ArtReview sent a questionnaire to artists and curators exhibiting in and curating the various national pavilions of the 2024 Venice Biennale, the responses to which will be published daily in the leadup to and during the Venice Biennale, which runs from 20 April – 24 November.
Artist and activist Glicéria Tupinambá is representing Brazil with her project Ka’a Pûera: nós somos pássaros que andam, developed in collaboration with her community of Serra do Padeiro and Olivença, Bahia, and featuring contributions by artists Olinda Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó. The Pavilion, located in the Giardini, has for the occasion been rebranded to the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion, in reference to the Pataxó people’s word for the territory of Brazil before colonisation. Curators Denilson Baniwa, Arissana Pataxó and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana answer our questionnaire alongside Tupinambá.
ArtReview What do you think of when you think of Venice?
Denilson Baniwa, Arissana Pataxó and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana We think of boats, pasta and the Biennale (lol) or some film cliché where canals, gondolas and gondoliers dressed in their striped shirts are part of the landscape.
We think about how Venice is where the oldest art biennale in the world comes from, which had its first edition in 1895, and that it took Brazil around 65 years to participate in this circuit. At the Biennale we think of all the stories friends tell about how magical it was to take part in one of the editions.
Above all, it comes to mind that only in 2024, 74 years after Brazil’s first participation in the Biennale, the Pavilion will have curators and artists who belong to the native peoples of Brazil.
AR What can you tell us about your exhibition plans for Venice?
AP, DB, GCW We can state that the processes around here are progressing to ensure everything goes smoothly. We have recently spent time with Glicéria Tupinambá in her village in Serra do Padeiro and in Olivença in the south of Bahia, and have met with the young people and masters of her community, following the production of one of the works that will be presented at the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion. Also, we have just announced that we will be featuring works by the artists Olinda Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó in our exhibition Ka’a Pûera – nós somos pássaros que andam [Ka’a Pûera – we are walking birds].
As artists and curators, we value having the chance to finally be in charge of a pavilion and hope that together we can help build a new landscape at the Biennale, where perhaps in the future we can have more Indigenous people present, whether as artists, curators or as part of the Biennale team in many ways. There is an urgent need for the active participation of Indigenous people in global art spaces.
We have been working with the artists on processes where the community takes precedence over the artwork, and we hope that the voice of this community will be amplified, and that the Pavilion will be its amplifier. Whether our exhibition conforms to the norms that the artworld will like or not is less important than the possibility of communicating the community’s desire to an entirely new audience.
AR Why is the Venice Biennale still important, if at all? And what is the importance of showing there? Is it about visibility, inclusion, acknowledgement?
AP, DB, GCW We believe that the importance lies in occupying and providing yet another space for dialogue about Brazil’s Indigenous peoples through the arts, disseminating another way of seeing and being in Brazil. It’s not about visibility, inclusion or recognition, but the possibility of showing the world this great Brazilian territory (Hãhãwpuá) through the ‘Indigenous way of feeling, looking and doing’.
The making of a history of Indigenous art implies occupying spaces such as the Biennale, as well as other larger or smaller spaces in the artistic community. The Biennale is important for those who are interested in Western art, and if we can make this space a space for seeding new perspectives, then it will indeed be important for us. In any case, any space we can occupy will be important in the fight to rewrite a more plural art history, in which Indigenous processes and thoughts are included. Bringing a new vocabulary, imagery, a new idea of the world and community is part of our processes as artists and curators. We hope that the Biennale’s visibility will help us along this path.
AR When you make artworks do you have a specific audience in mind?
Glicéria Tupinambá I don’t really create works of art. My work and my research are focused on rescuing the Tupinambá culture and their identity. This demands the very Indigenous artifacts that are in European museums, and the interpretation that we establish regarding this understanding, concerning where in history these pieces were placed, where they are physically located, and what remains from them in my territory. This is a process that starts within the community, taking into consideration all these different aspects.
I don’t think about a specific audience because the work is not made for an audience: it’s made for my community, it is a devolution for my people. It’s about a culture and a society that still fails to recognise their people. People have diluted the Tupinambá culture so much that they don’t recognise how much of it exists.
AR Do you think there is such a thing as national art? Or is all art universal? Is there something that defines your nation’s artistic traditions? And what is misunderstood or forgotten about your nation’s art history?
GT I see art as a working tool. Art, to me, is a tool for work. Each people, each nation, each community that utilises this tool to communicate, to establish something that communicates – whether on a national, international or universal scale – each has a language that they use based on this tool. I don’t subscribe to the notion that art must arise solely from beauty, as society often dictates. It is about appreciating a work of art, the appreciation that people establish with it.
AR If someone were to visit your nation, what three things would you recommend they see or read in order to understand it better?
AP, DB, GCW We are not sure how to make a tourist recommendation at the moment, but we would like to remind you, before you get here, that Brazil is Indigenous land and the invitation to read these territories lies in the memory of the land itself.
Before visiting Brazil, you need to realise that this territory is enormous, to the point where almost the whole of Europe can fit inside it; that there are more than 300 Indigenous peoples living here; and that there are more than 200 languages spoken today, among other hyperboles that can be found within Brazil.
If anyone wants to understand what Brazil is, they need to learn that first. Otherwise, they’ll fall for Carnival and get lost inebriated in the midst of so much diversity. I would recommend reading Ailton Krenak, João Guimarães Rosa and Mário de Andrade; listening to Nação Zumbi, Baden Powell and Funk Carioca. Before visiting an Indigenous or Black community, you need to understand that this is a territory of resistance through art, where the old and the new merge to survive time.
At the Biennale we are inviting the audience to think that in the present time there is a place that precedes this place called Brazil; that within this place, there are many nations; and that it is possible to connect with these narratives through art. There are possible paths through food, lived experiences, languages and many others. We’ll present a microscopic snapshot of this Hãhãwpuá, where millions of other Hãhãwpuá fit, which you can’t get to know in just a short visit to Brazil, you have to live it for many lifetimes.
AR Which other artists have influenced or inspired you?
GT The influence I have for the work I do comes from those who came before me; from my ancestors. To search for these remains that were drawn, that are in museums: those who came before me are the ones I look for. My work and research happen by immersing myself in these references to understand them.
I think it’s a different way of being and doing things, and that people recognise it as a place of art. I understand that if I were to look for a reference, I would look for the elders within the community. By understanding them, what they have of remains from a point, from a knot, they establish this influence very much. In this sense it would be my aunts and grandmothers.
AR What, other than your own work, are you looking forward to seeing while you are in Venice?
GT I am very excited about being in Venice for the first time because I used to watch a lot of films about it. I think I’ll be most excited to ride on a boat there, that’s going to be one of the first things I want to do.
And of course, try to make contact with the mantle, which is a relative to me. I think that’s one of the most exciting things about this exhibition; exhibiting the mantle, and seeing the look on people’s faces when they see this work. I think that’s going to be one of the most interesting things to appreciate: the gaze of others.
The 60th Venice Biennale, 20 April – 24 November
