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Curated by Julieta González.
For the occasion
of the 30th Bienal de São Paulo, Galeria Luisa Strina has invited
Julieta González to curate an exhibition.
The exhibition
takes its name and thematic approach from Parque Industrial,
Patricia Galvão's 1933 proletarian novel, but is equally
constructed as a "theater of objects" referencing Georges Perec's
structural use of the object in his novel Les Choses, une histoire
dês années soixante (1965), and Jean-Luc Godard and Jean
Pierre Gorin's recourse to Brechtian strategies in the film Tout Va Bien
(1972). The exhibition examines how contemporary artists address the
labour relations inscribed in the commodity, the intricate relations
between production and consumption that are embedded in it, and the
"commodity status" of art.
Borrowing Brechtian stage strategies,
such as defamiliarization, repetition and a recourse to the uncanny, the
exhibition is structured like a play in five acts; each one, except the
first, takes the title of some of the chapters in Galvão's novel,
and functions as an autonomous smaller exhibition. These sections address a
range of subjects: commodification, production, alienation and
de-alienation, consumption, and education.
The exhibition
includes works by the following artists: Yael Bartana, Thomas Bayrle,
Alexandre da Cunha, Edgard de Souza, Cao Fei, Silvie Fleury, Carlos
Garaicoa, Liam Gillick, Terence Gower, Magdalena Jitrik, Joaquim
Jordà, Jac Leirner, Renata Lucas, Marepe, Allan McCollum, Josephine
Meckseper, Cildo Meireles, Antoni Muntadas, Felipe Mujica, Nicolás
París, Mai-Thu Perret, Tadej Pogacar, Pedro Reyes, Beatriz Santiago,
Andreas Siekmann and Alice Creischer, Gabriel Sierra, and Mladen
Stilinovic.
About the curator
Julieta González is
Senior Curator at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and Adjunct Curator at
The Bronx Museum of the Arts New York. She was associate curator of Latin
American Art at Tate Modern, London (2008–2011). González has
curated exhibitions, edited artist books and written essays for
international publications and catalogs.
About the gallery
The history of the oldest contemporary art gallery in São
Paulo, Galeria Luisa Strina, is intertwined with the professional
trajectory of Luisa Strina herself. In 1970 Luisa began as an art dealer
for friends and artists such as Wesley Duke Lee, Fajardo, Baravelli, Jose
Resende and Babinski. In 1974 she opened Galeria Luisa Strina at
Baravelli's old studio with a well-defined strategy: to show the work of
national and international artists, both in Brazil and abroad. And so, in
the same year the gallery opened, she brought the works of American pop
artists Roy Lichstenstein, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine and Andy Warhol to
Brazil for the first time. Luisa Strina introduced diverse artists of the
new generation into the market, such as Leonilson, Cildo Meireles, Tunga,
Antonio Dias and Edgard de Souza. In 1992 Galeria Luisa Strina was the
first Latin-American gallery invited to participate in the selective Basel
Art Fair. Currently, Galeria Luisa Strina represents a mixture of
established and emerging artists, always showing the best works available
in the Brazilian and international contemporary art market.
*Image above:
Marepe, Construção 1
[Construction 1], 2010. Iron and wood, 70 x 40 x 80 cm.
Courtesy:
Galeria Luisa Strina. © Marepe. Photo: Edouard Fraipont.
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