"Beneath the Open Sky. Activations of the sensitive, inventions of sense". A non-produced curatorial proposal for the 30th São Paulo Biennial

PEI Obert Lecture by Suely Rolnik

Beneath the Open Sky, the place/concept that Suely Rolnik submitted as a curatorial concept for the 30th São Paulo Biennial, leads us into a semantic field with numerous resonances. In this project, these resonances converged in the idea of airing the São Paulo Biennial, as a contribution towards reinstating its original 1950s status – in which it was a platform for the support and activation of artistic thought in Brazil –, in dialogue with the different ways in which the spirit of the times intersected with art on the international scene during the period. The idea was that this renewed spirit could spread through the sphere of art in Brazil, where the art institution has a strong presence, and also a strong potential for contamination. But how do we go about activating the potential of the Biennial to exist beneath an open sky? And how do we activate that potential in the figure of the curator, in the idea of the exhibition, in the sphere of art, and, more essentially, in art itself?

Suely Rolnik is a psychoanalyst, essayist and professor of Clinical Psychology at the Catholic University of São Paulo, where she coordinates the Subjectivity Studies Centre. Between 1970 and 1979 she was exiled in Paris, where she graduated in philosophy, social sciences, and psychology. Her ongoing relationship with Giles Deleuze – some of whose work she translated into Portuguese – and with Félix Guattari dates from this period. During this time she also began her friendship with the artist Lygia Clark, whose last work, Estructuraçaõ do self, was the subject of her thesis in France (1978) and of the research project Nós somos o molde. A vocês cabe o sopro. Lygia Clark, da obra ao acontecimento. Rolnik is the co-author of Micropolítica. Cartografias do desejo (1986; 7th revised edition, 2005), along with Guattari, and a regular contributor to journals such as Multitudes, Traffic, Chimères, Parkett and Trópico