Ivo Mesquita is curator of the São Paulo State Pinacotheque and a visiting professor at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. He's one of the most active analysts of the Brazilian contemporary art scene. He was curator of the former São Paulo Biennial in 2008 and he's curator of the Brazilian Pavillion at the LIII Venice Biennial.
Starting from The Void, his controversial project for the Sao Paolo Biennale, a blank space dedicated to debates instead of works of art - we invited Ivo Mesquita to reflect on the vices, the risks and the social, political and cultural dynamics of biennials.
What's happening today - he says - is more about the production of identical biennials that furthermore look like art fairs and have lost any local link with communities and any critical dimension on art production and institutions. The very paradigm of the Biennial is falling on hard times.
We've also talked about the Brazilian pavillion and about Baroque as the mind set that molds the intellectual brazilian scene tout court.
