Dear friends and partners,
We are ending 2011 on a note of celebration of our milestones and new projects. We would like to share them with all those who somehow contribute to the success of our actions.
The country's first international contemporary art festival, the 17th Videobrasil set a record of 300,000 visitors and 90,000 participants in the educational curated program of shows Southern Panoramas and Olafur Eliasson – Your body of work.
The Festival also served as a platform for two victorious endeavors: the Videobrasil on SESCTV program, which launched the idea of airing our contents on television; and the Videobrasil Open Studio, under which commissioned artwork was made in residencies at Casa Tomada.
Olafur Eliasson – Your body of work was voted by the São Paulo Art Critics Association the most important visual arts show of the year. Before the end of 2011, a book which comprises the show will hit SESC bookstores and stores. In 2012, we will release a film in which the filmmaker Karim Aïnouz rereads Eliasson's oeuvre.
The Festival will proceed with Eliasson's show at SESC Pompeia and Belenzinho (up until January 29) and at the State Art Gallery (up until January 8). Its reverberations, however, will continue.
Three of the artists awarded residency prizes at the Southern Panoramas show will start their programs in the first half of 2012: Carla Zaccagnini (pARTage, Mauritius); Dirceu Maués (WBK Vrije Academie, the Netherlands); and Claudia Joskowicz (Sacatar Institute, Itaparica, state of Bahia).
The Southern Panoramas Travelling Exhibition 2012–2013, featuring awarded and commissioned works of the 17th Festival, will start in March, touring SESC units in the interior of the state of São Paulo, and then on to Brazilian and foreign capitals.
Our main project for 2012 is the first Brazilian retrospective of British artist Isaac Julien. The show is aligned with exhibitions by landmark artists produced by Videobrasil in the past, featuring the French Sophie Calle (2009) and the German Joseph Beuys (2010).
We are closing 2011 with two joys: the launch of Caderno SESC_Videobrasil 7 – A Revista (The magazine); and the earning of a Jabuti Prize for the book Joseph Beuys – We Are the Revolution, which won second place among the best art books of 2010.
Our thanks to our key partners, SESC and Electrica Cinema e Vídeo, and all those who have seen our actions, exhibitions, and publications in 2011, helping to make them significant and relevant. We hope 2012 will be equally full of accomplishments and victories.
Solange Farkas and team
Associação Cultural Videobrasil will be in recess from December 23, 2011, to January 4, 2012.