03.05.2019, 18:00 h
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Toni-Areal, Konferenzraum Hörsaal 5.T09, Ebene 5
Pfingstweidstrasse 96, Zürich
Organized by SP 5 Participatory Critique
Abstract
In this lecture I will analyze the transformations that in the last decades have modified the established art-world canon. Departing from my conclusions whileorganizing Radical Women. Latin American Art, 1960-1985, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and I had the purpose of subverting the patriarchal perspective dominant in the art of this period with a feminine and feminist one. We installed the works of 123 artists from 15 Latin American countries in nine topics that emerged from the artworks themselves. The political body was the central concept of the exhibition that we displayed, whichincluded topics likeSelf-portrait, Body and Landscape, Performing the Body, Mapping the Body, Politics and Fear, Power of Words, Feminisms, Social Places and Eroticism. Though the extraordinary performance of black identity by the Peruvian artist Victoria Santa Cruz was included, we did not conceptualize intersectionality as a theme itself. The exhibition did not involve issues of race, and in my presentation I will elaborate why. However, looking at the exhibition from an intersectional perspective reveals the presence of black and indigenous voices expressed in first person or through processes of empathy. For this presentation, I will analyze the works that introduced this perspective, and following the proposals of Denise Ferreira da Silva, I will include issues of difference and separability in order to elaborate alternatives to the following questions: How should we include issues of difference in the exhibition of contemporary art? Isparticipationthe term that should be used when one is not starting from the universal perspective of the Western culture? The questions are also valid for the analysis of the culture of the “refugee crisis,” whose response is deportation laws and walls. It is also important to interrogate how a democratic, non-separatist perspective could be elaborated under the current right-wing government of Brazil. What are the challenges of making a biennial focused on feminine / feminist / Afro-Brazilian culture in this political context?
Andrea Giunta is an Argentinian investigator, professor for Art History / Latin American Art History at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and currently curator of the upcoming BIENNIAL 12, Porto Alegre, Brazil. She previously co-curated the internationally-renowned exhibition project Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985, first shown at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, in 2017.
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Die Kunsthistorikerin, Kritikerin und Kuratorin Andrea Giunta zeichnet in ihrem Vortag in Auseinandersetzung mit lateinamerikanischen Künstler*innen Transformationen des westlich geprägten Kunstkanon nach. Das von ihr gemeinsam mit Cecilia Fajardo-Hill kuratierte, wegweisende Ausstellungs- und Rechercheprojekt Radical Women. Latin American Art, 1960-1985(Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2017) hat dementsprechend die patriarchale Perspektivierung der Kunst dieser Periode durch eine dezidiert weiblich gegenderte und feministische in Frage gestellt. Im Fokus stand der politische und politisierte Körper. Mit Bezug auf die bevorstehende BIENNIAL 12 (Bienal do Mercosul) und anhand einer Re-lektüre ausgewählter Werke von Radical Womenschlägt Giunta die Entwicklung und Formulierung einer intersektionalen Betrachtungsweise vor. Im Kontext aktueller politischer Ereignisse und rechtspopulistischer Grenzziehungen – in Brasilien und Europa – hinterfragt Giunta sowohl den universalistischen Anspruch westlicher Kulturen als auch die Logiken separatistischer und essentialistischer Positionierungen – nicht zuletzt mit dem Ziel, als Kuratorin einen Beitrag zur Sichtbarmachung marginalisierter Ästhetiken und Kunstgeschichten zu leisten.
