Art critic, historian, and curator Walter Zanini (1925–2013) was the first director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (a part of the USP). From that post, which he held from 1963 to 1978, he encouraged the production of emerging artists and supported marginalized forms of artistic expression, from technological and conceptual approaches to multimedia works that made use of visual poetics. Zanini was also one of the curators of the first Bienal de São Paulo (1951) and a professor at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP).
In this text, Zanini defends the task of curating as a critical activity. He argues that the São Paulo Biennial must devise a long-term policy and replace an organization based on national representations with one based on affinity of artistic language and a “historical nucleus” crucial to the formation of an art audience in Brazil. These were the recurring issues in the debate on the international São Paulo Biennial which was facing serious difficulties at the time. The “tripartite” curatorship of the twentieth biennial (1989) entrusted to Stella Teixeira de Barros, Carlos Von Schmidt, and João Cândido Galvão, as well as the continued use of national representations, incited great controversy.
The XVIII and XIX São Paulo Biennials, held in 1985 and 1987 respectively, had witnessed major changes pertinent to this document. Under the curatorship of Sheila Leirner, the issues of the universal and curatorial participation became central to the biennial [see doc. no. 1111107 and doc. 1110910]. The interview by Agnaldo Farias with one of curators of the twentieth biennial is particularly relevant to the issues discussed in this document: “João Cândido Galvão: ‘fiz uma Bienal com transgressors’” [doc. no. 1111317].