Mapping Brazil - Contemporary Arts: New initiatives

Private exhibition organisers
Most art exhibitions in Brazil are organized by private producers. When the institution or museum has its own production team, as is the case of Itaú Cultural and MAM-SP, their production services are not outsourced. However, in most cases a private producer is put in charge of all the operational aspects: getting funding via tax relief laws or calls for projects and coordinating the project until the final stages.

Private producers: Art Unlimited, Arte 3, Base 7, Denise Mattar, Imago Escritorio de Arte, Automática, Tisara

Significant independent initiatives
Red Bull Station
Red Bull’s decision to invest in young contemporary art in Brazil came in the late 2000s. With Red Bull House of Art, established in the centre of São Paulo to provide residencies for artists starting out on their careers, with a curatorial programme but no gallery, and exhibitions held at the end of the process, the brand built up a well-respected programme in the art circuit. The experience proved successful and in 2013 gave rise to Red Bull Station, occupying a five-storey building between Avenida 9 de Julho and Avenida 23 de Maio, two of São Paulo’s busiest streets. With a focus on experimental art and music projects, it has a music studio, an ongoing art residency project with three residencies a year, three exhibition spaces, a rooftop terrace and a cafeteria. The building, constructed in 1926, formerly housed the Riachuelo substation, which was decommissioned in 2004. It is listed by the municipal heritage protection agency, Conpresp. Interestingly, this whole project is sponsored directly by Red Bull and not via tax relief laws, where corporate taxes are reverted into investments in culture.

Pivô
Inaugurated in 2012, Pivô is one of the most exciting projects to emerge in São Paulo in recent years. Focusing on research and exhibitions, it is housed in the Copan building, an icon of modern architecture designed by Oscar Niemayer. Run as a non-profit organisation, it is funded via tax relief laws and partnerships with galleries. Mendes Wood DM, for instance, provides funding in exchange for the right to exhibit works by the artists it represents on an ongoing basis. “Pivô’s programming involves exhibitions, specific projects, workshops, temporary studios, residencies, educational activities and talks, given as part of the annual exhibition schedule or the Pivô research programme. Its structure continues to develop in line with the evolution of its activities in an open process of constant change. Its mission is perhaps precisely this – to rethink the way the visual artists in Brazil are institutionalised, assuring artists creative autonomy while also taking responsibility for the surroundings, so that perhaps this autonomy of thought will rub off on the visiting public. Since it opened, the objective has always been to provide its artists, all those involved in its work and all its visitors an environment for critical reflections beyond aesthetic experiences.”

Casa do Povo
Founded in 1953 in memory of those who died in the Second World War, Instituto Cultural Israelita Brasileiro (ICIB), better known as Casa do Povo, was created as a kind of living monument, where memory provides the foundations for the construction of the future. The space reopened in 2012. ICIB, alias Casa do Povo, was originally formed by progressive Jewish immigrants and various left-wing thinkers who settled in the Bom Retiro district of São Paulo after the First World War. Today, it is managed by Benjamin Seroussi.

Casa Tomada
Created in October 2009, Casa Tomada aims to provide a space for dialogue about artistic processes between young contemporary artists, curators and critics. It is run in partnership with SESC, which provides its financial support, and Video Brasil. An independent organisation, it offers the opportunity for practices, investigations and reflections of an artistic nature. It emerged out of the will to build a space where the different arts could converge and discuss the hybrid languages in contemporary art processes. Focused on the whole production process, not just the final product, Casa Tomada aims to incentivise discussion about young contemporary art, not just encouraging the production of art and theory driven by shared experiences, but acting as a catalyst of experiences that foster connections between artists, art thinkers and other independent initiatives.

Atelie 397
An independent space opened in 2003 and run by Thais Rivitti, Atelie 397 is one of the oldest “alternative” venues in São Paulo for exhibitions, publications and interchanges outside the rigid, institution-oriented circuit.

Comuna
Comuna is an independent space for multiple uses: a venue for parties, headquarters for a publishing house, organic food fairs, and an art gallery. Also known as Casa Mata, it today holds experimental art exhibitions by young artists living in Rio de Janeiro.

Largo das Artes
Occupying a nineteenth century mansion in the historic centre of Rio de Janeiro, Largo das Artes is an independent contemporary art venue with a gallery, courses, studios and an art residency programme that has received 30 artists of different nationalities over the last two years. In 2014 it expanded its range of activities, introducing new courses and workshops and including curatorship in its residency programme.

Bhering Factory
The building where the Bhering chocolate factory once operated in the heart of Rio de Janeiro today plays host to numerous art studios and small businesses from the creative industries.

Magazines and Publishing Houses
SELECT
When BRAVO! stopped being published in 2013, SELECT, edited by journalist and curator Paula Alzugaray, came to be the most important arts publication in Brazil. Coming out every two months, it is also published online but is so far only available in Portuguese.

Cobogó
Run by Isabel Diegues, Cobogó has joined Cosac Naify as one of the main publishers of high-quality art books in Brazil. With a focus on art and contemporary culture, it has published exhibition catalogues like Histórias Mestiças and Leonilson: truth, fiction, both curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Its books include Outras Fotografias Brasileiras no Século XXI and Pintura Brasileira no Século XXI.

ArteBRA
An imprint of publishing house Automática, ArteBRA focuses on national contemporary art. It has so far published volumes on Barrão, Fernanda Gomes, Lucia Koch, Luiz Zerbini, Marcos Chaves, Raul Mourão and others.

Galleries - São Paulo
Galeria Ema Thomas
Inaugurated in 2006, Galeria Ema Thomas aims to broaden discussions and production in the realm of contemporary art, modifying and adapting market practices and bringing artworks closer to the general public. It currently represents 18 artists and hosts projects by other national and international groups, documenting and generating cultural activity.

Mendes Wood DM
Founded in 2010 by Pedro Mendes, Mathew Wood and Felipe Dmab, Mendes Wood DM puts on exhibitions of artists from Brazil and abroad in a context propitious for critical and hybrid dialogue. Its catalogue of artists includes Adriano Costa, Daniel Steegman Mangrané and Matheus Rocha Pitta.

Galeria Jaqueline Martins
Galeria Jaqueline Martins is a space for the research, documentation, promotion and exhibition of contemporary art. It proposes novel, collaborative curatorship strategies that foster dialogue between different generations and cultural perspectives. It is guided by the principle of encouraging art practices marked by conceptualism, process orientation and a critical, often subversive posture.

Sé Galeria
With two exhibition spaces in the city, Sé Galeria represents young, emerging artists like Rafael RG and Pedro Victor Brandão, whose output tends to have a strong political message.

Galleries - Rio de Janeiro
Silvia Cintra + Box 4
With over 20 years’ experience on the art market, this gallery represents a wide range of artists, from exponents of neoconcretism like Amilcar de Castro to leading figures from the contemporary scene like Miguel Rio Branco and Daniel Senise.

Galeria Nara Roesler
This Rio branch of the São Paulo gallery has put on solo shows of Marcos Chaves, Lucia Koch, Artur Lescher, Daniel Buren, Eduardo Coimbra and Tomie Ohtake. It also represents veterans Antonio Dias, Abraham Palatnik and Athos Bulcão.

Luciana Caravello Arte Contemporânea
Focusing on poetics, concepts and trajectories in contemporary art, this gallery represents painters like Gisele Camargo and photographers like Vicente de Mello.

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