Sunday, November 23, 2008

Bad news for Brazilian Art Biennial

The Arts Newspaper article on the 19th of november:

Latin America’s big biennial at risk
This year’s São Paulo Bienal shows almost no art: is this a conceptual choice or just lack of funding?

SÃO PAULO. Since it was founded in 1951, the São Paulo Bienal has been the most important international art exhibition in Latin America. But after years of corruption scandals and chronic lack of funds, the continued existence of the biennial is under threat.



The result is that the 28th edition (26 October-6 December), is less an art exhibition than a colloquy on the biennial and its future. The programme consists mainly of lectures, discussions and performances that examine the history and potential of biennial exhibitions. The intention is to lay the groundwork for life-saving reforms of the failing institution, but with only a handful of works of art on display the biennial appears to be on its deathbed.

“There is a huge question mark in the air,” says São Paulo dealer Daniel Roessler, noting that “visitor numbers from abroad have dropped substantially”. Twenty museum groups visited his gallery during the last biennial, but this year he expects only two or three. He contrasts the São Paulo Bienal with the Mercosur Biennial, founded in 1997 in Porto Alegre. “The local business community in the south of Brazil is very supportive of their local biennial,” he says, noting that Mercosur is more professionally run and is growing. “One is going up and the other is in a big crisis.”

Read whole article here.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Conflict in Congo

Sarah, my job partner, send me this link today. Quite impressive. Thanks girl.

"Conflict in Congo, refugees on the move
In the eastern mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a rebel army led by Laurent Nkunda - a former General of the DR Congo armed forces - recently launched attacks and captured territory after a peace treaty had failed with the government. Nkunda's forces are Tutsi rebels, fighting against the DR Congo government forces and U.N. peacekeeeping forces. The U.N. has over 17,000 troops in the Congo right now, but they are widely dispersed, and have been unable to fully protect civilians or even defend their own bases. Nkunda's rebels forced government soldiers to retreat from intense battles up to the edges of the provincial capital of Goma. The biggest losers in this conflict are the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the middle - forced to relocate repeatedly, many victims of looting, rape and murder by both advancing rebels and some government soldiers - looking to thinly-spread U.N. forces for help. The humanitarian crisis and threat of further regional destabilization, has made this conflict a top U.N. priority recently."





Monday, November 3, 2008

If the world could vote...

Obama would obviously win. Good luck tomorrow!



Check the website.