Fundação Bienal Appoints Jacopo Crivelli Visconti As Curator Of The 34th Bienal De São Paulo

Image: Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, copyright Fundação Bienal

The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo is announcing the appointment of Jacopo Crivelli Visconti as curator of the 34th edition of the Bienal de São Paulo, which will take place in 2020.

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1973, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti is an independent critic and curator. A resident of São Paulo, he holds a PhD in architecture from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and is the author of the book Novas derivas (WMF Martins Fontes, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014; Ediciones Metales Pesados, Santiago, Chile, 2016). As a member of the team of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (2001 to 2009), he curated the official Brazilian participation at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia (2007).

Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, copyright Fundação Bienal

“Visconti combines international career experience with a track record of important projects in Brazil. He also has a strong connection with the Fundação Bienal, which will allow for cooperative effort in this ambitious project,” states Fundação Bienal President José Olympio da Veiga Pereira.

His recent works include: Untimely, Again, Pavilion of the Republic of Chipre at the 58th Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2019); Brasile – Il coltello nella carne, PAC – Padiglione d’arte contemporanea, Milan, Italy (2018); Matriz do tempo real, Museu de Arte Contemporânea of the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Memories of Underdevelopment, Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego, USA (2017); Héctor Zamora – Dinâmica não linear, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo (2016); Sean Scully, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil (2015); and Ir para volver, 12th Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2014). He regularly collaborates with publications on contemporary art, architecture and design, contributes to exhibition catalogs, and writes monographs on artists.

To select the curator of the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, José Olympio invited five curators, both national and international, to present exhibition proposals based on the same understanding: that art is a platform par excellence for the diversity of thought and an appropriate medium for the gathering of various segments around a common project. Allied to the plurality of the city of São Paulo, and with the involvement of other equally powerful institutions, the Fundação Bienal would like the 34th Bienal to be a truly collaborative undertaking. “If we manage to create a project with these working premises and which knows how to activate these potentials, we will be making an enormous contribution to art and to the country,” José Olympio believes.

“It is a great honor for me to come back to work at the Fundação Bienal. The 34th Bienal is born with the desire to be a sophisticated exhibition from a curatorial point of view, but also accessible to the large national and international public that visits the event,” says Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

To develop the project for the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, Visconti formed a team made up of adjunct curator Paulo Miyada (curator, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo), and guest curators Carla Zaccagnini (artist, São Paulo-Malmo); Francesco Stocchi (curator, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam); and Ruth Estévez (chief curator, Rose Art Museum, Boston; director, LIGA DF, Mexico City).