Question to reaffirm : Reflections on the curatorial and political “rolezinho” of the 33rd São Paulo Biennial

Abstract

The paper analyzes the curatorial project of the 33rd São Paulo Biennial from its conceptual structure. For this, it develops an analysis that confronts the two main references of the curatorship: Elective Affinities, by Goethe, and Da natureza afetiva da forma na obra de arte, by Mário Pedrosa. In pointing out what the author considers to be a conceptual amputation that conceals contexts, intentions and complexities from the curatorship, the text develops a reflection on how much the curatorial gesture dissipates its intention of horizontality in performing and reiterating an exercise of power and authority. This aspect was reinforced by the mobilization of a sort of democratic pedagogy that, based on the experience of art, bet on the “dissolution of identities” and the “advance beyond identity discourses” as its political horizon. Defending that art does not occur as an instance apart from its social contexts, the author argues that the curatorial gamble in a relationship between subject and object of art resulted in a conservative project, for not having taken into account the complexity of the historical constructions that constitute and circumscribe both one and the other.