Studio International

Published 25/01/2008

1. Designed in 1951 on the 400th anniversary of São Paulo in 1954, Armando Arruda Pereira Pavilion, later named Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, is the main element of Conjunto Ibirapuera, a complex composed of various buildings in a large urban park. 'Ciccillo Matarazzo' was the nickname of Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho (1898-1977). The Bienal's creator was one of the most powerful Brazilian industrialists of his time, and his family was one of the wealthiest capitalist clans in Brazilian history. Before creating the 'Bienal Internacional de Arte de São Paulo', in 1946 Ciccillo Matarazzo had founded São Paulo's Museum of Modern Art. The two institutions worked in tandem until 1962.
2. The pavilion is one of Oscar Niemeyer's most important works, in which one can already detect a groundbreaking Niemeyer trademark, the vast free span with only peripheral columns, creating huge opened floors without interruptions. Conjunto Ibirapuera, planned by a group led by Niemeyer and the architect Hélio Uchôa, was one of the first public spaces designed by Niemeyer, who later designed Brasília, Brazil's new capital, in 1958.
3. Ana Paula Cohen and Thomas Mulcaire serve as curators of the 2008 event.
4. The 2007 Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre ran from 1 September to 18 November 2007.
5. The AFAA is the Association Française d'Action Artistique, or the French Association for Artistic Action; IASPIS is the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden; and the Mondriaan Stichting is the Mondrian Foundation in the Netherlands.