Reviews - Interview - Brazil

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23.10.2024

On the limits of representation, production of value and visibility: interview with curator Diane Lima on the book Negros na Piscina

Regardless of the division by themes, sections or categories, Negros na Piscina – Arte Contemporânea, Curadoria e Educação was launched last April under the Brazilian publishing label Fósforo (Brazil, 2024). Curator, writer and researcher Diane Lima brought together more than 30 curators, artists, writers and thinkers to create this publication, which forms an epistemological melting pot made up of twenty-six texts that twist the ways in which the racial event has been present in artistic production and in debates about contemporary art in the last 10 years in Brazil.

danie valencia sepúlveda: Following the trajectory of your work as a curator, writer and professor, I would like to begin by asking about the title of the publication, which always implies epistemic inflections in the way you propose knowledge. What is your role in terms of representation and in the discussions that the book condenses?

Diane Lima: One of the great challenges I had was to find a title that, by bringing word and action closer together, could also activate. A title that could bring into existence that which it speaks of. Then, in Negros na Piscina, through the performativity of photography itself, I found an image that, as it speaks, produces a gesture toward its multiple meanings: the pool-book, the pool-photo, the pool-museum, the pool-institution, the pool-job market, the pool-university, the pool-swimming pool, and all the infinite possibilities or impossibilities of being and existing in the pool; all the contexts, spaces, or situations—sometimes possible, previously impossible, unimaginable, in some way desirable, prohibitive, or even illegal—that the pool, as a rhetorical figure and as a field of dispute, makes possible. Thus, from the perspective of knowledge production, the book as an object comes to life by performing those same curatorial and epistemological challenges that its content addresses. That is why I believe that its role is to produce a historiographic and methodological intervention that takes into account the ways of narrating and thinking curatorially. I remember that, in one of my classes, the professor of the Institute of Aesthetic Research at UNAM, Luis Vargas, raised an interesting question about how sexual and gender dissidence studies appeared in my curatorial practice. And this is how studies appear: in form.

through the performativity of photography itself, I found an image that, as it speaks, produces a gesture toward its multiple meanings

dvs: Thinking from the black feminist perspective with which you work, I would like to know about the connections that the book establishes between the invention-creation of curatorial narratives and radical life practices, based on the commitment to contemporary art and its intersection with racism, social exclusion and forms of tokenization of cultural institutions, mainly at a continental level.

DL: By uniting theory and practice, the great contribution of black feminist thought in the field of contemporary art is to allow us to understand our concrete reality. As a critical theory and transversal study, its interdisciplinarity offers us both a lens and a method of intervention, which, as we know, was not available or formulated —and could not be— in disciplines such as art history. This epistemological turn has generated a series of ethical demands that seek not only a revision of the systems of representation, but also complex questions in the field of aesthetic philosophy and in the economic and legal dimensions that structure the institutions of knowledge. These are measures that question the notions of reparation and redistribution in relation to the labor system itself, as well as intervening in historical narratives.

As I briefly noted in my inaugural lecture at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in August, despite the fact that the personalities who dominate the spaces of institutional power —the same ones who have been central to the reproduction of violence, generating systematic payments and the invisibilization of contemporary Afro-indigenous artistic practices— are currently the figures who, as an effect of the capture processes, have become visible again in the representation of diversity discourses, continuing the project of accumulation and production of financial value, now under the “de-colonial” category, little is said about the racial figures who “tormented” institutions and public opinion and who detonated what sustains the very definition of social movements: making institutions act.

Considering the importance of Brazil in regards to the racial debate from a global art perspective, what I did at UNAM was to reveal, through situations, episodes, events, practices and projects, how we got to this moment of supposed transformation, and how black feminism and the black women’s movement have been the driving force behind this. Obviously, this analysis has a macropolitical outline and, therefore, takes as a reference the social movements of the 20th century that position themselves in the belief and search for democracy. What we are doing, then, is both honoring these contributions and understanding their limitations.

dvs: How are curatorial strategies integrated into the book to challenge hegemonic narratives in the art world and how can this rearticulate the forms of perception and reconfiguration of sensitiveness within that terrible beauty?

