Flash Art  n.270  January-February 2010

SÃO PAULO

The 31st Panorama of Brazilian Art, an exhibition held every two years and organized by the São Paulo Modern Art Museum, courted controversy from the moment it came into being. As soon as he had been appointed, curator Adriano Pedrosa announced that he would not include any Brazilian artists in this edition, not only because São Paulo already has many exhibitions exclusively showcasing Brazilians, but also because he wished to advocate the point that there are foreign artists producing “Brazilian art.”

This statement attracted bitter criticism within the national art scene, particularly from artists that to date had not been exhibited in any of the previous Panoramas curated by, among others, Ivo Mesquita or Moacir dos Anjos, the latter having been appointed chief curator of the 29th São Paulo Biennial to be presented in 2010. Pedrosa appeared to respond to the exhibition’s critics through its title taken from the work of the French collective Claire Fontaine: “Mamõyguara opá mamõ pupé.” This ancient Tupí phrase means “foreigners everywhere” and is displayed in neon, both in Tupí and Portuguese, in prominent places in the museum. To a certain extent, this statement synthesizes one of the confi gurations of Brazilian culture: the importance of the foreign to the national DNA.

As such it is not limited to a mere defense of immigrants against prejudice, a reading that would be probable in Europe or the United States. Claire Fontaine’s works are, however, an exception due to their ambiguous approach to Brazilian culture. Practically all the other works in the exhibition offered more explicit references illustrating Pedrosa’s main thesis: a growing number of foreign artists research Brazilian culture and use it to inform their practice. Among the most renowned, the following stand out: Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa, British artist Cerith Wyn Evans, Mexican artist Damián Ortega, French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, German artist Franz Ackermann and Italian artist

Luisa Lambri. In general, they address the Brazilian constructivist tradition, such as the work of Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, as well as making observations on the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The 31st Panorama, by adopting a somewhat nationalistic discourse, shows itself to be in synch with Brazil’s increasing international importance.