In Porto Alegre the exhibitions Geopoetics and Travel Notebooks will be shown at the Cais do
Porto (Quayside Warehouses); Beyond Frontiers will be shown at at MARGS – Museu de Arte
do Rio Grande do Sul and the exhibition of the featured artist, the Chilean Eugenio Dittborn,
at Santander Cultural. Nine places in the city center of Porto Alegre will also be housing the
artists participating in Unseen City, which will draw attention to places that pass usually
unnoticed.
One of the Mercosul Biennial’s differentials in relation to other biennials in the world is the
Education Program, which operates throughout the whole conceptual framework. The various
lines of curatorial action have been conceived with educational actions. The 8th Mercosul
Biennial Education Program includes teacher-training activities, a mediator-training course,
workshops, lectures, discussions, publications intended for a range of audiences and
particularly the Casa M program. The visiting public is provided with guided tours, free transport
for state schools and different activities during the exhibition period.
General information
8ª Mercosul Biennial – Essays in Geopoetics
Official opening ceremony: September 09, 2011
Duration: September 10 to November 15, 2011
7 days a week from 09:00 to 21:00 with free admission
Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Exhibitions and activities
Featured artist: Eugenio Dittborn – Exhibition of the Chilean artist’s Airmail Paintings, which
are key works of Latin American art. Showing at Santander Cultural in Porto Alegre and touring
to three cities in Rio Grande do Sul: Caxias do Sul, Bagé and Pelotas.
Travel Notebooks – Artists’ expeditions to nine areas of Rio Grande do Sul during the months
of April, May, June and August. The results will be exhibited in solo exhibitions at cultural
institutions in various towns in RS and in a group exhibition in Warehouse A7 on the Quayside
in Porto Alegre during the Biennial period.
Casa M – A space devoted to promotion, development and artistic exchange, located in central
Porto Alegre, which will introduce an intensive cultural programme. Operational from May.
Unseen City – Artworks in nine sites in Porto Alegre, which single out those places and focus
on experience and the senses.
Continents – Seven international independent spaces arranging artist-residency activities in
three independent spaces in Rio Grande do Sul, in the cities of Porto Alegre, Caxias do Sul and
Santa Maria. This project aims at exchange of experience and the formation of exchange
networks.
Geopoetics – Exhibition in Warehouses A4, A5, and A6 on the Quayside in Porto Alegre, with
works and artists that address the notion of nationality. It will display various ways of measuring
and representing the world, Some micro-nations – small nations with or without territory – will
also be part of this exhibition as zones of poetic autonomy – ZAPs
Beyond Frontiers – A critical view of the landscape of Rio Grande do Sul through new works
from nine artists and items from collections in Museums in the state. To be shown at MARGS –
Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre.
Curatorial team
Chief curator: José Roca (Colombia, based in Bogotá)
Education curator: Pablo Helguera (México, based in New York)
Adjunct curators:
Alexia Tala (Chile, based in Santiago)
Cauê Alves (Brazil, based in São Paulo)
Paola Santoscoy (México, based in México City)
Guest Curator: Aracy Amaral (Brazil, based in São Paulo)
Assistant curator: Fernanda Albuquerque (Brazil, based in Porto Alegre)
Sponsors and supporters
Approved by MINC – The Ministry of Culture, through the Lei Rouanet, the project budget is 18
million Reais. Work has already begun to attract funding for the event and this edition is
supported by the following companies:
Gerdau – Master sponsor
Banco Santander – sponsor of the Eugenio Dittborn exhibition
Panvel – support
Crown Embalagens – support
Lojas Renner – support
8th Mercosul Biennial – activities and exhibitions
Casa M
Location: Rua (street) Fernando Machado, 513 – Porto Alegre city centre
Expected to open at the end of May, Casa M will be a cultural space dedicated to promotion,
development and cultural exchange at a regional, national and international levels, focusing on
development of the local art scene. The proposal is based on a wish to create a temporary
community around the exhibition, promoting reflection and dialogue and fostering exchange and
the creation of networks beyond the Biennial period, lasting seven months.
With an intensive programme of workshops, discussions, shows, video exhibitions and other
activities, Casa M will have a library, an experimental exhibition space, studio and space for
discussions and small performances. Activities are being developed jointly with the Education
Program, which will also organise teacher training and workshops at Casa M.
