A fragment of the 35th Bienal de São Paulo, choreographies of the impossible (September 6 - December 10, 2023), focused on works made in the context of struggle and resistance, is on view at Malba and the Palacio Pereda (Pereda Palace) in Buenos Aires until May 27, 2024. Despite the short distance between Brazil and Argentina, this is the first time that the Biennial has appeared in the Argentine capital. As the first stop of its international itinerant programme, the exhibition will next tour the museums of Bolivia and Angola.

With this initiative, the Biennial is extending its lifespan and reaching an increasingly wider audience, as well as replicating in other countries the atmosphere of its last edition. In this way, the Biennial not only seeks to become an event suitable for all audiences but also seeks to enrich the cultural panorama of a country as vast as Brazil and establish dialogues with artistic universes from all over the world.

It was in 2011 when organisers of the Biennial first decided to extend the event beyond its usual venue, taking a selection of works to multiple cities in Brazil, such as Rio Preto, Curitiba, Belem, Salvador de Bahia, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Vitória, Fortaleza and Porto Alegre, among others. In 2015, they extended the idea beyond the geographical limits of the country. Since then, every time the Biennial closes its doors at its Sao Paulo venue, an ambitious travelling programme begins, one that is "fundamental to democratise access to art," Andrea Pinheiro, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, told STIR.

The Biennial's curatorial collective—composed of Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes and Manuel Borja-Villel—selected the works exhibited in Buenos Aires, across two venues: Malba—one of the most important museums in South America—and the Palacio Pereda building, which belongs to the Brazilian Embassy.

Malba (Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires) presents pieces that have been made in psychiatric institutions. In the centre of the room, hanging from the ceiling, are the cloaks—hung as cloth banners—made by artist Arthur Bispo do Rosário, who spent 50 years in Rio de Janeiro’s asylum Colônia Juliano Moreira during the 20^th century. There, he made his creations using different materials such as fabrics, yarn, biros and various objects found in his daily life. These were woven and embroidered and included written pieces which, according to the artist, were dictated to him by angels to be presented before God at the Final Judgement. His works are entitled, for example, Vós habitantes do planeta terra, eu apresento suas nações (You, inhabitants of planet earth, I present your nations), and Eu preciso destas palavras escrita (I need these words written). 

There is little information to be had about the artist Aurora Cursino dos Santos, most of it unreliable. Some say that her father attempted to force her into a marriage she did not want, so she ran away, becoming a sex worker and spending a large part of her life in a mental hospital, where she created most of her drawings and painting.  In these artworks, with their intense colours and sharp figures, the artist depicts the daily violence experienced by women and anticipates—between the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century—a condemnatory view of patriarchy and misogyny.

Ubirajara Ferreira Braga was called "the most fruitful plastic artist in the colony", in reference to the largest psychiatric hospital in Brazil, where he lived. There, the artist began painting at the age of 58 and went on to produce 3,000 paintings until he died in 2000.

Meanwhile, at Palacio Pereda, the headquarters of the Brazilian Embassy, there are works by Aline Motta, Gabriel Gentil Tukano, Manuel Chavajay and the Argentinean Elda Cerrato. In their own way, the works of the four artists gathered in Palacio Pereda agree to avoid a colonial point of view in favour of their narrative, which claims ownership of their identity. Take Motta, who works in a range of media ​— photography, video, installation, performance, collage and texts — and tries to reflect the black ancestral memory of her family and the Afro-Atlantic diaspora.

Water is a Time Machine is a multi-layered project: it was first a book and also a performance and is presented here as a 31-minute documentary in which Motta includes documents and photographs from her mother's and grandmother's personal archives, to narrate what life was like for her family in Rio de Janeiro in the early 20^th century, after the abolition of slavery.

Gabriel dos Santos Gentil was a shaman of the Tukano ethnic group, in the Amazon, who dedicated his life and work to safeguarding his community. His sketchbooks and drawings made with pens, pencils and wax crayons are on display, documenting the Tukano cosmology on the creation of the world and its conservation. Exhibited under a glass case, these drawings show forests and landscapes, human figures and sacred beings, different parts of the body and notes handwritten by the artist himself, which seek to transmit the social dynamics of the community and aim to achieve appreciation and respect for indigenous peoples and their culture.

“The 35th Bienal de São Paulo addresses issues that surpass the boundaries of nationality, tackling urgent topics for a new perspective on the world. The cities chosen for the travelling exhibitions are closely linked to the themes addressed in the show. We seek partners who can assist us and embrace our artistic proposals, and that share our mission of promoting and democratising access to art and culture. Argentina, Bolivia, and Angola share many common themes, from their history as former European colonies to contemporary issues such as democracy fragility, human rights, and the environment,” explained Pinheiro.

The 35th Bienal de São Paulo addresses issues that surpass the boundaries of nationality, tackling urgent topics for a new perspective on the world. – Andrea Pinheiro, President, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

While the contemporary art world debates whether there is a crisis caused by the proliferation of biennials or the exhaustion of the current model, São Paulo brings the transformative power of art to an ever wider public. And it could well serve as an example to its peers around the world. This was also emphasised recently by curator and biotechnologist Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, who has been appointed as chief curator of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, scheduled for the second half of 2025.

As he explained during the official announcement, "Bienal de São Paulo is not only one of the oldest and most important biennials in the world but as one of the very few free-admission biennials, it has proven in the past 73 years to be a biennial of the people and for the people. And with its programmes, the Bienal de São Paulo has succeeded in bringing art to varying communities and demographic groups.”