Philipp Fleischmann
34th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil
4 September – 5 December 2021
The 34th Bienal de São Paulo was curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti together with Ruth Estévez, Paulo Miyada, Francesco Stocchi and Carla Zaccagnini. Inspired by such thinkers as Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (b.1951), the exhibition and accompanying programme were based on the concept of relation and the need to abandon narrow and monolithic viewpoints, and thus to open up to the multiplicity of potential relations that undergo constant evolution.
Artist and filmmaker Philipp Fleischmann (born 1985 in Hollabrunn, Austria) was commissioned to produce a new work for the exhibition. Interested in the logics and mechanisms of the institution and the myth of the neutral space, Fleischmann repeatedly intervenes as an active player. Untitled (34bsp) is a 35mm film shot on-site at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, an iconic building designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer which has been the home of the Biennial since 1957. Co-produced by Phileas, in this work Fleischmann reflected on the cultural impact of the monumental, 30.000 square meter pavilion as this interacted with its physical space through the medium of film: a series of large, site-specific cameras were used that evolved into sculptural forms travelling through the building from floor to ceiling.
Philipp Fleischmann lives and works in Vienna. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under Dorit Margreiter. His works, straddling the worlds of fine art and film, have been shown, among other places, at the Toronto International Film Festival; Secession, Vienna; MACRO, Rome; and Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA. He has been Artistic Director of the Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film, Vienna since 2014.
The Bienal de São Paulo is the largest and most important international exhibition of contemporary art in the Southern Hemisphere, receiving around 800,000 visitors each edition. This is the second consecutive collaboration between Phileas and the biennial, following Oliver Laric’s participation in the 33rd edition in 2018.