An Advisory Board formed of cultural agents from the city is assisting the 8th Biennial curators
in devising the programme, suggesting professionals and events from the art, academic and
institutional fields. The Board consists of the following members:
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Alexandre Santos – Lecturer and researcher at UFRGS Instituto de Artes
Arthur de Faria – musician and journalist
Camila Gonzatto - filmmaker
Gabriela Motta – art critic and curator
Jezebel De Carli – actress, theatre director and teacher
Leo Felipe - journalist
Neiva Bohns – lecturer and researcher at UFPel Instituto de Artes e Design
Each of the 8th Biennial curators will also be involved in activating Casa M, organising activities
such as artist interviews, workshops and talks. Biennial artists will also be invited to take part in
discussions and promote exchange of experiences with local artists and the public.
Seven artists will be invited to produce an exhibition for the showcase, Casa M's experimental
space, and a further three artists will make permanent interventions.
During June, July, October and November, curators from national and international cultural
institutions will be invited to suggest discussions with the public, organise workshops and visit
local artists’ studios, with each staying for a during a seven-day residency period. They include:
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Clarissa Diniz (Brazil, Recife) - Revista Tatuí
Karina Granieri (Argentina, Buenos Aires) – Artist and curator
Soledad García (Chile, Santiago) - Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda
Mauricio Marcín (México, DF) - Proyecto El Clauselito
The library will make available books and magazines about artists and contemporary art. The
collection is part of the Mercosul Biennial Foundation Research and Development Centre, which
since 2004 has contained an extensive set of documents, books, catalogues, periodicals,
magazines, photographs and audio-visual material about the Mercosul Biennial and
contemporary art in Latin America. The collection now holds more that 17,000 registered items
and is freely available to the public for consultation.
For the chief curator, setting up a project as complex as Casa M is essential for bringing the
event and the community together: “Most biennials bring in huge audiences for a short and
concentrated period of the duration of the event, but then there are long periods when there is
almost no activity. It is possible to consider the Biennial also as an instance of creation of an
infrastructure,” says Roca.
As an extension of the 8th Mercosul Biennial in time and space, the name “Casa M” aims to
emphasise its nature as a “house”, as a place for integration and reception in an open, informal
and domestic situation. The “M” refers to Mercosul, the title of the biennial event.
Geopoetics
Warehouses A4, A5 and A6 on the Quayside
Number of artists: about 60
This exhibition examines the creation of trans-territorial and supra-state entities that question
the notion of nationality. It will also bring together various ways of measuring and representing
the world, including artists who use maps to encourage social change, affective maps and
various representations of the world that contradict conventional cartographies. The exhibition
will explore different aspects and alternatives to accepted ideas of the State and the Nation,
questioning their visual rhetoric (map, flag, coat of arms, anthem, passport) and their strategies
for self affirmation and consolidation of identity, and proposing alternatives to the conventional
notion of citizenship.
Some micro-nations – small nations with or without territory – will also be part of this exhibition
as zones of poetic autonomy – ZAPs in their Portuguese acronym. “Some micro-nations still
exist that are real, but most of them are fictional or virtual, many are political constructs and
some are exclusive artistic creations,” explains José Roca.
The spaces between the Quayside Warehouses will be used for educational activities, such as
Ykon Game, a game with sessions open to the general public. The game has been created by
the Ykon group led by the German/Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta, and is
based on the ideas of the utopian architect Buckminster Fuller, who proposed World Game as
an alternative way of solving conflicts “through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological
damage or disadvantage to anyone”
Featured artist: Eugenio Dittborn
Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, touring to Caxias do Sul, Bagé and Pelotas
Curator: José Roca
Number of works: 15 large-scale works and 3 videos
Eugenio Dittborn was born in Santiago, Chile in 1943 and is key artist in Latin America. His
work is based on transterritoriality, nomadism and strategies for subverting frontiers and
penetrating centres without being neutralised by them.
Curated by José Roca, who is also chief curator of the 8th edition, the exhibition will show the
Airmail Paintings – works with a great wealth of imagery, visual presence and incisive content,
which the artist has been developing since the 1980s in a mixture of drawing, sewing, painting
and collage. The works are arriving in Porto Alegre through the mail, folded and sent in an
envelope. The painting is opened, unfolded and hung with the envelope alongside recording the
travel itinerary, the places where the painting was sent to before and the place it was shown.
