São Paulo Biennial Curators Join Artists in Repudiating Israeli Sponsorship We, the curators of the 31st Bienal de São Paulo support the artists and understand their position. The horrifying civilian casualties of the Israeli attack on Gaza are intolerable for us, and the recent ceasefire brings no end to the cycle of disproportionate violence and killing. We believe that the statement and demand by the artists should also be a trigger to think about the funding sources of major cultural events. In Brazil, the Israel-Palestine issue can be seen alongside many other cases of conflict and injustice. In the 31st Bienal, much of the work refers directly to Brazil and Latin America and seeks to show that struggles for justice here are connected to other struggles elsewhere. The artists’ petition points to a more general transition in the agency of artists in relation to the art system and the need to revise protocols that are no longer valid. The idea of living in transformational times is fundamental to this Bienal, times when old patterns of behaviour are exhausted and long-held beliefs are questioned. This transformation also affects the relationship between curators and organisers of major cultural events such as this Bienal. At the outset, we accepted the traditional agreement in which curators have artistic freedom and the Foundation has responsibility for the financial and administrative affairs. The Bienal Foundation has very correctly kept to this agreement throughout. In our turn, we assisted in international fundraising. However, as a consequence of this situation, alongside other incidents at similar events worldwide, we believe this arrangement is no longer sustainable. It is clear that the sources of cultural funding have an increasingly dramatic impact on the supposedly ‘independent’ curatorial and artistic narrative of an event. The funding, whether state, corporate or private, fundamentally shapes the way the public receives the work of artists and curators. While this is a wider issue than the 31st Bienal de São Paulo, we ask that the Foundation revise their current rules of sponsorship and ensure that artists and curators agree to any support that is forthcoming for their work and that may have an impact on its content and reception. Charles Esche, Galit Eilat, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Pablo Lafuente, and Oren Sagiv
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 04:39:57 +0000
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