05.24.2010
The power of the group
Although artist groups are not an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, there was a significant growth of this type of organisation in Brazil and in the world as a whole during the 1990s. The context for this is one of a transformation of the art system: in previous decades there had been close connections between the art world and the business world, resulting in greater professionalization of the institutions and an expansion in the number of cultural spaces.
The Brazilian system continued to display defects, however, principally in terms of fostering artistic creation.
That is what Ricardo Basbaum (himself a member of a famous group in Brazil, A Gentil Carioca, in Rio de Janeiro) says in his book Arte Contemporânea Brasileira: Texturas, Dicções, Ficções, Estratégias [Brazilian contemporary art: Textures, Dictions, Fictions, Strategies]. “These artist groupings have sought to take responsibility for the production and fomentation of the work of art, seeking to create mechanisms in which the practice of a work’s mediation is not separated from its production,” he writes, suggesting that in addition to creating a means of coming together and sharing ideas, groups also serve as a strategy in the marketplace.
Paulo Veiga Jordão, a member of Grupo Empreza – a group from Goiás working exclusively with performance – shares this view. “The group serves as a strategy for survival on the art scene. Together, we are stronger and more influential, and also richer in ideas. The group has today reached a level that would be difficult for us all to reach individually,” he says.
But the researcher and critic Felipe Scovino, who is currently working on a book about artist groups, points out that it would be a mistake to look at them as simply publicity tools. “My research and interviews show that their actions principally result in opening ways into the swollen art circuit and creating new ways of experimentation with visual languages. Groups form a kind of refuge for artists, who come together because of aesthetic commitment, and not really to make themselves more visible,” he says.
In her 2005 thesis, ‘Exchange, the sum of forces, critical effort and proposition: a reflection on artists’ groups in Brazil’ the critic and curator Fernanda Albuquerque suggests that today’s groups “wish to establish a broader discussion about the possibilities of creation and particularly the insertion of art in society”, adding that this desire is allied to a “wish for greater visibility and consequently greater access into the art system.”
Besides performing different functions, artists’ groups exist in numerous different formats, ranging from large temporary convocations, such as Atrocidades Maravilhosas, which at the start of the decade brought together 20 artists in Rio de Janeiro with the aim of sticking thousands of pasted posters throughout the city, to the simple sharing of a common space. One example of the latter is Atelier Subterrânea in Porto Alegre.
Subterrânea came onto the scene in 2006 and is so tightly knit that its members also prefer to answer questions as a group. “The spokesperson here isn’t Adauany, Gabriel, Guilherme, James, Túlio, or even myself”, says Lilian Maus, one of the artists of the group, adding, “It is the Atelier Subterrânea speaking – a collective entity”.
The group’s stated aim is “to assist contemporary artists in the implementation of art projects through provision of physical space for exhibitions, courses and events such as talks, discussions, book launches and general experimentation in art.” It therefore falls into the survival strategy mentioned by Jordão and Basbaum. But that does not mean that participation in the group does help to bring recognition to the members’ works. “Atelier Subterrânea increases opportunities for getting to know a wider network of people than would occur individually. That’s because each member has their own circuit of acquaintances, and also different modes of positioning themselves on the art scene. So in that sense the Atelier Subterrânea is an aggregator of those networks and each person’s way of working, and therefore extends the potential for exchange and our passage through the art circuit,” they explain.
The final decision to join a group is personal, however. “Although it is quite new, this group of artists has had many experiences where the collective has given it some force. Many of those experiences have been wonderful, others good, and sometimes we’ve also had some bad ones. It’s all a learning experience,” say the Subterrânea members. It’s a view similar to that of Paulo Jordão. “Art practice is as a rule very solitary, and the art world is firmly founded on individual vanities and ego. I gave up that solo route to join a group, and I don’t regret it. Being an artist became much more fun.”
Images: Publicity
|