After the Biennial exhibition some of the paintings will be sent to cultural centres in other cities
in Rio Grande do Sul, emphasising the literally trans-territorial nature of Dittborn’s work
The Airmail Paintings tour is set for the Centro Municipal de Cultura Dr. Henrique Ordovás
Filho, Caxias do Sul; Espaço da Maia, Bagé; and Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzzo in Pelotas.
Dittborn’s work questions the relationship between centre and periphery by “(...) converting the
metropolitan center into a place of transit”, as the Chilean critic Roberto Merino points out. His
work has been the subject of a solo exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New
York, resulting in the book Remota, tracing the course of more than 20 years of artistic activity;
and has also been shown in exhibitions in institutions such as The Art Museum of the University
of Houston, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Chile, Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago and
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Witte de With, Rotterdam/ Netherlands. Dittborn was guest artist at the 26 São Paulo Biennial
and the 3rd Gwangju Biennial, South Korea.
Beyond Frontiers
Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul – MARGS
Guest curator: Aracy Amaral
Number of artists: 9
Number of works: To be determined from works produced especially by artists invited
for this exhibition, and from artworks and items from different museum collections in Rio
Grande do Sul.
The curator and historian Aracy Amaral has been invited to organise the Beyond Frontiers
exhibition, to be shown in MARGS – Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul. The exhibition will
offer a critical and poetic view of the landscape of Southern Brazil and neighbouring countries
such as Argentina and Uruguay through a multiple view of the territory of contemporary
Brazilian artists, particularly those from Rio Grande do Sul, and those from Latin America and
other parts of the world.
The contemporary part of the exhibition will develop out of the nine invited artists’ expeditions to
different geographical and cultural regions, such as the pampa, the missions, and the canyons.
In a counterpoint to this there will also be a display of works from local collections, including
sculpture, landscape and history paintings, objects, expeditionary maps and documents.
“We started from the idea that the political demarcations of nations like Brazil and its
neighbours, don’t always correspond to a closed cultural autonomy within those limits,” says the
curator,” After travelling many kilometres of roads and towns in the territory of the multiple and
beautiful Rio Grande do Sul, in a country like Brazil, inhabited by indigenous peoples of dozens
of different ethic groups, and colonised here in the far south by Portuguese, Jesuits, Africans,
Germans, Italians, Arabs and Jews, we can see how relative the terms boundary or frontier are
in their usually understood sense of circumscription.”
Travel Notebooks
Various towns in Rio Grande do Sul and Warehouse A7 on the Quayside, Porto Alegre
Number of artists: 9
Number of works: to be determined
Nine artists are to travel to different regions of Rio Grande do Sul, producing travel notes in
different media, such as drawing, photography, video, objects, etc., The results will be displayed
in museums and cultural spaces in the region of the visit and later brought together for the
Biennial in Porto Alegre.
The towns involved in this project are: Santana do Livramento, Ijuí, Caxias do Sul, Ilópolis,
Montenegro, Teutônia, Pelotas, Bagé, São Miguel das Missões, Tavares, Upamaroti, Porto
Lucena, Pinhal da Serra and Santa Maria.
Continents
Locations:
Atelier Subterrânea - Av. Independência, n° 745/Subsolo - Porto Alegre/RS
Navi – Núcleo de Artes Visuais - Rua Ettore Pezzi s/nº - Caxias do Sul - RS
Sala Dobradiça - Rua Serafim Valandro, 643 – Santa Maria/RS
Participants: Ten independent art spaces in Rio Grande do Sul and Latin America
The Continents project fosters the creation of networks of exchange, knowledge and
collaboration between independent cultural institutions in Rio Grande do Sul and other countries
in Latin America.
Throughout the Biennial, three spaces in Rio Grande do Sul will be hosting international
institutions on their premises, working together for one month on an artist’s residency. The
invited institutions will thus have a temporary base in the Rio Grande do Sul capital and develop
a specific project based on the activities they normally carry out in their home locations.
