Smell as a Criterion: Toward an Olfactory Politics in Curating

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 18 November 2015.

Art historian and curator Gaudêncio Fidelis in collaboration with Mercosul Biennial Foundation of Visual arts will be launching his new book Smell as a Criterion: Toward an Olfactory Politics in Curating on Tuesday November 24th 2015 at the Educational Space of the Mercosul Biennial at Centro Cultural CEEE (Rua dos Andradas, 1223 - Centro Histórico, Porto Alegre, Brazil). Smell as a Criterion is published by Argos, the University of Unochapecó publisher, and will be available through their website http://www.editoraargos.com.br and in bookstores throughout the country.

Smell as a Criterion: Toward an Olfactory Politics in Curating is the first book of the genre that covers olfaction as a curatorial strategy. It is an in-depth, thought-provoking delve in the intricacies of an olfactory curating, proposed by the author as an alternative approach through other senses, opposed to the hegemony of sight in the construction of the Western canon. One of the most dedicated curators and art historians to the approach of canonical structures and their pervasive presence in art exhibitions, Gaudêncio Fidelis proposes an alternative reflection on the establishment of new curatorial models that are not based exclusively on sight, with its exclusionary and discriminatory perspective.

Through an original and heavily engaged approach in the production of knowledge, the author suggests that, for there to be significant changes in the curatorial field from the stage at which it is now, it is necessary to abandon old assumptions that make use exclusively of the regime of Euro-American ocularcentrism. The eye as the center of the world is deconstructed in this text, which offers alternatives to rethink contemporary curating and consequently the history of art itself, allowing for an approach to the work of art within a much wider and inclusive contextual field. The author considers that we must abandon the ocular model and invest in curatorial strategies based on other senses; being smell the sense of choice of this text as it is explored as one of the most productive and fascinating senses for the future development of the field of curating.

Strongly innovative, considering the specialized literature in the international context, this text offers a new field for reflection on the studies of exhibitions and theoretical platforms theorizing about them. It opens an original possibility of thinking, outside the academicist parameters that often dominate the curating field. Smell as a criterion is a book that addresses choice as the foundation of the curatorial process, through the democratic plurality of smell, abandoning, through a strategic retreat, the ocularcentrism as a single device of arbitration between what must, can and should be included in an exhibition. The curatorial gesture is displaced to another universe than that exclusive of the retinal inclination, becoming more inclusive and committed to the generosity of the senses. In doing so, it opens a realm of possibilities that were previously unimaginable for the curatorial praxis and all its related areas.

Rua General Bento Martins, 24 / conj. 1201 – Centro Histórico - Porto Alegre / RS – 90010-080 – Brasil Tele / fax: 55 51 3254 7500 - www.bienalmercosul.art.br

Smell as a Criterion: Toward an Olfactory Politics in Curating is a text engaged in new possibilities to investigate the curatorial activity in its most innovative aspects. Among them, the opportunity to strategically abandon what the author calls a "regime of ocularcentrism", in which sight has become the absolute center for the construction of prerogatives of canonical formation and, consequently, regulator of any interpretive approaches to art. As an alternative, the author proposes olfaction as an interpretative way to be explored, offering a myriad of possibilities for the engagement of other senses in the realization of curatorial strategies to artistic production. In doing so, Smell as a criterion innovates in its antiformalist perspective on the establishment of today’s curatorial platforms, as well as contributing to the production of original knowledge to art history and related fields.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gaudêncio Fidelis (Brazil, 1965) is a curator and art historian specialized in modern and contemporary art from Latin America. He holds an M.A. from New York University (NYU) and a Ph.D. in Art History from the State University of New York with the dissertation The Reception and Legibility of Brazilian Contemporary Art in the United States, 1995-2005). In 1992, he was the founder and first director of the Rio Grande do Sul Museum of Contemporary Art and he served as director for the State Institute of Visual Arts of Rio Grande do Sul between 1992 and 1993. He wrote several monographs of artists and has hundreds of published articles in Brazilian and foreign newspapers, magazines, and catalogues. His books include Material Dilemmas: Procedure, Permanence and Conservation in Contemporary Art (MAC - RS, 2002) and A Concise History of the Mercosur Biennial (FBAVM, 2005). He has organized and curated more than fifty exhibitions for institutions such as Iberê Camargo Foundation, Rio Grande do Sul Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), Santander Cultural, Oi Futuro, Rio Grande do Sul Museum of Art and the Mercosur Biennial Visual Arts Foundation (FBAVM), as Adjunct-curator of the 2004-2005 5th Biennial.

Mr. Fidelis is a member of the Advisory Council of Museological Brazilian Patrimony at the Brazilian Institute of Museums (IBRAM) and a member of the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA). He was the director of the Rio Grande do Sul Museum of Art (MARGS) from 2011 to 2014, and he currently serves as the Chief-curator of the 10th Mercosul Biennial.

Rua General Bento Martins, 24 / conj. 1201 – Centro Histórico - Porto Alegre / RS – 90010-080 – Brasil Tele / fax: 55 51 3254 7500 - www.bienalmercosul.art.br

PUBLICATION:

Smell as a Criterion: Toward an Olfactory Politics in Curating Author: Gaudêncio Fidelis 2015 25 x 21 cm 232 pgs.

Hardcover Portuguese and English Publisher: Argos – Unochapecó Country: Brazil

PRESS CONTACT: For more information on the book please contact the Biennial Foundation press office at imprensa@bieanlmercosul.art.br or the author at gaudencio.fidelis@bienalmercosul.art.br.

Phone 55.51.32547500

Rua General Bento Martins, 24 / conj. 1201 – Centro Histórico - Porto Alegre / RS – 90010-080 – Brasil Tele / fax: 55 51 3254 7500 - www.bienalmercosul.art.br