Winds of Change at the So Paulo Biennial’s Introductory Show – Hyperallergic

SO PAULO, Brazil It is eerie to see Oscar Niemeyers whitewashed monolith in Ibirapuera Park stand so empty. The building traditionally hosts the So Paulo Biennial, now postponed to September 2021, due to the pandemic. In the meantime, a number of smaller shows take place, starting with the exhibition, Vento (Wind). As curators Jacopo Crivelli Visconti and Paulo Miyada note, while they didnt originally envision this deathly aura the space is usually teeming with works and people its proved fortuitous. It reminds visitors that Brazilian modernisms claim to transparency, embodied in Brutalist architectures clean lines, obscured that movements entanglement with nationalist politics of its time, and the latters oppression of Black and Indigenous Brazilians. The exhibitions underlying impulse is to evoke these obscured histories and reclaim whats been repressed.

Vento takes its name from Joan Jonass video, Wind (1968), installed on the ground floor. In it, performers sway, buffeted by ghastly winds in a mesmeric dance of physical resistance. Its striking to see such bodily pliancy within these solid concrete walls. And yet, theres resonance: Niemeyers sinuous ramps testify that the modernists too conceived of organic forms. Picking up from Jonas, a spirit of resiliency blows through the show. It echoes the theme of obscurity, that which cant be easily absorbed into the hegemonic culture.

The Indigenous artist Jaider Esbells The War of Kanaims (2020) a series of eleven acrylic and pen paintings, composed mostly for the Biennial is a luminous example of such thematic confluence. In various Amerindian cultures, kanaims are complex dark forces. As Esbell pointed out in a Biennial talk, they are protective, albeit violent, spirits. Ebsells works blend dark and luminous qualities perfectly. Their vibrant colors stand out against the uniformly black backgrounds. Humans, spirits, and nature appear in dense configurations, whose minute patterns give them the luxurious feel of handwoven tapestries. While the animals are easily identifiable (e.g. snakes, a frog, birds), the representations are neither entirely figurative nor abstract. In one painting, a group of tribesmen, perhaps mounted by kanaims, with their red glowing eyes, crowd the works lower edge. The raised yellow spears echo in the forests green and purple vertical lines. The composition pulses with mesmerizing energy a bodys thrall in natures war/dance tug, evocative of the Jonas video, menacing yet sublime.

The ground floor also includes a sound installation by the Colombian artist Gala Porras-Kim, Whistling and Language Transfiguration (WaLT) (2012). The whistles are tonal translations of the Indigenous Zapotec language, historically used to evade the Spanish in what is now Southern Mexico. Such secret tonality also figures into Carla Zaccagninis From Bell To Fate (2017), a sound installation on the upper floor, with a bell from the Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Homens Brancos (Our Lady of the Rosary of White Men) Chapel, in the colonial town of Ouro Preto. In the Biennials educational publication, Primeiros ensaios (First rehearsals), Zaccagnini discusses her belief that the tolling connects to the repressed tonal signals of enslaved Africans, though such a metaphoric leap somewhat occludes the historical resistance of the Catholic Church to racial inclusion in its ranks.

More direct is another installation: a sound loop of the Maxakali shamanic chants, which point back to the insistence of Indigenous tribes emphasized by both Esbell and Ailton Krenak, an Indigenous activist, writer, and founder of the ForestPeoplesAlliance, in his interview for Primeiros ensaios on memory being preserved not in things but beings, reinforcing the importance of sacral, tribal, familial continuity.

The oneiric quality of Jonass and Esbells works resonate in the paintings of the still little-known Brazilian modernist Eleonore Koch. Her exquisite renditions of Rio de Janeiro emptied squares and parks with rudimentary architectural forms la de Chirico posses an instinctual lyricism. Same goes for the light installations of Clara Iani, Education by Night (2020), in which geometric blocks are lit up to project transfigured shapes on the walls. Theres something about the way these spectral evocations which distort matter yet capture its essence that perfectly encapsulates the mythical power of Esbells entrancing fabulations.

Ventos insistence on centering the poetics of the repressed is a welcome gesture after the last biennial all but sidestepped urgency and historical perspective, in favor of often tepid formalism. And while its still too early to glean this editions full ambition, one would hope that after Vento it will prove more of a gale than a passing zephyr, potent enough to raise some dust in Niemeyers drafty halls.

Vento (Wind) continues through December 13 as part of the 34th So Paulo Biennial, Though its dark, still I sing (Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil). The exhibition is curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti and Paulo Miyada.

As arts communities around the world experience a time of challenge and change, accessible, independent reporting on these developments is more important than ever.

Please consider supporting our journalism, and help keep our independent reporting free and accessible to all.

Become a Member

Read more:
Winds of Change at the So Paulo Biennial's Introductory Show - Hyperallergic