The institutions involved in the project are:
Atelier Subterrânea (Porto Alegre)
Ceroinspiración (Quito/Ecuador) – September 2 to 21
Diablo Rosso (Panama City/Panama) – October 8 to 29
Sala Dobradiça (Santa Maria)
Planta Alta (Asuncion/Paraguay) – September 9 to 30
Batiscafo (Havana/Cuba) and Proyecto Circo (Havana/Cuba) – October 8 to 29
Navi (Caxias do Sul)
Kiosko (Santa Cruz de la Sierra/Bolivia) - September 9 to 30
Lugar a Dudas (Cali/Colombia) – September 28 to October 11
Unseen city
Nine locations in Porto Alegre city centre
Number of artists: 9
Number of works: 9
Nine places of architectural, historic or sociological interest in the Rio Grande do Sul state
capital have been identified based on a process of urban archaeology. These are places that
are normally unnoticed by the passerby, whether due to difficulty of access or because they lie
outside the collective imagination. Nine artists from different countries will be invited to intervene
in these spaces with works that highlight the place and focus on experience and the senses.
Education Program
Curated by the Mexican artist Pablo Helguera, the 8th Mercosul Biennial Education Program is
proposing a series of actions taking into account the challenges and opportunities raised by the
previous biennials, together with the topics for this edition, with a theoretical emphasis on education
in the expanded field.
The 8th Biennial education programme has thus established six lines of action:
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The mediation program
The schools program
Programs for specific audiences
The Biennial online
Documentation and assessment
Publications
actions include the organisation of Mediator- and Teacher-training courses, and
workshops open to the public, discussions with artists, theory meetings and a major
international conference in the final week of the Biennial opening.
Free transport will also be offered to state schools in Porto Alegre and neighbouring towns (up to
100 km away), together with guided tours for group bookings.
The Education Program will be responsible for the development of a range of activities in Casa M,
with lectures, discussions, workshops and training. It will also be present in all the towns visited by
artists taking part in Travel Notebooks, the Continents project and the touring exhibition of the
featured artist, Eugenio Dittborn, organising courses for teachers, and bringing Biennial artists closer
to the community in which they will be making their works, fostering community self-reflection through
their values and knowledge and proposing group projects between artist and local representatives, in
a process of collaboration and integration.
The project will be supported by digital media to inform and involve the public in the activities. In
addition to a Distance Learning programme that will be used for the Mediator-training course, the
education programme will include sessions with special content for the general public, teachers,
students and researchers on the Biennial website.
Publications will be produced for various audiences, focusing on topics applicable to different
learning levels and different subject areas. These include notes for Mediators, educational material,
and a trilingual catalogue (Portuguese, Spanish and English) comprising documentation, description,
analysis and discussion of the project.
Finally, bringing continuity to what has already taken place since the first Biennials, all the
educational aspects of this edition of the Biennial will undergo extensive evaluation.
Visual identity and communication
The curatorial team for the 8th Mercosul Biennial has launched a blog for sharing the day-today conception of the event’s production with the general public. Posts are written by the
curators themselves and are available in the curators’ own languages of Portuguese or
Spanish. The web address is www.bienalmercosul.art.br/blog.
The logo for the 8th Mercosul Biennial has created by the Rio Grande do Sul artists and
designers Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain. The logo is based on Buckminster Fuller’s
Dymaxion map of the world, which shows continents without political boundaries and represents
them to their true scale on a polyhedron that can be assembled in three dimensions. “Detanico
and Lain have dismantled Fuller’s volume into its basic geometric components (triangles and
squares) and rearranged it to form an ‘8’ that relates to the eighth edition of the Mercosul
Biennial. The fragments of territory in this logo suggest a new and mutable map”, says chief
curator José Roca. The logo will appear in different configurations for its various applications, in
reference to territory that is constantly being realigned. The designers have used the same
principle for proposing a special typeface, called Polígona, which will be used on all the
Biennial print material. Find out more about the logo designers at www.detanicolain.com.
Continents – institution profiles
Atelier Subterrânea (Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil)
Av. Independência, n° 745/Subsolo - Porto Alegre/RS
Atelier Subterrânea is an independent Visual Arts space in Porto Alegre currently involving six
artists: Adauany Zimovski, Gabriel Netto, Guilherme Dable, James Zortéa, Lilian Maus and
Túlio Pinto. Besides being the artists’ working space, it is also an open place for visits and
discussion for people interested in art.
Subterrânea aims to assist contemporary artists in carrying out art projects by providing a
physical space for exhibitions, courses and a range of events, such as lectures, discussions,
book launches, and general art experimentation. The studio also provides a virtual space for the
publication of artists’ writings, critical and theoretical texts on art and documentation of events
related to the visual arts.
