Catálogo_MACRS

ange of qualified professionals to work in various capacities such as
curators, editors, gallery owners, monitors, and museum directors, etc.
MACRS, even without its own headquarters, without a technical reserve or
permanent staff, managed to find space for major exhibits, host nationally
acclaimed artists and offer local artists opportunities to participate in a
wide and diverse range of exhibitions, thus stimulating the art scene and
building its collection through this policy. The Mercosul Biennial, with
its size and available funding, made the peaceful and provincial local
art scene. Countless important national, Latin, and international artists
circulated through with works and projects, expanding horizons and the
possibilities of work for the diverse professionals of the area. Press coverage
the event always received strongly influenced the social dissemination of
this production, informing the look and taste of the general public. This
institutional triad: PPG in Visual Arts at UFRGS, MACRS and the Mercosul
Biennial, were fundamental to local artists building new experiences,
creating new spaces and also in other public and private institutions
competing in the stimulation of these new expressions.
In this context, seeking to strengthen more experimental and
daring positions, collectives of artists emerged, with their own spaces,
or especially around projects such as Torreão (1993), Arte Construtora
(1992) and Remetente (1998). An art critique in contemporary poetics was
also consolidated, the majority coming from PPG Visual Arts at UFRGS;
responsible for publications and curators which galvanized the local
scene. The traditional Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul – MARGS, opened
João Fahrion Space, specifically intended for young artists. The growing
market, which warmed a lot in the 1980s, now supported the launch of
the Obra Aberta gallery, by artists Vera Chaves, Patrício Farias and Carlos
Pasquetti, intended to showcase contemporary art and also bringing
important international names, such as Antoni Muntadas. This movement
expanded into the interior of the state, where, for example, a nucleus of
digital technologies – Artecno was created, linked to the University of
Caxias do Sul and coordinated by the artist Diana Domingues.
If the 1990s were a time of practical and conceptual consolidation
in contemporary art in local terms, it was after the 2000s when it
became hegemonic. Various strategies, such as collective projects and
workshops, exhibit sites, alternatives, temporary acting groups, or coworking
spaces were developed, seeking to create alternatives in this
multiplying production, highlighting various profiles, such as the Ecarta,
Subterrânea and Península galleries, Acervo Independente, Planta Baja,
Barraco Cultural, Casa Baka, PaxArt, Estúdio Híbrido and Projeto Areal.
Institutions committed to the dissemination of contemporary art were
established, such as Santander Cultural (2001), the Iberê Camargo
Foundation (2008) and the Ling Institute (2014). These new private
art spaces, together with existing ones, public and private, attracted
important national and international exhibits and hosted exhibitions of
local artists, in addition to developing other important initiatives for the
dissemination of contemporary art, such as lectures and courses, and the
offer of residencies and scholarships to young talents. PPG Visual Arts of
UFRGS, the primary institution introducing contemporary art to the state,
remains highly active, it lit the fuse for a production more committed
to contemporaneity and its ruptures, developing in the cities where
postgraduate programs in visual arts were held, such as Novo Hamburgo,
Caxias do Sul, Pelotas, Rio Grande and Santa Maria. The Open Atelier of
City Hall, in addition to being active in hosting the City of Porto Alegre
Art Festivals until 2016, created the Prêmio Açorinos (Azorean Prize) for
Plastic Arts in 2007, highlighting artists such as Carlos Pasquetti, Walmor
Corrêa, Karin Lambrecht and Gisela Waetge, in addition to exhibits,
emerging artists, curators and publications. The art market has however
been considerably curtailed, the result of crises in the national economy,
with only the Arte&Fato, Gestual, Bolsa de Arte and Mamute galleries
remaining active in working commercially with contemporary art. Of
these only Bolsa de Arte has opened a gallery in São Paulo, and along
with Mamute, these are the only two which participate in art fairs in Brazil
and abroad. However, several artists are finding success in the national
market, taking advantage of the countless opportunities emerging for
these practices in the country.
Artistic production in the local environment, from the 2000s onwards,
demonstrates different concepts and aesthetic formulations. Video art saw
a huge boost, benefitting from specific exhibits and from integration into
large collectives, stimulating a rich and creative production. Photography,
already imposing itself, found space and opened up into more complex
forms, difficult to classify, imposing itself definitively in the artistic panorama.
Even engraving, with a very traditional trajectory in the state, reached new
heights, both in technical terms and in hybrid expressions, escaping from
the most well-known processes. Painting, always a dominant medium in
the local environment, abandoned traditional supports, took up space
and incorporated new materials, intermingling with other categories,
such as drawing and sculpture. Objects and themes of everyday life
entered the established spaces of art, with very desacralizing proposals.
Sculpture unfolded into objects and installations, escaping its established
practice in Rio Grande do Sul. And finally, performance, possibly the most
radical of contemporary experiences, became part of the list of artistic
practices, with a preponderance of female participation, showing the
engagement it brings. Social issues of gender and ethnicity, with critical
approaches, found shelter where they were not previously accepted, so
diversity, contamination and inclusion became possibilities in thinking
about the current reality. In the midst of this local art, this movement
did not create deeper ruptures, though some resistance remained to the
more daring productions emerging from the Rio/São Paulo axis. Thus, in
the ambiguities of contemporary art and in the breadth of its works, it is
possible to say that today we have an art ecosystem in the state which,
while overcoming its difficulties with great efforts, seeks to establish
dialogues with society through countless experiences and strategies.
As I mentioned in the beginning, contemporary art is international in
its circuits and networks, but local in the construction of its relationship
with private societies. In this process, the centre and the periphery are
transformed, both internally, within the country, and in terms of the world
as a whole. Internationalization is a continuous movement in the capitalism
of the new era, and we are not outside it, because, in the geopolitics of arts,
power relations between the hegemonic and other regions are constantly
renewed and mediated through economic influences. In this network,
creativity weaves its plots and articulates itself into the conjunctures of art
ecosystems, also continually changing. Even though modernity remains
the primary reference for many, it is no longer a question of discussing
whether we are dealing with contemporary art. In the subtle thread of
plurality and expansion, we are writing our history, radical or not, and the
diversity of local production is itself a symptom of contemporaneity.
Difficulties, efforts, and results
MACRS was the first amongst the contemporary art museums
outside of the hegemonic centres emerging on the national scene in the
1990s, such as MAC Niterói (1996) and MAC Ceará (1999). As previously
mentioned, it was founded during a period when contemporary art was
being established in Rio Grande do Sul. There was, in the state at the
time, a lot of resistance to these art forms, such that the museum was
created more as a project and desire, than as reality. As a result, it did not
have a space of its own, but was rather allocated to the Casa de Cultura
Mario Quintana, where it has two galleries and administrative offices.
Several attempts were made to obtain more suitable facilities to develop
its functions, however it still does not have a space of its own until this
day. Mobilizations have been conducted by the intellectual and artistic
communities of the city without success, in a way showing the political
and social disinterest in visual arts and, especially, contemporary art, still
little understood or accepted by the public of Rio Grande do Sul.
The circumstances of its origin are responsible for most of the
problems the Museum faces today, such as not having a technical reserve
for the preservation of its numerous and complex collection appropriate
to norms and specifications, and not having adequate space for activities
such as research and documentation, conservation, and restoration, so
necessary to an art museum. It can be said that MACRS was built on the
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