Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Unerasable Memories – a Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection keeps travelling the world in 2016. The exhibition’s tour will arrive at Mexico City’s Laboratório Arte Alameda on May 18, where it will run until July 24. Curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio, the first major exhibit drawn from the Videobrasil Collection, produced in partnership with Sesc São Paulo, premiered in August 2014 in São Paulo, Brazil, as part of a growing set of strategies devised to keep the Association’s Collection active and in touch with the world. In June 2015, the show’s international tour began at three venues in Buenos Aires, Argentina (MALBA, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and the Brazilian Embassy). Next, it was featured at Spain’s Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo and as part of the program of the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image in Frankfurt, Germany.

The exhibition features artworks chosen by Agustín Pérez Rubio during an immersion into the Association’s Collection. Works ranging from the 1980s to this day reveal the power of this collection, and of art productions from the global South. Unerasable Memories features pieces that help retrieve episodes and conflicts that are often interpreted through official discourse and told by the victors, but still resist in personal accounts and are spread through art.

The exhibit features a total 18 works: 11 videos or video installations comprise the show’s core and are complemented by 7 reference artworks, including recorded performances and documentaries.

Visitors at Arte Alameda can watch Vera Cruz (Brazil, 2000), by Rosangela Rennó; Barrueco (Brazil, 2004), by Ayrson Heráclito and Danillo Barata; Unforgettable Memory (China, 2009) by Liu Wei; Lucharemos hasta anular la ley (Argentina, 2004), by Sebastián Díaz Morales; Untitled (Zimbabwean Queen of Rave) (Zimbabwe, 2005), by Dan Halter; In this House (Lebanon, 2004), by Akram Zaatari; Letter to my Father (Standing by the Fence) (Colombia, 2005), by Carlos Motta; Face A Face B (Lebanon, 2002), by Rabih Mroué; O Sangue da Terra (Brazil, 1984), by Aurélio Michiles; The Mapping Journey Project (Morocco, 2008-2011), by Bouchra Khalili; and Projeto Pacífico (Brazil, 2010), by Jonathas de Andrade.

Featured recorded performances and documentaries  include O Samba do Crioulo Doido (Brazil, 2013) by Luiz de Abreu; My Possession (Brazil, 2005) by Mwangi Hutter; Bare Life Study *1 (Brazil, United States, 2005) by Coco Fusco; The Loudest Muttering is Over: Documents from the Atlas Group Archive (Lebanon, 2003) by Walid Raad; Contestado, a Guerra Desconhecida (Brazil, 1985) by Enio Staub; A Arca dos Zo’e (Brazil, 1993) by Vicent Carelli and Dominique Gallois; and Casa Blanca (Argentina, 2005) by León Ferrari and Ricardo Pons.

In addition to rescuing the memory of Videobrasil itself, by revisiting its Collection, the exhibit addresses different approaches to issues such as slavery, migration, geopolitical boundaries, and power relationships, offering takes that are distinct from official History, expressing the perspective of the “defeated.” Unerasable Memories is an exhibition that attests to the power of art against historical amnesia.

In Mexico, the show will include an extensive educational program based on the artists’ works, with talks, roundtables and seminars. For more information on the opening and the program, go to www.artealameda.bellasartes.gob.mx

To find out more about the exhibition’s curating and featured artworks, click here.

Exhibition fact sheet
Exhibition tour Unerasable Memories — a Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection
Laboratorio Arte Alameda, (Dr. Mora 7, Downtown, Mexico City)
May 18 to July 24, 2016 – Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm.