vivências / life experience

Vivências, the title of the exhibition taken from the Portuguese, attempts to summarize the specific condensation of art and life in the works of artists from Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. These artists engaged in an intensive exchange with colleagues and art movements in Europe and North America. After a phase of processing the modernist conception of art in the western metropolises, the 1960s saw the focus shift to an examination of local living conditions. However, the driving force behind many artistic articulations in film, music, literature and the visual arts was not a return to one’s own roots in the sense of folklore, but rather the self-confident redefinition of one’s own culture, presented with enthusiasm and emphasis.

The physical, tactile and visual participation of the viewer, the tendency towards collective forms of working and the commitment to political, social and ethnic issues were common features of this new art. Common and cheap materials were used, but also, relatively early by international standards, the then newly emerged electronic mass media. All efforts were aimed at democratizing art and bringing it back into everyday life. The artists saw themselves as mediators, sometimes also as educators or even therapists. Some slipped into the role of ethnologists, while others used their artistic activities to highlight political grievances.

How is it possible to make these artistic proposals tangible again, in some cases 20 or 30 years later and in a completely different social and political context? This exhibition particularly encouraged the direct physical experience and active participation of visitors. For this purpose, a series of expansive works were reconstructed and reinstalled. These immersive works could be actively used beyond the usual musealization of art objects. The artists defined their works as an expression of their own life experience. Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to experience the connections, but also the ruptures in these experiences.