Atelier Subterrânea won the 3rd Açorianos Award for Fine Art in the category of Alternative Art
Production Space, for the production of cultural activities and exhibitions in 2008.
http://www.subterranea.art.br
Batiscafo (Havana/Cuba)
The Batiscafo project began as an initiative organised by Cuban artists in 1997 with students
and teachers from the Instituto Superior de Arte. Sponsored by the Hivos y Doen / Holanda
foundations, Batiscafo is part of the Triangle Arts Trust, an International Artists’ Residency
Programme based at the Gasworks Art Space in London, England. The project is the only one
of its kind in Cuba, with a residency programme aimed mainly at cultural exchange between
artists of different nationalities to stimulate dialogue as a source of new ideas and possibilities
for experimentation. This project focuses on the working process during the residency rather
than the resulting artwork.
http://www.batiscafo.org/
Proyecto Circo (Havana/Cuba)
Proyecto Circo - Performance & Audiovisuales was created in Havana, Cuba in 2003, by the
artist Juan Rivero. Conceived as a hybrid, experimental and interactive nomadic programme, it
connects video creation with performance, relational art, action art and urban intervention.
Proyecto Circo works along two lines of curatorship aimed at connecting local and international
networks: the annual Spain-Switzerland-Cuba Video-creation Show, and the biennial
International Performance and Audio-visual Event.
Proyecto Circo’s main aims are to: activate the local scene, establishing working process and
exchange networks between artists, the various urban settings and their social actors; explore
shifts and modifications of art practice in local contexts; promote video creation as a means of
art expression; incorporate proposals addressing the use of new multimedia practices; expand
exhibition centres and create new settings focusing on greater integration and circulation of
Cuban video in international spaces.
www.proyectocircocuba.org and http://proyectocircocuba.blogspot.com
Cero Inspiración (Quito/Ecuador)
Ceroinspiración is an independent space for exhibitions, art projects and short residencies for
investigation and creation. In addition to exhibitions, Ceroinspiración organises workshops and
discussions aimed at creating a space for dialogue, reflection and discursive production about
art in sound and vision.
The programme is developed by a group of curators, artists and academics, consisting of María
del Carmen Carrión, Fabiano Kueva and Ana Rodríguez.
http://ceroinspiracion.org
Sala Dobradiça (Santa Maria, RS, Porto Alegre)
Rua Serafim Valandro, 643 – Santa Maria/RS
Sala Dobradiça is a centre for cultural action in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, that
devises/enables visual arts exhibitions from the southern region and other locations in Brazil
and abroad.
It includes procedures, concepts and strategies that consider space as a means/method within
restless art thinking; always reconsidering conventions and boundaries.
As well as developing alternative exhibition formats, it organises monthly exhibitions in its
Support-Space attached to Macondo Lugar (Santa Maria/RS) and coordinates visual arts
activities developed at Macondo Coletivo, Ponto Referencial Sul do Circuito Fora do Eixo,
focusing its actions on the conceptual occupation of different territories.
http://saladobradica.blogspot.com
Planta Alta (Asuncion/Paraguay)
The aim Planta Alta – a space created in June 2007 – is to foster and stimulate the production
and recognition of emerging artists in Paraguay and from abroad, offering a informal space in a
1910 mansion in the old centre of Asuncion. The house has ten exhibition rooms, offering the
public an encounter with new art proposals, together with a café where artists from different
fields and generations can meet.
http://www.planta-alta.blogspot.com
Kiosko (Santa Cruz de la Sierra/Bolivia)
Kiosko Galería opened its doors in 2006 with the main aim of promoting contemporary Bolivian
artists and offering an exhibition space for emergent designers and makers from abroad. It
began a Residency Programme in May 2007 as an opportunity for exchange and reflection for
local, national and foreign artists and curators. Kiosko Galería residencies are funded by the
Arts Collaboratory, HIvos, Doen and Mondrian foundations. (http://www.artscollaboratory.org).
http://www.kioskogaleria.com
Navi – Núcleo de Artes Visuais (Caxias do Sul, RS, Brazil)
Rua Ettore Pezzi s/nº - Caxias do Sul - RS
Núcleo de Artes Visuais de Caxias do Sul - NAVI is an autonomous artists’ association
operating in the city of Caxias do Sul, Brazil since 1988. It was founded by a group of local
artists seeking to create ways of stimulating art production in the town and the region. It
organises workshops for the creation and study of multiple forms of expression in the visual
arts, such as painting, sculpture, photography and printmaking, regularly providing theory and
practical courses for its members and other interested parties. It has also organised many
exhibitions at its premises and other locations and often brings distinguished critics, curators,
philosophers and artists from Brazil to Caxias do Sul for lectures, courses and talks.
