September 3–November 3, 2012
Opening: September 1
Galeria Luisa Strina
Rua Padre João Manuel, 755
01411-001 São Paulo, Brazil
Hours: Mon–Fri 10–7pm; Sat 10–5pm
T 55 11 3088 2471
F 55 11 3064 6391
info [at] galerialuisastrina.com.br
www.galerialuisastrina.com.br
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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.