Gabriela Golder
Gabriela Golder Women Artists in KADIST’s and Videobrasil’s Collections An Online Video Exhibition streaming at videobrasil.online from November 29, 2021–January 23, 2022 Gabriela Golder is a South-American artists with one of the most wide-reaching presences in the Videobrasil Collection. Like a number of artists from the geopolitical South who rose to prominence in the international art scene over the past few decades, the Videobrasil Biennial provided her with an important foothold for broader resonance and visibility. This exhibition brings together works that marked the Argentinian artist’s participation in the Biennial, spanning from her early career to her most recent piece, produced in 2020/2021, a period during which she spent most of her days, like many of us, observing the world through her window. This selection traces the evolution of an artistic study which draws on a restless, inquisitive yet tender gaze, expanding into new worlds and territories while retaining the artist’s singular forcefulness in addressing political and social issues. Born during the Argentinian dictatorship, a sanguinary military regime which plagued the country for roughly ten years, Golder revisits the muddled memories of her childhood, marked by familial affection and political brutality in Memoria de los Pajaros [In memory of the birds] (2001). Two years later, she returned with the concentrated potency of Vacas [Cows] (2002). By applying classic video art procedures to an all too real scene, the artist creates not a metaphor, but rather a heart-rending portrait of the effects of Argentina’s turbulent economic crisis in 2001. This was followed by Conversation Piece (2012), selected for the 18th Videobrasil Biennial. An introductory class of sorts on Marxism, with a framework reminiscent of 18th century European bourgeois tastes, the triptych addresses, with a certain dose of irony, issues that have never been solved and ideas that need to be revisited. In 2019, the artist won the 21st Videobrasil Biennial’s Great Prize for her Laboratorio de invención social (o possibles formas de construcción colectiva) [Social Invention Laboratory or Possible Forms of Collective Construction] , an installation which drew on the experiences of Argentinian workers who occupied and created self-management systems in shuttered factories during the early 21st century. Addressing and discussing the prospects and perspectives of work in the present-day context, the work touches on the 21st Biennial’s central theme: new communities and collective forms of organization, based on affection and affinity, which seek to challenge and disrupt the capitalist order. “It’s as if the factory’s gears were gears of potential and possibility”, says the artist, commenting on the work. In addition to the works presented at the Biennial, the exhibition also features a version of 50 tonos de azul [52 tones of blue] (2021) a multi-channel installation produced by the artist during the Covid-19 pandemic. Observing the skies of Buenos Aires, and drawing on footage and images recorded by friends at other locations, the artist asks herself what kind of answers these skies have to offer. As in most of her works, she seeks to address, from a peculiar and subjective standpoint, issues and themes that can be shared, and to which others can relate – be it the personal impact of national memory, ever-urgent social issues, or the existential silence which is revealed during isolation. —Solange Farkas, director of Associção Cultural Videobrasil The exhibition is the newest addition to the Women Artists in Kadist’s and Videobrasil’s Collections series, inaugurated in September with a retrospective exhibition of the works of North-American artist Lynn Hershmann Leeson . The program was developed as a partnership between KADIST and Associação Cultural Videobrasil, based out of Paris/San Francisco and São Paulo, respectively. Bringing together works that are representative of women artists from diverse art circuits and sociopolitical regions, the program celebrates the diversity of feminine and feminist perspectives featured widely in both institutions’ contemporary art collections, as well as their contributions to the field of video art, and their views on key contemporary issues. Founded by Solange O. Farkas, the Associação Cultural Videobrasil carries out curatorial projects and research with a focus on the audiovisual production of the geopolitical South. Its projects draw on Videobrasil’s Collection of artworks, publications, and documents amassed since the first edition of the Videobrasil Contemporary Art Festival in 1983, during which Brazil – and most of Latin America – was under a military regime. Founded in 1990, the Videobrasil Collection features roughly 1,700 works from the Global South. The collection constitutes an inestimable wellspring for research, which is marked by the use of the video medium for political, combative, and liberational purposes.