Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Solange Farkas will participate in the Paço das Artes International Contemporary Art Seminar, to be held on September 18 and 19, 2015. Entitled Other Contemporary Art Histories, the Seminar is intended to discuss issues relating to the current contemporary Latin American art scenario. The chief curator and director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil will participate in the panel “Collections, Archive and Museums” on September 19 (Saturday), 2pm, alongside the artist Mabe Bethônico, with researcher Simone Osthoff as moderator.

Since 1983, when it held the first edition of its Festival, Videobrasil has been building a one-of-a-kind collection. Currently featuring over 1,300 catalogued works (including videos, video installations and footage of performances), 254 edited entries, including statements from artists and curators, and seven Videobrasil Authors Collection documentaries, the Videobrasil Collection contains international video art classics. However, its greatest strength is the fact that it pools together the memory of audiovisual production from the Geopolitical South, which is the focus of the Southern Panoramas exhibit of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, and comprises countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and Oceania. The realization of the need to activate and safeguard this collection was precisely what led to the establishment of Associação Cultural Videobrasil in 1991, eight years after the Festival’s inaugural edition, and to the October 2015 launch of Galpão_VB, Videobrasil’s new headquarters.

“One of the primary goals of Videobrasil is to make this collection into a permanent source of new curatorial and research projects,” says Solange Farkas, who mentions exhibition projects based on the immersion of guest curators or Videobrasil’s own team in said collection as a key strategy of activation and re-contextualization. As part of this strategy, on October 9, 2015, at 7pm, the exhibition Those born for adventure don’t stray from the path will open at Paço das Artes, running parallel to the 19^th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil | Southern Panoramas, itself slated to run from October 6 to December 6, 2015 at Sesc Pompeia and Galpão_VB. The exhibit features fifteen Videobrasil Collection pieces selected by the curator Diego Matos, Associação’s archive and research coordinator.

Associação is working to weave a sophisticated web of contents around the collection, including references and critical essays. PLATFORM:VB is an online research tool that displays connections between different contents tackled by Videobrasil, in a bid to help create new mediation structures devoted to contemporary art production. Associação has also produced ff>>dossier, an online publication gathering extensive research material on 52 artists – including Ali Cherri, Arnaldo Antunes, Cao Guimarães, Dias & Riedweg, Detanico & Lain, Eustáquio Neves, Federico Lamas, and others –, as well as eight curatorial projects created by guest curators and researchers using Videobrasil Collection artworks and documents.

Paço das Artes Contemporary Art International Seminar — Other Contemporary Art Histories
September 18 and 19, 2015
Paço das Artes | Av. Universidade, 1 ,São Paulo, Brazil
www.pacodasartes.org.br

Panel 3 – “Collections, Archives and Museums”
September 19 (Saturday), 2pm
Lecturers: Solange Farkas, Mabe Bethônico
Moderator: Simone Osthoff