São Paulo – Four artists from Arab countries are going to exhibit their works starting on Friday (30), in São Paulo, during the 17th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil. In total, 100 Brazilian and international artists will exhibit at the festival, two from Lebanon, one from Kuwait and one from Morocco. They will be part of exhibition "Southern Panoramas", which brings the art of professionals from developing nations. The initiative includes from video installations and videos, to photographs, sculptures and paintings.
From Lebanon, Akram Zaatari will participate with a 12 minute video called "Tomorrow everything will be alright". The production shows an intense exchange of ideas throughout an evening, including a love story, loss and longing, according to the festival organizers. Also from Lebanon, Ali Cherri will include video installation "My pain is real", in which the artist himself simulates incisions and mutilations to his own face, to investigate the human capacity for indifference.
Also among the Arabs will come Basma Alsharif, from Kuwait, who lives both in her country and in Lebanon, presenting work "The story of milk and honey". She presents 9 minutes and 42 seconds of video as well as three photographic series. An anonymous character dives into a journey of images and letters in Beirut, while a narrator reflects his subjective, political, love and patriotic experience. Bouchra Khalili, a Moroccan who lives in France, shows "The Mapping Journey Project", a video installation of maps with routes covered by five immigrants from Palestine to Europe.
According to the general curator of the festival, Solange Farkas, "Southern Panoramas" will include four curatorial routes: cartography of affection, on diaspora and locomotion, political landscape, nature and culture, as well as optic devices. According to Solange, Arab artists are mainly in the “political landscape” area. "Authors reflect matters of all orders they live in,” she said, referring to the geopolitical and social problems faced by the Arab world.
Apart from the Arabs, "Southern Panoramas" will also include artists from Brazil, Australia, Poland, Israel, Mali, Argentina, Bolivia, Croatia, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Chile, South Africa, South Korea, China, the United States, Peru, Romania, India, Malaysia and Turkey. They enrolled for participation and underwent a selection process. They will all be at the festival, will speak to press and collectors in guided tours and will participate in TV Sesc programs. The works will be exhibited at Sesc Belenzinho.
The festival includes both the exhibition on developing countries and also "Your Body of Work". It includes “site specific” installations, developed specifically for the site, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, who developed eight installations turned to the city of São Paulo. One of the works to be presented at Sesc Belenzinho is a rotating device that projects rays of light, another, for the Pinacoteca do Estado, includes mirrors as a classic art tool to dialogue with the architecture of the eclectic neoclassic building. At Sesc Pompeia the focus is on colour, light and smoke, for sensorial experiences.
There will be some talks and debates during the festival, also by Eliasson himself, on the 1st of October, at 5:00 pm, at the Sesc Pompeia theatre. The festival ends on January 29th next year, due to the exhibition by Eliasson, which ends then. Exhibition "Southern Panoramas” should end on December 11th, and participation of artists in TV Sesc should go on up to January 2nd. The programme will be focussed on Sesc Belenzinho and Pompeia and at the Pinacoteca.
The festival has been promoted for 26 years and has an edition every two years. It is promoted by Associação Cultural Vídeobrasil in partnership with the Social Service for Commerce (Sesc). (Further information may be viewed on the link below)
Service
17th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil
From September 30th to January 29th
Site: www.videobrasil.org.br
*Translated by Mark Ament
