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February 19, 2008

Gibraltar Airport Runway

Finally made the plane into Paris,
Honey mooning down by the Seine.
Peter Brown called to say,
"You can make it O.K.,
You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain".
--The ballad of John and Yoko

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February 09, 2008

São Paulo Stripped Bare by the Aesthetes, Even

Last year, the Brazilian city of São Paulo outlawed billboards, logos, posters or any kind of advertisement in the streets or even on buses.

(from the wonderful Flickr set by Tony de Marco documenting the process)

This year, the famous São Paulo biennial will showcase an empty exhibition space:

(Biennial Pavillion stolen from Frieze)

Considering the fact that there are almost two hundred biennials around the world working on similar issues, showing the diverse art practices which constitute the territories of the current visual language, it seems necessary to ask: How does the São Paulo Biennial evaluates this cultural phenomenon, propagated through the so-called peripheral countries or in regions of political or cultural tension? What is a biennial's role in the era of globalization? What role do biennials play for the cultural, tourism and event industry? What contribution to the discussion proposes the São Paulo Biennial based on its experience, being the third oldest organization of this kind and the first outside the hegemonic centers?

In El Pais, an interview with the curator, Ivo Mesquita:
Hay una frase de Beckett al final de Esperando a Godot: 'We are nummbed' (estamos embotados). Y es lo que me parece. Doscientas bienales, ferias, revistas, premios, más arte... No estamos mirando. Estamos perdiendo el sentido de la mirada".

****

(I have a feeling they are actually light years ahead of us all)

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