Sheila Leirner, chief curator of the Nineteenth São Paulo International Biennial, introduced a universalist art perspective into the exhibition she was directing. Its internationalism could not be attributed to the fact of grouping a number of countries. Rather, it stemmed from the entry of the exposition into the “universal system of art.” In Leirner’s opinion, the changes that took place in the first seventeen biennials (before she began directing with the eighteenth presentation) were more directly linked to the changes in the visual arts themselves. This is not to deny that the works in these earlier presentations were a live reflection of various cultural, political, economic, and social policies. Regarding the way of presenting the artists and the works in the nineteenth event, the biennial avoided the common practice of treating the work as representative of geopolitical areas. As a result, it was an “antihistoricist” exhibition that clearly turned its back on “didactic” presentations. Leirner believes that a good curator is capable of “translating” the works, providing a “poetic” mediation between the work and the viewer. 

The adjustment proposed for this event was based on the definitive implementation of the concept of “curator/author” that became so evident in the great international exhibitions of contemporary art in the decades that followed. This concept was not limited to biennials in São Paulo, but could be seen in exhibitions around the world. Therefore, the figure of the curator would gain the status of “artist,” and the entire exhibition would be turned into an “artwork.” In the curator’s own words: “the analogy for an exhibition like this should be opera, film or a great theater spectacle.” The terms that would be used for it were “spectacle,” “theater,” and “theatricality,” so the stage lights and the footlights would be directed toward the set designs that were exhibitions and to the curatorial discourse itself. The point of departure proposed by this biennial would be an emblem of change: the focus of attention would no longer be the object, but rather the way it is displayed, its surroundings.

As a journalist and art critic, the French Brazilian Sheila Leirner (b. 1948) was a member of the Conselho de Arte e Cultura da Bienal in 1982−83, and came to be the chief curator of two biennials in that period: the eighteenth (1985) and the nineteenth (1987). After studying the sociology of art in France, Leirner became an art critic for the daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo in 1975. She published a collection of her essays under the title Arte e seu tempo (São Paulo: Editôra Perspectiva, 1991). That was the year she moved to Paris, where she worked and specialized as an arts administrator. She represented the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Latin America (1993−99), and became a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) (French division). Leirner contributed to countless journals and supplements in both countries, including Beaux-Arts Magazine, Europe Magazine Littéraire, Revista da USP, and Cadernos de Literatura Brasileira. She was also part of the scholarship committee for UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists.

To supplement the information about this biennial, see information about the Eighteenth São Paulo Biennial (1985), for which Leirner was also responsible. The eighteenth biennial was the first to insist on themes that were universal and in which curatorial participation took center stage [see doc. no. 1111107].