Brazilian art was one of the highlights of the series Conversations held by the fair Art Basel Miami and curated by Emily Butler. The panel The Art Market in 2023: Collection in Brazil featured the collector Pedro Barbosa, the gallerist Márcio Botner (A Gentil Carioca) and the curator Thiago de Paula Souza. Moderated by the writer Oliver Basciano, the panel had as its main theme the engagement of contemporary art with the pressing issues of Brazilian reality.
“Art is concrete, the market is abstract”, said Márcio Botner, reflecting on the trajectory of A Gentil Carioca in Rio de Janeiro. The gallery opened in 2003 in the Saara district, in central Rio de Janeiro, a time when, according to him, there were few institutions supporting emerging artists – besides Botner, the gallery was founded by the artists Ernesto Neto and Laura Lima. For many years, the gallery carried out artistic interventions on Arpoador beach through the project Alalaô, which helped to popularise the visual arts in the city.
Pedro Barbosa, for his part, stressed the relationship of trust that should exist between the collector and the artist from whom they acquire an artwork. “When an artist trusts me and sells me an artwork, it is a contract, you know? I have an obligation towards that artwork and towards the artist. It is not just an asset that goes into my income tax return”.
Barbosa called on Brazilian galleries to effectively support Black and Indigenous artists, and not merely place them on their lists of represented artists in order to meet a market demand. “The human capital we have in Brazil is insanely good, but it cannot be treated as labour in an opportunistic way”, he said.
Thiago de Paula Souza, who divides his time between São Paulo and Berlin, pointed out the need for artists to be looked at in a cross-cutting way – he is himself a Black man, but he stressed that his experience cannot be reduced to the colour of his skin. Overall, the view of the panel's participants is optimistic about the future of art in Brazil, as Thiago summed up: “A great deal has changed in 10 years regarding how institutions, galleries, curators and collectors are organising themselves and thinking about what Brazilian contemporary art can be, or what the role of contemporary art in social justice is”.
The debate was streamed live on YouTube and remains available on the Art Basel channel (the participants speak in English).
