Pablo Lafuente on the 24th Bienal de São Paulo's Educational and Political Tensions

In an essay for Afterall's Exhibition Histories series, Pablo Lafuente reflects on the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998) and its unresolved tensions between elite-driven art and mass education. He argues that the Bienal, founded by business elites in 1951 and still run by them, uses public funding to promote vanguard culture to a lower-class audience of half a million. The 24th edition, curated by Paulo Herkenhoff, adopted Oswald de Andrade's 'Manifesto antropófago' (1928) as a leitmotif, creating an alternative art history through the 'Núcleo Histórico' that disrupted linear narratives. Education was one of three pillars, alongside exhibition and publications, responding to Brazil's educational deficit post-dictatorship (ended 1985). Lafuente, who also co-curated the 31st Bienal in 2014, questions how a culture made by the dominant class benefits other classes, and whether the art system can address external political and social questions. He notes that the 2013 Brazilian protests echoed class tensions but have not yet transformed the art system. The essay was published on April 20, 2015.