Bienal Internacional de Curitiba – 20 Years Ventosul
31.8. – 1.12.2013

The Bienal Internacional de Curitiba – 20 Years Ventosul reviews the biennial as a format and puts aside the practice of choosing a theme and title. Results of the ascendancy of the curator of the art system, this practice today little convincing. The link between the theme / title and the works presented in any biennial is weak or imaginary, since almost any subject / title, always a feature spectacular advertising, may be applied to almost any group of works – in the face of widespread indifference the public. As the works remain and themes / titles forget, this edition of the Bienal de Curitiba will be focused on the choice of works that might represent a significant aesthetic experience for the city. The only criterion for the selection of these works is the quality / relevance: they must impose itself on the quality and be able to point to some of the many issues of contemporary art. Each piece is its own discourse. No commit to the logo of the curator.

Anyway, this edition of the Bienal de Curitiba special open space for urban art , actor increasingly present on the international scene and it offers a direct and immediate contact with the users of the city. Thus, Curitiba Biennial will seek leave a residue in town and lasting artistic denser than usual, including through the establishment of laboratories for reflection and practice – LARPs – that seek to appropriate power lines contained in the selected works and turn them into vectors unfolding of creation in Curitiba. Education institutions and various think-tanks in the city – the schools of art, architecture, communication, research institutes – will have an important role in the process.

The Biennial is a way that, as such, has the general characteristics by which to define the genre to which it belongs and the unique aspects of any of its possible manifestations. The shape-biennial is now an entity in conflict: this edition of the Biennale Curitiba reaffirms the broad outline of the shape-biennial and contradicts much as you can do it without cancel it. The story will, if appropriate.

Teixeira Coelho and Ticio Escobar

About the curators:

Teixeira Coelho holds a post-doctorate at the University of Maryland, USA (2002), doctorate in Literature (Literary Theory and Comparative Literature) from the University of São Paulo (1981), MA in Communication Sciences from the University of São Paulo (1976) and graduate in Law from Universidade Guarulhos (1971). He is currently Professor of Cultural Policy and the School of Communication Arts, University of Birmingham, retired. It’s coordinator curator of the Art Museum of São Paulo, MASP. He was Director of the MAC-USP. Former Director of IDART (Department of Information and Documentation Artistic Cultural Center São Paulo).

He was professor of Information Theory and Perception Aesthetics and Art History at the Faculty of Architecture of the University Mackenzie. He specializes in Political and Cultural contributor Catedra UNESCO Cultural Policy of the University of Girona, Spain. Bag Housing Center of Studies and Conferences of Bellagio – Italy. He is a consultant of Cultural Policy Observatory of the Instituto Cultural tau, São Paulo. Curator of several exhibitions held in the MAC-USP and MASP. Author of several books on art and culture, is novelist (PremioPortugal Telecom 2007 book by the Dictatorship Natural History, published in 2006 by Ed Illuminations.

Ticio Escobar  (photo) has a degree in Philosophy, Law and Social Sciences. He is a professor, art critic, lecturer and juror at international art exhibitions. Author of numerous publications on their specialties, received awards in several countries, including the Art Critic of the Year (2011), the International Association of Art Critics and the Dutch Prince Claus Award for Culture and Development. From 1999 to 2004 he directed the program “Identities in Transit” sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1998, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the relationship between image and political power.

He was chief curator of the Triennial of Contemporary Art from Chile and Other Shows contemporaneities Convivências Issues at the Biennial of Valencia, Spain. He was curator of the Three Borders 6th Mercosul Biennial. He was Minister of Culture of Paraguay, Municipal Secretary of Culture of the city of Asuncion and Director of the Center for Arts Visuales / Museo Del Barro Asuncion.

Photo: Ticio Escobar. Courtesy Bienal de Curitiba