It is concerned not just with aspects of creation and study of contemporary art, but also supports
or directly intervenes in actions related to local historic and artistic heritage. It has
representatives on important cultural bodies, such as the Municipal Board for Culture, the State
Visual Arts Institute, The Municipal Board for Cultural Incentive Legislation (COMIC) and the
Universidade de Caxias do Sul City of Arts Board.
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BAcleo_de_Artes_Visuais_de_Caxias_do_Sul
Diablo Rosso (Panama City/Panama)
Diablo Rosso is a group for creative reflection based at Casco Viejo, the historic neighbourhood
in Panama City. It was founded in 2006 as a small shop for design works and after four years
was transformed into a space focusing on emerging artists from the whole region. Diablo Rosso
aims to enable and stimulate young people in breaking the mould and thinking independently,
and encourages audiences to appreciate contemporary art and culture.
The space is run by the artists Analida Galindo (dancer), Carlos Ucar (lawyer and musical
performer), Miky Fábrega (entrepreneur, visual and multidisciplinary artist, Johann Wolfshoon
(architect, furniture designer and art curator) and Rafa Arrocha (creative director and
photographer).
http://diablorosso.com
Lugar a Dudas (Cali/Colombia)
With a similar idea to that of Casa M, Lugar a Dudas has three interconnected spaces that can
be arranged as required. Although different, each space includes a series of activities focused
on research, critical thinking, and the production of content in the field of contemporary art
practice.
It includes exhibition spaces, common room, reading room, and garden, where cycles of films,
exhibitions, discussion forums and workshops are organised.
The house also has accommodation for participants in residency programmes for researchers,
artist and curators of all nationalities wishing to undertake a residency in Cali.
http://www.lugaradudas.org
Curator profiles
José Roca – chief curator
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1962. He graduated in architecture (Universidad Nacional de
Colombia), specialised in Critical Studies (Whitney Independent Study Program, New York) and
holds a master’s degree in the Design and Administration of Cultural Buildings (Ecole
d’Architecture Paris-Villemin, Paris). He is 48 years old and works in Bogotá (Colombia) and
Philadelphia (USA). He ran the artistic programme at the Banco de La República, Bogotá, for
ten years and transformed it into one of the most respected institutions on the Latin American
circuit.
Roca was co-curator of the 1st Poli/grafica Triennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2004), the 27th
São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2006), the Encuentro de Medellín MDE07 (2007) and Cart[ajena], a
series of urban interventions in Cartagena, Colombia (2007). He was a jury member for the 52nd
Venice Biennale (2007). Also in 2011, Roca was the curator of an exhibition of the Rio Grande
do Sul artist Regina Silveira at the Iberê Camargo Foundation, in Porto Alegre/RS. Other recent
curatorial projects include: Muntadas: Informação>>Espaço>>Controle, (2010) at Pinacoteca do
Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; Välparaíso, a series of interventions in Valparaíso, Chile (2010);
Otras Floras, at Galeria Nara Roesler in São Paulo, Brazil (2008); Phantasmagoria: Espectros
da Ausência, a touring exhibition organised by iCI and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la
República (2007-2009); Botánica Política, at the Sala Montcada, La Caixa in Barcelona, Spain
(2004) and Traces of Friday: art, tourism, displacement, at ICA - Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia, USA (2003). He is currently artistic director of Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic
Unconscious – a festival of contemporary graphic art taking place in various exhibition spaces in
Philadelphia.
