Art and concept
by Sean O'Toole
In his recent review of Dan Cameron's curatorial effort at the 8th Istanbul Biennal, for the publication Frieze, Peter Eleey makes mention of an interesting conversation. "On a panel during the opening festivities," Eleey writes, "Ralph Rugoff wondered if the recent polemic trend of these major international shows is a hangover from the Modernist conflation of art and politics, overcompensation for the powerlessness of art and artists over current politics, or the result of a collective guilt we feel from the �lite and capitalist nature of our field". As a point of conjecture, the proposition is fascinating.
One wonders to what extent these sentiments, expressive as they are of a nagging cynicism critics have of big 'concept' driven shows, might have deterred curator Alfons Hug as he prepares himself for the 26th S�o Paulo Art Biennial. 150 artists from 62 countries are set to appear on his show, titled 'Image Smugglers in a Free Territory'. A group show concerned with the no-man's-land of aesthetics, the 26th S�o Paulo Art Biennial "sees itself as a place for retreat where critical mass", a place where "positive energy can be concentrated and combined to create basic formulas for transforming society and conjuring up premonitions of future forms of human social life".
If this sounds rather portentous, Hug does qualify his commentary. "Art knows no hierarchy," he claims. "The question of what is old or new, peripheral or central, modern or primitive is posed in a way entirely different to that of economics. Art eludes the calculating ways and the hysteria of modern society. While industry continues to furnish the world, the prime task of contemporary art is to purify it". Art as tonic, it does seem a rather tall order.
Hug's high 'concept' is however given credence in a statement that seems to have resonance in contemporary South Africa. Pointing to Caracas, Hug highlights the fact that 80% of the city is illegally inhabited, while 70% of Venezuelan children are born out of wedlock. Entire districts of Rio de Janeiro are extraterritorial zones cut off from state jurisdiction.
"In the struggle to survive in the metropolises," he writes "curious sociotopes develop in the most unlikely places: in deserted high-rise buildings or beneath freeway bridges where". In São Paulo, for instance, craftsmen have settled in semi-nomadic conditions. "These unstable zones are characterised on the one hand by poverty and exclusion, on the other by an astonishing degree of productivity and creativity".
Anyone who has ever driven along William Nicol Road in Johannesburg will gladly admit the validity of this insight, the way it pithily caricatures what appears to be a global, urban condition in our very own backyard. The São Paulo Biennial suddenly sounds relevant.
The 26th São Paulo Art Biennial will take place from September 25 to December 19.
