Installation view, works by Citra Sasmita at the 35th Bienal de São Paulo – choreographies of the impossible © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
In their statement to accompany ‘Choreographies of the Impossible’, the four curators of the 35th Bienal de São Paulo – Manuel Borja Villel, Grada Kilomba, Diane Lima and Hélio Menezes – refer to their methodology as ‘horizontal’. Elsewhere, in the catalogue, they’ve described their decision-making process as driven not by consensus but by dissensus. This emphasis could suggest a dialectical technique that would highlight the unique interests and expertise of the curatorial team or it might simply be a way of telling the audience that they couldn’t agree on much. I wish they would have admitted the latter, as that’s the experience you feel navigating their impressive yet scattered, frustrating yet significant exhibition, the fragmentary nature of which serves as a boon to its decolonial, transhistorical enterprise.
The first and second floors are dominated by installations – including some great ones by Julien Creuzet (Zumbi, Zumbi Eterno, 2023), Igshaan Adams (Samesyn, 2023) and Daniel Lie (Outres, 2023) – paired with smaller rooms dedicated mostly to video and photographic work. The contrast felt awkward, despite these more intimate spaces containing some of my favourite art of the entire biennial: Dayanita Singh’s jubilant photographic series ‘Museum of Dance: Mother Loves to Dance’ (2021); Rosa Gauditano’s shots of underground lesbian clubs in São Paulo (‘Forbidden Lives’, c.1970s); Citra Sasmita’s feminist canvases done with a traditional Balinese technique (‘Timur Merah’, 2023–ongoing). Conversely, a Dan Flavin knock-off by Kapwani Kiwanga was anomalous and disappointing (pink-blue, 2017) and a painting by Sidney Amaral (The Foreigner, 2011) felt unintentionally lonely. These isolated artist presentations seemed to be positioned as mini, incomplete exhibitions, removed from the overall context of the biennial – not of a piece with the dialogue ostensibly being promoted by the exhibition design.
The 35th Bienal de São Paulo is on view until 10 December.
