Filmscreening: Contemporary video art from Brazil

 

 

11 June 06

 

9.30 pm

Filmscreening: Current video art from Brazil

With Brazilian beats by DJ Daniel Haaksman, Man Recordings Berlin.

Movies by Gabriel Acevedo Velarde, Assume Vivid Astrofocus, Maurizio Dias + Walter Riedweg, Nelson Enohata, Pablo Pijnappel, Kiko Goifman, Tamar Guimares and Nanna Debois Buhl, Marepe, Amanda Melo, Naiah Mendoncas, Alice Miceli, Gisela Motta & Leandro Lima, Eder Santos and Eduardo Srur, among others.

Selected by Tereza Arruda, Ellen Blumenstein, Katharina Fichtner.

In cooperation with Instituto Cultural Itau and Instituto Sérgio Motta as part of Copa da Cultura.

Young Brazilian video art is hardly known in Germany, apart from some international exhibiting artists such as Ernesto Neto, Dias / Riedweg or Rivane Neuenschwander. Therefor we are presenting current Brazilian video and film works in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art courtyard, reflecting the country’s different.

Contemporary video art is linked to the great Brazilian "heroes" of the 60s and 70s: Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape and Helio Oiticica. Today, Oiticica is known as the founder of the Tropicália Movement, which was named after one of its installations and revolutionized and redefined the Brazilian art, politics, music and fashion of the 1960s. Many contemporary artists are linked to the color and the floral, psychedelic elements of this aesthetic tradition and continue with current visual elements and themes such as gay and gender culture. The influence of the artists Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape is also noticeable in many contemporary works: the pronounced physicality and the exploration of one's own body are not only central elements of the entire Brazilian culture (carnival, football, Copacabana) but is also placed at the center of their artistic work by many artists.

The utopian potential of the 60s and 70s in Brazil is, in contrast to Europe and the USA, still alive and up-to-date in many productions. Many artists deal with sociocultural questions and political problems. In view of the extreme social opposites in the country, the camera seems to offer a possibility to influence the social reality.