At Pivô in Saõ Paulo a new programme to refresh Brazilian art godfathers

If living in the yet-to-be-completed European Union sometimes makes you think that having a long history behind could be a very serious problem when different identities are struggling to become one, visiting a relatively young country such as Brazil may persuade you that history becomes a fundamental benefit when different identities have already merged, even if at a very high price. The approach Brazil seems to have with regards to his cultural heroes, sometimes still alive and kicking not only in music and literature, is quite different from that of European countries.

 

In spite of its many museums, monuments and politics, Europe has effectively a clear tendency to get free from the past that can be explained  only with the need of a change. On the contrary, and from the unique point of view provided by visual arts, in Brazil the new generation doesn’t seem to seek any revenge. Here fathers are still considered healthy energies.

 

This was what slowly came to our mind after visiting Pivô, in Saõ Paulo, and the retrospective exhibition this appreciated emerging art space supported by galleries such as Mendes Wood DM and White Cube SP is currently dedicating to the output of “Casa 7” occurred between 1984 to 1985.

 

According to art historian Eduardo Ortega, who has curated the show, this period is the apex of this influential group of artists composed by Paulo Monteiro, Nuno Ramos, Fabio Miguez, Carlito Carvalhosa and Rodrigo Andrade. “What they have produced – Ortega writes in his short but insightful introductory text – is not a response to the tradition of concrete art, an anti-concrete or neo-concrete or anti-neo-concrete art. Neither have they continued with their conceptual and political practices approached here. They presented a different vocabulary, an independent working line”. This tribute to a very recent ground-breaking fragment of history is the starting point of a new programme titled “Fora de Caixa” conceived by Pivô “to examine the artistic production of the last 50 years and reflect on its influence today by promoting possible interactions with the panorama of recent contemporary production”.

 

Apparently no fear of the so called generational conflict, no need for it. Being a platform “where creating and thinking are inextricably linked to everyday artistic production and fruition” for Pivô’s crew doesn’t mean to forget about history, as many similar organizations dedicated to contemporary art in Europe are doing, thus increasing the distance already existing between them and the institutions dedicated to the history of art. But present and past turn out to be useless to each other when the link between them is missing, don’t they?

July 7, 2015