Artistic Exchange Between Brazil and Germany

The workshop ‘Artistic exchange between Brazil and Germany’ aims to bring to the public a day with discussions regarding Brazilian art and its dialogue with German culture. In the format of a symposium, the event is also the first public discussion promoted by the project »Virtual Bridges: Art and Technology between Brazil and Germany«, that is being developed in and supported by ZKM and sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
 
Led by international guest speakers, the workshop will address ways of strengthening artistic collaborations between Brazil and Germany, with past and recent case studies that highlight dialogues between the two countries. The programme also proposes debates that will increase the awareness regarding Brazilian Art and its reception in Germany. Researchers will provide a historical perspective, an overview of contemporary examples and special attention will be given to New Media art in the Brazilian context. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and share their ideas on those topics. It is an opportunity to meet experts, build a transnational network and improve the knowledge about Brazilian Art.

Programm

10:00	Caroline Menezes: Welcome and Introduction
10:20	Caroline Menezes: Präsentation des Projekts »Virtual Bridges: Art and Technology between Brazil and Germany«
11:00	Prof. Dr. Lucia Santaella, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo: »Art and Media in the Brazilian Context«
12:00	Prof. Dr. Andreas Valentin, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro: »Berlin <> Rio: Routes and Memories«
13:00	Lunch
14:10	Guided tour
15:00	Dr. Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri: »Concrete and Neo-Concrete artistic movements in Brazil and the notion of play in Hélio Oiticica’s oeuvre«
15:50	Coffee break
16:10	Pauline Bachmann, Freie Universität Berlin: »Between Cultural Difference and National Identity: the reception of Brazilian Constructivist Art in Germany and some notes on Hélio Oiticicas’ exhibition The Great Labyrinth in Frankfurt 2013«
16:40	Final discussion
17:00	End

 

Speaker

Pauline Bachmann is currently a research fellow of the DFG-funded Research Group »Transcultural Negotiations in the Ambits of Art« at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2015 she has also been a doctoral candidate at the University of Zurich. Her ongoing project focuses on Brazilian Neoconcretism (1950s and 1960s) and its reception in Europe and the USA from a transcultural perspective. In 2010 she received her Master’s degree in Latin American Studies, Art History and History at Freie Universität Berlin. Her thesis focused on representations of the Caribbean. Pauline also studied in Costa Rica (UNA) and Mexico (COLMEX). Her research is rooted in both art history and literature and focuses on the region of Latin America. She is especially interested in approaches that deal with transculturality, postcolonial and cultural studies.
 
Caroline Menezes is a curator and art historian. Since November 2015, she has been developing the project »Virtual Bridges: Art and Technology between Brazil and Germany«, at ZKM, with the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her essays about contemporary art were published in books and catalogues such as 30XBienal – Transformations in Brazilian Art from the 1st to the 30th Edition (Bienal São Paulo, 2013). As an art critic, she has been part of the British magazine »Studio International«’s permanent team since 2006. She was assistant director of Essex Collection of Art from Latin America, Colchester, England and has worked on independent curatorial projects in the UK, Brazil, Spain and Portugal. Currently, she is concluding her PhD in Art Theory at the University of the Arts London.
 
Fabrizio Poltronieri is a researcher, computer developer and artist who has participated in many group and solo exhibitions. He has edited books and has several articles published concerning Brazilian Art, the relationship between Art and Games and about the philosopher Vilém Flusser. He holds a PhD in Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP), São Paulo, Brazil, with a thesis about the role of chance in computer art. In 2005, he carried out Post-Doctoral research on how Flusser’s concept of post-history affects the production of signs mediated by computational apparatuses. He is also the co-curator of the exhibition »Primary Codes«, that brought the work of the pioneer artists Ernest Edmonds, Frieder Nake, Harold Cohen and Paul Brown to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2015. The exhibition spanned more than 50 years of computer art.
 
Lucia Santaella is full professor in Communication Studies at São Paulo Catholic University (PUC-SP). She has published more than 30 books on Semiotics, Media and Cultural Studies. She is the director of the CIMID, Centre of Research in Digital Media, PUC-SP, and also the director of the Centre for Peirce Studies. She directed the Brazilian side of a PROBRAL research project (Brazil-Germany/Capes-DAAD) on word and image relations in the media from 2000 to 2003. In 1987, she was guest professor at the Freie Universität, Berlin (DAAD). Several research projects were also developed in Germany (Kassel, Berlin, Dagstuhl/sponsored by Fapesp-DAAD) from 1995 onwards. She was associate member of the Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgruppe für Kulturforschung, Universität Kassel until 2009.

Andreas Valentin is a professor of Photography and Art History at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and at Universidade Candido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro. He has a PhD in Social History from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and last year conducted post-doctoral research at the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, on Brazilian and Germany photography in the 1950 with a fellowship granted by the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Between 1980 and 2000 he photographed, researched, directed and produced documentaries in the Amazon. He has written three books on the Amazon Parintins Boi-bumbá Festival and worked as producer an assistant director in Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo. As an artist, in the 1970’s he collaborated with Brazilian avant-garde artist Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980), directing experimental Super8 films. Recently, he won the Marc Ferrez photography prize, the most renowned award of its kind in Brazil, with a project involving Rio de Janeiro and Berlin.