Pablo Helguera – education curator
Born in Mexico City, 1971. Is a New York based artist working with installation, sculpture,
photography, drawing, and performance. Helguera’s work focuses in a variety of topics ranging
from history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory and the absurd, in formats that
are widely varied including the lecture, museum display strategies, musical performances and
written fiction. His work as an educator intersected his interest as an artist, making his work
often reflects on issues of interpretation, dialogue, and the role of contemporary culture in a
global reality. This intersection is best exemplified in his project, “The School of Panamerican
Unrest”, a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage,
Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between. Covering almost 20,000 miles, it is
considered one of the most extensive public art projects on record. Pablo Helguera performed
individually at the Museum of Modern Art /Gramercy Theater, in 2003, where he showed his
work “Parallel Lives”. His first musical composition, “Endingness” was performed in New York by
the Orchestra of the Americas. Helguera has exhibited or performed at venues such as the
Royal College of Art, London; 8th Havana Biennial, PERFORMA 05, Havana; Shedhalle,
Zurich; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Brooklyn Museum; IFA Galerie, Bonn; Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo; MALBA museum in Buenos Aires, Ex-Teresa Espacio
Alternativo in Mexico City, The Bronx Museum, Artist Space, and Sculpture Center. His work
has been reviewed in Tema Celeste, Art in America, Artforum, NY Arts Magazine, ArtNews,
amongst others. In 2008 he was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and also
was the recipient of a 2005 Creative Capital Grant. Helguera worked for fifteen years in a
variety of contemporary art museums, most recently as head of public programs at the
Education department of the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1998-2005), where he
organized close to 500 public events and worked in the development of nearly 30 exhibitions.
Since 2007, he is Director of Adult and Academic programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New
York. He is the author of eight books: Endingness (2005), an essay on the art of memory; The
Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2005; Spanish edition; 2007, English
edition), a social etiquette manual for the art world; The Witches of Tepoztlán (and other
Unpublished Operas (2007), The Boy Inside the Letter (2008) Theatrum Anatomicum (and
other performance lectures) (2008), the play The Juvenal Players (2009) and Artoons 1 and 2
(both from 2009), a collection of cartoons about the Art World. For further information:
http://pablohelguera.net.
Alexia Tala – adjunct curator
Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1966, she lives and works in Chile and is also visiting lecturer at art
institutions in England. She has a Master of Arts from Camberwell College of Arts. She was cocurator for the first Deformes Performance Biennial (Chile, 2006), co-curator for the Museum
Man’s exhibition Historia de la Desaparición (Franklin Furnace archives - Centro Cultural
Palacio La Moneda, Chile, 2007) and curator of Focus Brazil no Chile (2010). She writes for art
magazines in England and is author of Installations and Experimental Printmaking (United
Kingdom, 2009). Her research into contemporary artists using experimental print techniques for
making installations discovered a rapidly expanding movement in England and the rest of the
world.
Cauê Alves – adjunct curator
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1977, he lives and works in São Paulo. He is a Brazilian curator
and lecturer on the Art: history, criticism and curatorship course at the Pontifícia Universidade
Católica de São Paulo. He is curator of the Clube de Gravura at Museu de Arte Moderna de
São Paulo and member of the editorial board for Número magazine. He was a member of the
Arts Advisory Board for MAM-SP (2005-2007). Curated exhibitions include MAM[na]OCA: arte
Brazileira do acervo do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2006); Quase líquido, Itaú
Cultural (2008) and Da Estrutura ao Tempo: Hélio Oiticica, at Instituto de Arte Contemporânea
(2009). He was curator a solo exhibition about Mira Schendel (2010) and he is one of the
curators for the Panorama da Arte Brasileira at MAM (2011).
Paola Santoscoy – adjunct curator
Born in Mexico City in 1974, she lives and works in Mexico. She was curator of the first Biennial
of the Americas in Denver, Colorado (USA), entitled “La Naturaleza de las Cosas”, and has
curated exhibitions in various exhibition spaces in Mexico City, including La Panadería (20002001), Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (2001-2003), and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (20042007). In 2005, together with Willy Kautz and Sebastián Romo, she began the 111 (one day,
one artist, one work) project. Exhibition projects include: Todo va a estar bien (2004); Jesús
Rafael Soto, Visión en Movimiento (co-curated with Tatiana Cuevas); Come closer (2005);
Outside In, Robin Minard (2006). She has worked on curatorial projects and essays for
international institutions such as Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, Germany), Fundación Proa
(Buenos Aires, Argentina), GAMeC (Bergamo, Italy) and Piano Nobile (Geneva, Switzerland)
and regularly contributes to contemporary art publications. In 2007 and 2008, she was curator
of the Solo Projects section at Arco contemporary art fair in Madrid, Spain.
