Towards a geography of São Paulo art

There was a moment, roughly between 2008 and 2015, when Brazil seemed to be the center of the world. Gallery owners, curators, and collectors speaking languages from around the world landed here, neo-concrete art and paintings by Beatriz Milhazes and Adriana Varejão set price records abroad – who remembers Christ the Redeemer taking flight on the cover of The Economist?

In fact, SP–Arte itself was, at the same time, a reflection and a spotlight of this moment in the country. It was when the fair evolved into a type of Brazilian art embassy connected to the international circuit. A snapshot of the foreign artists exhibited at SP–Arte 2014: Kris Martin, at Sies + Höke; Oscar Murillo and Francis Alÿs, at David Zwirner; Gabriel Orozco, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, at the Mexican Kurimanzutto; Olafur Eliasson, at the German neugerriemschneider; Lucio Fontana, at the Cardi and Van de Weghe galleries; Gerhard Richter and William Kentridge, at the American Marian Goodman, which participated for the first time in the fair; Alexander Calder and Donald Judd, at the Spanish Elvira González; Michelangelo Pistoletto, at the Italian Continua gallery; Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor, at Lisson.

As yoga teaches us, sadness is always fleeting, and joy as well: the golden years were followed by times marked by recession, the abolition of the Ministry of Culture, and the pandemic. I (too) was there. And the fact that we have remained standing – not without losses – at least served to show the solidity of our artistic and cultural system.

It should be noted that twenty years ago, the inclusion and diversity agendas that now define much of the guidelines of cultural life barely figured in the horizon. If it were said at the time that there would be sign language interpreters at virtually every show or that Indigenous artists and curators would conceive the Pavilion of Brazil at the Venice Biennale, many would have doubted it.

Over this timeline, it was precisely in 2004 that Emanoel Araujo inaugurated the Afro-Brazilian Museum, paving the way for important recent initiatives such as the Favelas Museum (2022) and the Museum of Indigenous Cultures (2022). Today, there are few institutions and galleries that do not include Blacks, women, LGBTQ+ individuals among their management teams and represented artists, turning hierarchies upside down. However, we know that the art market, while raising flags, is adept at catering to (and contemplating) the interests of the wealthiest 0.5% of the population. No one is immune to contradiction.

Speaking of women, a city is made up of people. They are the ones who meet, vie for space, seal deals, create empires. In any geography of the art market that one might try to trace for São Paulo – and this one here is quite personal – two beacons shine almost like cardinal points: the galleries founded exactly fifty years ago by Luisa Strina and Raquel Arnaud. Places of intersection and intergenerational experimentation, they prove that history is made of renewal and change but also of certain permanences. Speaking of permanence and renewal, the leadership of Fernanda Feitosa, who meticulously participates in all the processes of organizing SP–Arte, always reinventing herself, is recognized through numerous awards. She is already in the pantheon of the arts. A stroll through São Paulo in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and beyond will find them, pioneering as they were in developing and transforming the course of Brazilian art. I was not exactly there, but those who were told me.