DL: This idea of Saidiya Hartman’s “terrible beauty” is present in both Negros na Piscina and O impossível, a text I wrote for the catalog of the 35th São Paulo Biennial, Choreographies of the impossible. I think it helps us maintain integrity and denial in the face of a current festive connotation that, in a very superficial way, seeks to celebrate our presence and participation in the art system; an idea that both the book and the texts refute or disobey. Then, what precedes the allegory of collective representation as a synonym for conquest and justice is that terrible beauty.

If one of the possibilities of finding beauty were to escape violence whenever possible, then this terrible beauty names the generative capacity of violence that constitutes our aesthetic tradition. As for hegemonic narratives, the texts question these narratives either through curatorial methodologies, the critiques they propose, the ethical principles they attempt to impose, or their own ways of narrating. In the book, there is a telling and retelling of the story, which brings with it a multiplicity of narratives that accentuate the singularities of each practice and that help to dismantle the formally preconceived ideals about what is understood by “collectivity X raciality.”

Considering the change in geographical context, if, during my time at UNAM, the seminar focused on introducing the main concepts of black feminist thought and how, within a historical narrative, they impacted the art system, what I do in my introductory text within the book is to present, through a series of curatorial projects and critical texts, what I have learned, how I have expanded it and how I have performed it.

 

dvs: And, in that sense, what is the role of the image within the publication and in these curatorial strategies?

DL: Since this is a book that only exists because it previously happened as a collective performance, it is already an effect in itself. I think it was that fundamental question that this photograph (“Negros na Piscina” by Paulo Nazareth) allowed me to articulate. In the curatorial sense, understanding that the book is the performance of a performance, working with Paulo Nazareth —not only in the book, but in this constant exchange that we have— allowed me to continue understanding curatorship as a performative statement, where the production of meaning is constituted through repeated acts or practices of doing, in which discourse constitutes reality.

As I say in the introduction to the book, the image was also fundamental in positioning us in the debate on representation. This became a theme that the book performs as much as it challenges, in the multiple senses that the title implies. This collaboration with Paulo now opens up a new chapter with Luzia, his first solo exhibition in Mexico. The exhibition opened in the first week of October at the Tamayo Museum, and I have the pleasure of co-curating it with Fernanda Brenner.

dvs: Diane, what kind of dialog does Negros na Piscina represent within contemporary art in our region?

DL: One of the most important approaches that can be articulated refers to the ways in which the process of constructing the myth of racial democracy was carried out in both territories, which has been a widely debated topic since the 1970s, both in the black women’s movement and in black feminist thought. In general terms, this myth was built from the romanticization of the process of racial miscegenation and the idea of a union of races that would produce, on the one hand, a cordial man and, on the other, an evolved model capable of finally elevating the nation to development. Based on eugenic policies and scientific racism produced in Europe in the 19th century, what the discourse of this process of miscegenation hides is an expansive project of national whitening widely disseminated in culture through populist pacts throughout the 20th century. The absence of the racial element would prevent —for the political elites— reparation policies, affirmative policies, and the recognition of the process of exploitation of the enslaved body and indigenous lands for the accumulation of capital and the wealth produced.

Despite its specificities, this is a common narrative in both territories. Reflecting on the myth of racial democracy is essential to understanding how the concept of Latin American art has had its canon largely founded on the same basis. I am sure that Negros na piscina offers many openings to the debate. Especially considering how each guest has been developing strategies in the field of curatorship to address these effects in everyday life.

dvs: Thinking about the ways in which dialog is interwoven in our region through the exchange of knowledge in the various languages spoken on our continent, are there any plans for Negros na piscina to be released in Spanish?

DL: The plan is for us to continue organizing and creating the conditions to expand our knowledge and our solidarity networks, where translation is a fundamental element. I am very excited about the possibility of seeing the book translated into Spanish. I also hope that my time in Mexico City this year, whether through UNAM or Luzia, has produced favorable contexts, so that the purpose of our work, despite all the impossible, can continue to occur. Without a doubt, Mexico has been my journey: it taught me to be a border, but it also renewed my courage to continue doing the work we came to do, and that this territory of the Caboclos and Luzia, as Paulo says, is a fundamental crossroads.

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