ABSTRACT
The biennial is often defined in opposition to the museum, but this chapter argues for a new understanding of Brazil’s Bienal de São Paulo, not only as temporary event but also as a situated, permanent institution, and one whose particular adoption of museal functions has amplified the cumulative historical effects of any established biennial model. I position the history of the Bienal de São Paulo (BSP) as one bound to that of two museums, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM) and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC). Addressing how the three institutions have operated as an interactive complex upsets a generalized opposition between museum and biennial that has been staged by recent literature. The chapter focuses on two significant episodes when the development of the biennial operated in tandem with that of the museum. During its first decade of existence (1951–1961), with MAM as its organizing institution, the biennial played an essential role in sustaining the collecting, educational, and art historical functions of the museum, through acquisition prizes, pedagogical programs, and special exhibitions. After the closure of MAM, this symbiotic relationship was replaced by a critical, artist-articulated dialogue, initiated while MAC operated from a space within the BSP pavilion (1963–1985) and enacted by young artists, notably the duo Arte/Ação (Francisco Iñarra and Genilson Soares). These two different forms of relation mark both the transfer of MAM’s collections to MAC and a transition from a modern to a contemporary, artist-centered, museum.
