Fundação Bienal de São Paulo President's Foreword
ln the "Anthropophagite manifesto," there is a passage that synthesizes the cultural experience: "Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros." ["Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes. Routes."] Therefore, this shaw is no longer an international exhibition, one in many, that selects artists from all ove r the world, which was always the aim of the Bienal. It corresponds to a singular experience in the history ofthe Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. Itineraries were created that were effectively traversed in arder to follow and discover ideas. It is like the activity of the miner digging out gems, searching for gold in the alluvium ar excavating the land. Since its beginnings, the Bienal de São Paulo, in the conception of the founder Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho,was this mining oflapidated gems of art history ar the discovery ofthe new veins of the artistic postures throughout the world. He inexhaustibly stimulated the coming ofnew artists ar establishing alliances to obtain large shows, such as Picasso's retrospective in 1953. We pay homage to him in stating that in his radical curatorial changes, the "Roteiros ... " exhibition was initially traced by Matarazzo's compasso ln his act of faith, it was foreseen that the city ofSão Paulo would have the capacity to accomplish great shows of art from the world. On each edition, the Bienal de São Paulo restructures and renews itself, searching for a harmony with the current moment, be it in the contemporary art shows, be it in historical exhibitions. This segment-"Roteiros ... "-brings together the primary and most traditional vocation ofthe Bienal-to expose international contemporary art-notwithstanding the name given to it at each biennial. The XXIV will introduce three additional basic segments: Núcleo Histórico, dedicated to discuss anthropophagy and histories of cannibalism, Representações Nacionais and Brazil. Our strategy for the XXIV Bienal was to initially maintain the formal structure of the organization of the event, to open ourselves to changes deemed necessary throughout the process and to experiment radically in the exercise and possibilities of curatorship. This last instance will always be acknowledged by the careful and analytical eye that will note the consequences and singularities of this processo ln the structuring of the "Roteiros ... " segment, Paulo Herkenhoff, chief curator of the XXIV Bienal, sought to workwith regions understood as non-uniform cultural territories, irreducible to a single geographic taxonomy. There are continents. There are regions formed by parts of three continents, which is the case of the Middle East and its politicaI and cultural complexity. There are cultural regions, such as Latin America, whose borders are charged by the migration to anglo-saxon America. Latin America merited from my behalf the recommendation for particular attention in the sense that its number of artists were not surpassed by that of other "Roteiros ... ". The Bienal, effectively, is a symbol of the operational and cultural capacity of all Latin America. Despite already having a segment dedicated to Brazil, the curators ofthe XXIV Bienal understood that the Latin American curato r, if so wished, could include Brazilian artists. Brazil needs to expand its basis ofintegration with our cultural continent, and the Bienal de São Paulo may be a politicaI paradigm of that, as corroborated with its history.
16 XXIV Bienal "Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros."