This year's São Paulo Biennial, just as the previous
edition, is held under the artistic direction of Alfons Hug. Whereas
in 2002 he created a theme of mega-cities and the influence of urban
energy currents on art, Hug declared the 26th biennial to be "Free
Territory", an "extraterritorial zone where artists erect
their utopian settlements."
In his curatorial statement
(from which all quotations have been taken), Alfons Hug expresses scepticism
regarding the "multiplicity of documentary strategies that has
been observed even at major international exhibitions over the last
few years." Such "scientific analysis, reportage and discursive
treatises on reality" contribute to a "flagrant underestimation
of the possibilities of aesthetic processes." He therefore makes
a plea for art which "reveals those inner layers of the world that
remain hidden to the superficial gaze of politics and sociology."
Regarding his concept of a "Free Territory," Hug writes: "Artists
create a power-free zone, a world that runs contrary to the existing
one: a land of emptiness, of silence and respite, where the frenzy that
surrounds us is brought to a standstill for a moment. But it is also
a land of enigmas, where the flood of images surging in on us from the
breeding grounds of kitsch are encrypted. By breaking through the barriers of
the material world, the artist becomes a smuggler of images between
cultures."
135 artists and groups participate in the 26th São Paulo Biennial:
>> Lists of artists
Texts by chief-curator Alfons Hug:
Território Livre
(about the theme of the Biennial)
Image Smugglers
(about the concept of the Biennial)
Território Livre
(extensive essay)
|
