Nota de Arte19 de febrero de 2014
18th Contemporary Arts Festival SESC
Jointly organized by SESC São Paulo and the Associação Cultural Videobrasil, the 18th edition of the festival celebrates 30 decades of activities as it consolidates the main platforms to follow, exhibit and debate contemporary art in Brazil.
Created in 1983, it became the first festival in Brazil centered on video art from the Brazilian scene, at a time when experimentation with this type of artistic expression was rather timid. In 1982, with the addition of SESC São Paulo as organizer of the event, the festival gained more importance and international projection, as it became a significant and innovative option in the calendar of noteworthy artistic events. Beginning in 2011, it incorporated other forms of artistic expression beyond video art, establishing a close dialogue with performance, installation and all other variants of contemporary art. This new perspective occurred precisely at a time when video art was consecrated as support for expression in the visual arts, allied to technological development and to other countless creative possibilities.
The main characteristic of Videobrasil in recent years is the outstanding look into the production of contemporary art south of the Ecuador: the so-called Geopolitical South, with the competition-exhibition Southern Panoramas.
The programming of the 18th edition of the Festival runs until February 2, 2014. It offers a diverse program that includes the exhibition 30 years, a retrospective of the works presented during that timeline. With this focus the exhibition breaks with a linear narrative and concentrates its efforts in understanding the festival along those thirty years of existence as a model supported by dialogue, by timely and relevant discussions on contemporary art, but a model that is relevant for educating the public. At the same time, it broadens symbolic, procedural and methodological exchanges based on the experience of resident artists, something that stimulates the exchanges between artists. The exhibition 30 Years was conceived as a large installation whose environment is occupied by the polyphony of the works, statements, testimonies and records that survey the 30 years of the festival. The exhibition will include the participation of more than 2,000 different artists, incluing: Nam June, Kenneth Anger, Walid Raad, Chelpa Ferro, Peter Greenway, Tunga, Waly Salomão, Rosângela Renó, Cao Guimarães, Marcel Odenbach, Fernando Meirelles, Rafael França, Akram Zaatari, Tadeu Jungle, Eder Santos, Marina Abramovic, Giannini Totti, Detrk Jarman, Ximena Cuevas and Olafur Eliasson, among many others.
Another focus of the exhibition for this edition of the festival is Southern Panoramas, a competition-exhibition featuring 94 artists from the Geopolitical South (Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Eastern European, Oceania and Southeast Asia). The curatorial team, formed by Solange Farkas , Eduardo de Jesus, Fernando Oliva and Julia Rebouças, selected 32 projects from different nationalities. Other important aspects of the program are listed together with the release of the catalog "In Residence: Pathways for Artistic Research in the 30 Years of Sesc Videobrasil. This work describes, through statements, the testimony of more than thirty artists throughout the existence of the Festival that participated in the Residency Program. The catalog was launched on November 10 at the Galpón of the SESC Pompeia, and was integrated in the activities of the Festival, in a meeting that brought together representatives of institutions that collaborate with the Festival to discuss topics such as the hospitality and the exchange in the artist residency experience, the presentation of the SES-Videobrasils Notebooks, with the theme The South in Perspective, by Marie Ange Bordas that addresses the geographical shifts and visions of contemporary Africa, and &l...
Created in 1983, it became the first festival in Brazil centered on video art from the Brazilian scene, at a time when experimentation with this type of artistic expression was rather timid. In 1982, with the addition of SESC São Paulo as organizer of the event, the festival gained more importance and international projection, as it became a significant and innovative option in the calendar of noteworthy artistic events. Beginning in 2011, it incorporated other forms of artistic expression beyond video art, establishing a close dialogue with performance, installation and all other variants of contemporary art. This new perspective occurred precisely at a time when video art was consecrated as support for expression in the visual arts, allied to technological development and to other countless creative possibilities.
The main characteristic of Videobrasil in recent years is the outstanding look into the production of contemporary art south of the Ecuador: the so-called Geopolitical South, with the competition-exhibition Southern Panoramas.
The programming of the 18th edition of the Festival runs until February 2, 2014. It offers a diverse program that includes the exhibition 30 years, a retrospective of the works presented during that timeline. With this focus the exhibition breaks with a linear narrative and concentrates its efforts in understanding the festival along those thirty years of existence as a model supported by dialogue, by timely and relevant discussions on contemporary art, but a model that is relevant for educating the public. At the same time, it broadens symbolic, procedural and methodological exchanges based on the experience of resident artists, something that stimulates the exchanges between artists. The exhibition 30 Years was conceived as a large installation whose environment is occupied by the polyphony of the works, statements, testimonies and records that survey the 30 years of the festival. The exhibition will include the participation of more than 2,000 different artists, incluing: Nam June, Kenneth Anger, Walid Raad, Chelpa Ferro, Peter Greenway, Tunga, Waly Salomão, Rosângela Renó, Cao Guimarães, Marcel Odenbach, Fernando Meirelles, Rafael França, Akram Zaatari, Tadeu Jungle, Eder Santos, Marina Abramovic, Giannini Totti, Detrk Jarman, Ximena Cuevas and Olafur Eliasson, among many others.
Another focus of the exhibition for this edition of the festival is Southern Panoramas, a competition-exhibition featuring 94 artists from the Geopolitical South (Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Eastern European, Oceania and Southeast Asia). The curatorial team, formed by Solange Farkas , Eduardo de Jesus, Fernando Oliva and Julia Rebouças, selected 32 projects from different nationalities. Other important aspects of the program are listed together with the release of the catalog "In Residence: Pathways for Artistic Research in the 30 Years of Sesc Videobrasil. This work describes, through statements, the testimony of more than thirty artists throughout the existence of the Festival that participated in the Residency Program. The catalog was launched on November 10 at the Galpón of the SESC Pompeia, and was integrated in the activities of the Festival, in a meeting that brought together representatives of institutions that collaborate with the Festival to discuss topics such as the hospitality and the exchange in the artist residency experience, the presentation of the SES-Videobrasils Notebooks, with the theme The South in Perspective, by Marie Ange Bordas that addresses the geographical shifts and visions of contemporary Africa, and &l...
