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Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil. Photo Eduardo Ortega
SITU, founded and curated by Bruno de Almeida and developed by Galeria Leme from the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2017, is a platform of production and research that promotes the dialogue between art, architecture and the city, as a tool to broaden the analysis and questioning of contemporary urbanity as a socio-spatial matrix.
This project invites a series of Latin American artists to, one after the other, take hold of the external spaces of Galeria Leme’s building with temporary and site-specific works, which relate both to the building and to the adjoining public space.
The choice of this gallery (a project commissioned to the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha in collaboration with Metro Architects) relates not only to its double bond with the art and architecture world, but primarily to its strong architectural features and also to its complex history of construction, demolition, replication and expansion, which can be taken as a representation, on a small scale, of the evolutionary processes of São Paulo and of many other contemporary metropolises.
The curatorial focus falls upon artists whose researches gravitate around architectural and urban space issues, as well as other tangential topics. In addition, there is an emphasis on Latin American artists, as they have another bodily and intellectual spatial understanding that comes from an intense familiarity with the complexity of the public sphere and of the urban and social processes that are specific to Latin America.
By chaining a disparate series of artistic proposals that dialogue directly with the public space, SITU intends to continuously engage and incite a broader and more heterogeneous audience, inviting them to think critically about the city and the processes that shape it. The main purpose is to conceive works that are not innocuous representations of reality and through which pressing issues can be formulated, discussed and propagated.
El proyecto SITU, desarrollado por la Galeria Leme con la curaduría de Bruno de Almeida, consiste en una plataforma de producción e investigación artística que promueve la discusión sobre las potencialidades de un diálogo entre arte, arquitectura y ciudad, indagando cuales son sus posibles repercusiones y contribuciones a una problematización más amplia de la urbanidad contemporánea como matriz físico-social.
Este proyecto invita a una serie de artistas latinoamericanos para que, uno tras otro, se apropien del espacio exterior del edificio de la Galeria Leme, creando obras temporarias y site-specific, las cuales se relacionan tanto con la edificación como con el espacio público contiguo.
La elección de esta galería (proyecto comisionado al arquitecto Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Premio Pritzker 2006) no está solamente asociada a su doble vínculo con el mundo del arte y la arquitectura, sino fundamentalmente, a sus fuertes características arquitectónicas y también a su historia compleja de construcción, demolición, replicación y ampliación, que puede ser tomada como una representación en una pequeña escala, de los procesos evolutivos de la ciudad de San Pablo y de tantas otras metrópolis contemporáneas.
El foco curatorial recae sobre artistas cuyas investigaciones se desarrollan en torno a problemáticas arquitectónicas y del espacio urbano, así como otros temas tangenciales. Además, incide en artistas latinoamericanos, ya que poseen un particular entendimiento intelectual y corporal sobre el espacio, que proviene de una intensa familiaridad con la complejidad de la esfera pública y de los procesos urbanos y sociales específicos de América Latina.
A través del encadenamiento de una serie dispar de propuestas artísticas que dialogan directamente con el espacio público, SITU pretende involucrar y provocar continuamente a un público más amplio y heterogéneo. El objetivo principal consiste en concebir obras que no sean representaciones inocuas de la realidad, sino más bien elementos que engendren circunstancias espaciales críticas y de compromiso ético-estético, a través de los cuales se puedan enunciar, problematizar y propagar cuestiones apremiantes.
Bruno de Almeida, (1987, Brazil/ Portugal) is a curator and architect. Fellow at De Appel’s Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2018/19). Holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio, Switzerland (2013) and a Bachelor degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Oporto, Portugal (2009).
Almeida is the founder and curator of the research/exhibition platforms ‘SITU’ (2015-2017) and ‘1:1’ (2018-ongoing), both in São Paulo, Brazil. SITU is a platform for artistic production and research that investigates the dialogue between art, architecture and the city as a tool to problematize socio-spatial aspects of contemporary urbanity. The project commissions site-specific works for the external public spaces of Galeria Leme, a building designed by the renowned architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The project 1:1 commissions a series of bipartite works/exhibitions that simultaneously take place in an exhibition space inside Galeria Jaqueline Martins, and in a pre-existing location within the gallery’s neighbourhood, this second site is chosen by each artist and already hosts its own daily functions.
Bruno de Almeida has developed projects with institutions such as: Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, USA; Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, USA; Pivô Art and Research, São Paulo, Brazil, among others. He participated in residencies such as: TATE Intensive, TATE Modern, London, UK (2018); Ideas City Arles, New Museum, New York, USA in collaboration with LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2017); Curatorial Intensive Accra, Independent Curators International, New York, USA (2017); IMPACT17, PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany (2017), among others. His research and projects were published in: ARTFORUM Magazine, USA; ATLÁNTICA Journal of Art and Thought, CAAM – Atlantic Centre of Modern Art, Spain; PRŌTOCOLLUM: Global Perspectives on Visual Vocabulary, Germany, among others.
SITU 