This was the official introduction to the Fourteenth São Paulo International Biennial, an exhibition that paid tribute with great fanfare to the founder, Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho. As of the formation of a Conselho de Arte e Cultura (CAC), the event had been restructured with regulatory powers, which the council used to draw up rules of participation. At the same time, there were plans to launch a Latin American biennial, to be held in even years. The biennial would no longer use the word, “artist,” which was replaced by the idea of “author/authorship.” The role assumed by the CAC was that of “cultural agent,” whose purpose was to be “completely welcoming, not from the point of view of the market or museums, but in terms of the artwork produced.” The show was divided into Contemporary Approaches (totaling seven): Urban Archaeology, Recovery of the Landscape, Catastrophic Art, Spatial Poetry, the Wall as a Medium for Artworks, Art that Defies Categories, and Great Confrontations; in adittion to Video Art, and Retrospective Exhibitions. Ultimately to CAC, the biennial would no longer be “a space for consecrating established art, and would instead be an experimental space.”

Since the initial São Paulo Biennial with Francisco “Ciccillo” Matarazzo Sobrinho as financial organizer, this would be the first round to escape from his sponsorship and influence. The person to take over directing the biennial was the industry leader and diplomat, Oscar P. Landmann, in such a way that the Conselho de Arte e Cultura (CAC), created in 1971, was involved in the discussion stages for the first time. The CAC was made up of Maria Bonomi, Alberto Beuttenmüller, Lisetta Levi, Marc Berkowitz, Clarival do Prado Valladares, Leopoldo Raimo, and Yolanda Mohalyi. This was the first time a Latin American country (Argentina) would win the Grand Prize, which would be awarded to the Grupo de los Trece, headed up by Jorge Glusberg and previously known as the Grupo del Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC). The unprecedented nature of this prize reinforced the criticism pointing out the obsessive “Eurocentrism” of the São Paulo event. The search for Latin American art criticism and a Latin American continental identity culminated shortly thereafter, in 1978, with the one and only Latin American biennial.

One proposal for a radical change in the biennial event was written by Pietro Maria Bardi in “Como é e como deveria ser a Bienal” [doc. no. 11111470]. Bardi’s proposal was ignored for a few years, until the Sixteenth São Paulo International Biennial introduced a new organizational format for the international event, which would focus on the public figure—the curator. That happened in 1981, when the professor and art critic Walter Zanini took charge of the event [doc. no. 1111044].