DISCUSSING THE ARCHIVE | 9.11.23 — 15.2.24
Cycle of ten meetings that activate the 40-Year Special exhibition and deepen the interpretation of its contents. Artists, curators, researchers and critics who have collaborated or participated in different editions of the event comment on specific periods in its history and video production in the Global South. The debates draw from the exhibition of works from the Videobrasil Historical Collection chosen by the guests, and will be followed by talks addressing essential aspects of each decade represented in the exhibition
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
Photo: ©Videobrasil Archive / Pedro N. Prata
NOVEMBER 9
6:30 pm • Introduction to the Commentary on the Collection: 1983-1990
Alessandra Bergamaschi and Eduardo de Jesus, curators of the 40-Year Special, propose readings of the Videobrasil Collection focusing on the festival's first decade, the 1980s.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
7:30 pm • Mario Ramiro
The multimedia artist, researcher and professor Mário Ramiro (ECA/USP) introduces the videographic production of Rafael França, a visual artist who was first involved in the creation of video installations that dialogued with geometric abstractionism and then arrived at narratives of the subject in the grip of the shadow of death. The researcher will contextualize Rafael França's work in São Paulo's alternative and underground scene in the 1980s, based on a session of the artist's videos preserved in the Videobrasil Collection.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
NOVEMBER 16
7:30 pm • Rita Moreira e Lucila Meirelles
In this meeting, two central filmmakers, representatives of the first generation of independent video in Brazil, talk about their production. Rita Moreira shed light on gender issues, while Lucila Meirelles experimented with a variety of video resources, raising questions on marginalized subjectivities, which have in common the fact that they are located on the border between classic documentary, activism and video art.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
NOVEMBER 23
7:30 pm • Gabriel Priolli
Professor at PUC-SP and a central figure in the fight for the democratization of Brazilian television in the 1980s and 1990s, the journalist was one of the main articulators of university TV stations in the country. In this meeting, he talks about his participation in the first editions of Videobrasil, debating the revitalization of Brazilian television during the re-democratization period.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
NOVEMBER 30
7:30 pm • Carlos Nader
Author of an essayistic work, which combines the radical language of video art and documentary devices, the artist talks about the 1990s, when he made his first appearances in Videobrasil, with Trovoada (1995), O fim da viagem (1996) e Carlos Nader (1998).
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
DECEMBER 7
7:30 pm • Vincent Carelli
Anthropologist, indigenist and audiovisual director, Carelli created the NGO Vídeo nas Aldeias [Video in the Villages], which has been training Indigenous filmmakers since 1986. His documentary O espírito da TV (1990), awarded at the 9th Videobrasil, talks about this work; A arca dos Zo’e, from 1993, exposes the massacre of isolated Indigenous people in Rondônia. Here, he comments on this period.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
DECEMBER 14
7:30 pm • Rivane Neuenschwander
Brazilian visual artist, her work crosses languages and makes use of prosaic elements to address universal themes. Here, the artist remembers the video poems she made with Cao Guimarães in the late 1990s, and the intersections between cinema and visual arts that would set the tone for the following
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
DECEMBER 19
6:30 pm • Introduction to the Commentary on the Collection: 2001-2011
Alessandra Bergamaschi, curator of the 40-Year Special exhibition, introduce themes, reflexions and emerging practices in video and contemporary art in the first decade of the 2000s.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
7:30 pm • Lucas Bambozzi and Eder Santos
Two pioneers of video art in Brazil discuss its developments in today’s production. Bambozzi is known for films, videos, performances, installations and interactive works, such as O tempo não recuperado (2004). Santos, for his pioneering images and hybridizations, and for seminal works such as A Europa em cinco minutos (1987).
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
JANUARY 18
7:30 pm • Virginia de Medeiros
With an artistic practice that appropriates strategies from documentary and ethnographic research to question the limits between reality, fiction and fable, Virginia de Medeiros talks about her production and her themes, which would take center stage in the field of art in the period, including issues regarding gender and the inequalities in Brazilian urban contexts.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
FEBRUARY 8
6:30 pm • Introdução ao acervo comentado: 2012-2023
The curator Alessandra Bergamaschi makes an introduction to the topics that emerge in art in the decade, marked by the intensification of inequalities and geopolitical clashes, and the strengthening of decolonial practices.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
7:30 pm • Fabio Cypriano
Journalist, art critic and director of the Faculty of Philosophy, Communication, Letters and Arts at PUC-SP. Co-author of Histórias das Exposições, Casos Exemplares (EDUC, 2016), and author of Pina Bausch (Edições Sesc, 2018), among others. His talk will address the geopolitical concept of the Global South based on the exhibition of works that have marked the last editions of Videobrasil.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor
FEBRUARY 15
7:30 pm • Ayrson Heráclito
Artist, curator and researcher, his work involves handling sacred elements of the rituals and symbolism of Candomblé, a religion he has practiced for almost thirty years. In the meeting, he comments on aspects of the works he showed at Videobrasil, such as the combination of the meanings of performance and healing ritual, and the idea of historical reparation.
Sesc 24 de Maio
40-Year Special exhibition – 4th floor