Curator Marcos Gallon is the new responsible for SP-Arte's Performance sector

17 Dec 2018, 1:26 pm

Artistic director of Verbo – Performance Art Festival for fifteen years now, Marcos Gallon is the new curator of SP-Arte’s Performance sector. For the next edition, five artists represented by participating galleries of the Fair are going to present actions throughout the Bienal Pavilion.

Gallon tells that there will be no theme surrounding his choices, only a desire of presenting the diversity of practices that compose the field of performance. “I can identify some qualities of the performances made in Brazil, there are artists that approach ancestral ideas; artists that use other media, creating tools or extensions of the body; artists that approach literature, among others. I intend precisely to show this plurality. More than a themed curatorial approach, I am interested in the practical issues of making, which are strongly incorporated in the performance realm,” he states. Part of the actions to be presented have features that allow the audience to see traces of the works even without the presence of the artists. The sector is going to have a daily program, and all the artists will present at least once a day.

It is also part of the program the acquisition of one of the five actions by SP-Arte. The artist will receive a R$ 20.000 prize, and the action will be donated to a public institution of São Paulo. The aim is to broaden the presence of performance in commercial and institutional artistic contexts: “Collections, both public and private, usually lack this kind of language. The idea is to bring the discussion of performance to a more commercial scope, and the art fair is an important space for doing so,” says Gallon. For the acquisition, the contemplated artist shall deliver documents linked to the performance, whether they are photos, videos, or a simple description of the action and its performing conditions.

“There are artists who authorize the presentation of a record of the action, as well as its reenactment in specific contexts. However, others privilege the live experience. Although difficult, the act of collecting performances is possible by means of audiovisual records or documents. We want to justly foster collections of this type in Brazil,” he adds.

Marcos Gallon

Bachelor in Philosophy from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). As a dancer and choreographer, he worked in several dance companies of São Paulo. From 1993 to 1996, he managed the Cia. Terceira Dança in São Paulo. Lived in Berlin for four years (1997-2001), where his research in the field of contemporary dance was broadened, having collaborated with several choreographers of the local scene. Between 2003 and 2004, he created the Corpo de Baile project, a collective composed by dancers, performers, designers, actors, and visual artists. Currently works as the artistic director of Verbo – Performance Art Festival, an annual platform for performance art, created by Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo) in 2005. He is the coauthor of “Das, um olhar contemporâneo sobre um trabalho da Cia. Terceira Dança” (Annablume, 1995), and the organizer of “Verbo – mostra de performance arte” (Ed. Tijuana, 2015).

Performance Sector

In 2018, curator Paula Garcia gathered five durational performances, which took place in a dedicated space in the second floor of the Pavilion. Gabriel Vidolín, Karlla Girotto, Paul Setúbal, the Protovoulía duo (Jessica Goes and Rafael Abdala), and the Brechó Replay collective presented their performances from the beginning until the end of the event, in journeys that lasted for more than eight hours. Click here to see photos of this sector.

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