Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Two new exhibitions had their openings on Saturday, June 25 at Galpão VB: Cinthia Marcelle’s Trilogy, curated by Solange Farkas and co-curated by Gabriel Bogossian, and Giselle Beiguelman’s How heavy is a cloud?, curated by Ana Pato. Two artists from different generations, with distinct practices, strategies and research, take up Galpão’s spaces with works never before seen in Brazil, including videos and multimedia installation. Their shared features include their acclaimed careers in Brazil and abroad, and the invention of images that grow into poignantly poetical scenes in the viewers’ eyes.

Saturday also saw the launch of the book Histórias das exposições / Casos exemplares [History of exhibitions / Case studies], edited by Fabio Cypriano and Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, as part of the Galpão VB program. They discussed the book with the public and with Spanish curator Pablo Lafuente, who between 2010 and 2015 was the editor of Afterall magazine and of the Exhibition Histories book series, which originated the exhibition Histories field of study. 

Cinthia Marcelle presents Trilogy, a work composed of three videos, Fonte 193 (2007), 475 Volver (2009), and Cruzada (2010), exhibited together for the first time in Brazil. Trilogy had its premiere at the 54th Venice Biennale's parallel show Future Generation Art Prize (Kiev, 2010), where Marcelle won the main prize. At Galpão VB, Trilogy will be shown in a big format, allowing the audience to observe the subtleties and resonances between the videos. Filmed from a bird’s-eye view, they depict a fire truck, a backhoe loader, and the interaction of different groups of musicians, popular and erudict, respectively in Fonte 193, 475 Volver, and Cruzada. In empty tracts of red earth, these elements move in constant and seemingly senseless cycles, slowly causing unusual effects. Cruzada is part of the Videobrasil Collection, after being selected to the 17th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil (2011).

Cinthia Marcelle creates works whose hallmarks include synthesis and concision of language. Closely involved with performance, she employs repetition, distance, and the distortion of unremarkable elements and objects in delicate artistic operations, rearranging those elements to create new meanings. Through silent and sparsely verbal movements, her work suggests less cerebral images, eliciting a more emotional, sensory connection with the audience.

How heavy is a cloud? by Giselle Beiguelman, is a multimedia installation comprising video, audio, stamps, and photography that occupies Galpão VB prompting the audience to venture into a mysterious, unknown territory of family inheritance. Born into a Polish-Jewish family, Giselle Beiguelman morphs into a traveler of memories for this project, visiting her family’s home country and questioning herself, investigating landscapes and her own past, revising a traceless history, and ultimately creating a lyrically-charged piece of stark images. How heavy is a cloud? was commissioned by Culture.pl as part of a program to promote Polish culture in Brazil in 2016.

Giselle Beiguelman is a leading Brazilian artist known internationally for her landmark work in digital art and for the use of the internet and mobile networks in art practices. Her work spans interventions in public spaces, network projects and mobile apps, and has been shown at major museums and contemporary art venues. Giselle is also a curator, an essayist, and a professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design of the University of São Paulo (FAU-USP), where she does research into digital art conservation, immaterial heritage, and interface design. In one of her latest projects, the organization of the exhibition Memória da amnesia [Memory of Amnesia, 2015/16], she turned her attention to São Paulo city monuments, in an action that discussed the politics of memory as “politics of oblivion.” Now, in the exhibit at Galpão VB, the artist sets her sights on her own history, in a quest for images and registers of memories, objects and impressions from her reconnaissance trip to Poland.

Both exhibitions will be showing at Galpão VB until August 20, 2016.

The exhibitions’ opening day at Galpão VB, June 25 (Saturday) also saw the launch of the book: Histórias das exposições / Casos exemplares  (Exhibition histories/ cases studies), edited by Fabio Cypriano and Mirtes Marins de Oliveira. The book features research into exhibitions’ histories that transcends a fetishizing artwork/artist-oriented review to highlight the weight of institutions in spreading and popularizing those objects/actions and their producers. No institutions are neutral, and every material detail of the exhibitions they host is an indication of potential conceptual and ideological framework. Histórias das exposições / Casos exemplares (Exhibition histories/ cases studies) brings together a group of researchers involved with the topic, and each of them tackles key issues pertaining to the histories of exhibitions, from the architectural devices employed throughout the 20^th century to specific case studies.

Exhibitions’ public programs

On July 9 (Saturday) at 3pm, a public program activity will feature Giselle Beiguelman and Ana Pato. "What is it like to revisit a traceless history? When did the ruins become debris? Does tourism cannibalize memory?" Those are some of the questions the artist will discuss with the curator of the show Quanto pesa uma nuvem? [How Much Does a Cloud weigh?] in the panel “Memórias corrompidas: entre ruínas, escombros e parques temáticos” [Corrupted Memories: amid Ruins, Debris and Theme Parks].

Another public program activity, this one concerning an exhibition by Cinthia Marcelle, will happen on August 13 (Saturday), 3pm, featuring poet Alberto Martins and art critic Luisa Duarte speaking about Cinthia Marcelle’s work with the show’s co-curator Gabriel Bogossian.

Both meetings will be in Galpão VB’s Reading Room, with free admission for all ages.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Exhibitions Trilogia, by Cinthia Marcelle, and Quanto pesa uma nuvem?, by Giselle Beiguelman
opening: June 25 (Saturday), 12pm to 6pm.
visitation: June 28 to August 20 (Tuesday to Friday, 12pm to 6pm, Saturday, 11am to 5pm).

Launch of book Histórias das exposições / casos exemplars [Exhibition Histories / Case Studies] and conversation with the book’s editors Fabio Cypriano and Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, also featuring curator Pablo Lafuente
June 25 (Saturday), 3pm

Public program: Panel “Memórias corrompidas: entre ruínas, escombros e parques temáticos” [Corrupted Memories: amid Ruins, Debris and Theme Parks], ft. Giselle Beiguelman and Ana Pato
July 9 (Saturday), 3pm

Public program: Conversation featuring Alberto Martins, Luisa Duarte and Gabriel Bogossian on the work of Cinthia Marcelle
August 13 (Saturday), 3pm

GALPÃO VB | ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL
Av. Imperatriz Leopoldina, 1150, Vila Leopoldina. Tel: 55 11 3645 0516

EXHIBITIONS AND BOOK - QUICK FACTS

EXHIBITION: Trilogia (Trilogy)
artist: Cinthia Marcelle
curator: Solange Farkas
co-curator: Gabriel Bogossian
artworks: Fonte 193 (video, 2007), 475 Volver (video, 2009)  and Cruzada (video, 2010)

EXHIBITION: Quanto pesa uma nuvem? (How heavy is a cloud?)
artist: Giselle Beiguelman
curator: Ana Pato
artworks: multimedia installation composed of the artworks Quanto pesa uma nuvem? (video and photograph, 2016), Perturbadoramente familiar (audio and artist’s book, 2016), and Perguntas às pedras (stamps, 2016).

BOOK: Histórias das exposições / Casos exemplares (Exhibition histories/Case studies)
edited by: Fabio Cypriano and Mirtes Marins de Oliveira
with Pablo Lafuente’s interview and articles by Ana Maria Maia, Cauê Alves, Fabio Cypriano, Fernando Oliva, Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, Priscila Arantes, and Vinícius Pontes Spricigo.
EDUC – the publishing arm of PUC-SP, 2016.
176 pages.
Price: R$ 35,00