Fernanda Albuquerque – assistant curator
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1978, she lives and works in Porto Alegre. She is a journalist, curator
and art critic, and is taking her doctorate in Art History, Theory and Criticism at PPGAV/UFRGS,
where she also took her master’s degree. She was visual arts curator at Centro Cultural São
Paulo – CCSP from 2008-2010 and is currently working for the 29th São Paulo Biennial
education programme (2010). She also works on the art criticism group at Paço das Artes
(2007, 2008 and 2010) and in the educational courses and publications area at Instituto Tomie
Ohtake, (since 2006). In 2009, she took part in the Courants du Monde visual arts and cultural
policy training programme in France, offered by Maison de Cultures du Monde in partnership
with the French Ministry of Culture. She has published articles and interviews in magazines
such as Contemporary Magazine (London), Exit Express (Madrid), Número (São Paulo), Tatuí
(Recife) and Aplauso (Porto Alegre). As curator, she coordinated the CCSP Artistas
Convidados do Programa de Exposições 2009, developed the Vandeluz project for the 7th
Mercosul Biennial (2009) and, in partnership with other curators, organised the exhibitions
Sinais de fumaça (2009) and Passagens secretas (2008), at CCSP, and Campo coletivo
(2008), at Centro Universitário Maria Antonia. She was part of the Arte e Identidade Cultural na
Indústria project organised by SESI-RS (2007-2008). In 2010, she served on the selection
committee for the EDP na Artes, award offered by Instituto Tomie Ohtake. She was on the
selection panel for Conexões Artes Visuais/MinC/Funarte/Petrobras in 2007. She worked as
visual arts editor for Aplauso magazine from 2002-2005 and as intern and website editor for the
Iberê Camargo Foundation from 2001-2003.
Aracy Amaral – guest curator
Aracy Amaral was born in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been director of Pinacoteca do Estado de
São Paulo and Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP,and has published books on Modernism
in Brazil, Latin American art and Brazilian contemporary art. She was professor of Art History at
USP until 1990. She has curated several exhibitions in Brazil and Latin America, was a member
of the Prince Claus Fund International Awards Committee (The Hague, Netherlands) from 2002
to 2005, coordinator of the Rumos Itaú Cultural project in 2005 and 2006, and in 2009 was
exhibition curator for the Santiago Triennial, Chile. She lives in São Paulo.
For reference
Created in 1996, the Mercosul Visual Arts Biennial Foundation is a private, non-profit
organisation with a mission of developing cultural and educational projects in the field of visual
arts, adopting best management practices and encouraging dialogue between contemporary art
proposals and the community. On odd-numbered years the Foundation organises the Mercosul
Biennial event, which is recognised as the world’s largest collection of events dedicated to
contemporary Latin American art, offering thousands of people free access to culture and art.
Throughout its existence the Mercosul Biennial Foundation’s mission has always emphasised
educational actions and the following guiding principles: focus on social contribution in pursuit of
real benefits for its audiences, partners and sponsors; constant proximity to contemporary
artistic creation and its critical discourse; transparency in its administration and all its actions;
priority of investment in education and consolidation of the Biennial as a reference point in the
fields of art, education, and research into those fields.
In its fourteen years of existence, the Mercosul Biennial Foundation has organised seven
editions of the visual arts exhibition, in a total of 444 days of exhibitions open to the public, 57
different exhibitions, 3,882,672 completely free visits, 1,034,898 school bookings, 180,089 m² of
prepared exhibition spaces, rediscovered and restored urban areas and buildings, 3,664
exhibited works and temporary urban interventions and 16 monumental works left for the city,
138 sponsors and supporters throughout its existence, the participation of 1,261 artists, more
than one thousand direct and indirect jobs created for each edition, together with lecturers,
talks, workshops, teachers’ courses and mediator training and employment for 1,248 young
people. The Mercosul Biennial Foundation Board, and Administrative and Fiscal Advisors work
voluntarily.
All the Foundation’s events and actions are provided to the public free of charge, with funds
supported by a wide network of sponsors, partners and supporters.
Press Office – Mercosul Visual Arts Biennial Foundation
Tel: + 55 51 3254 7533 / email: [email protected]
Press Room, high-resolution Image Bank and other information at: www.bienalmercosul.art.br