Cultural Anthropophagy: The 24th Bienal de Sao Paulo 1998

The 1998 Bienal de Sao Paulo remade art history from a Brazilian perspective, and presented a new model for exhibition-making in the era of postcolonial globalization. The show employed the Brazilian notion of anthropophagy as both concept and method, encouraging contamination and cannibalization of the canon. By doing so it proposed a new model for large-scale curatorial projects that could effectively address nonspecialist audiences. Photographs and gallery plans reconstruct this important project, and an essay by Lisette Lagnado provides critical analysis and historical context. Additional texts by Renato Sztutman, Mirtes Marins de Oliveira and Carmen Moersch and Catrin Seefranz are complemented by recent interviews with curator Paulo Herkenhoff and participating artists.