SÃO PAULO — On the pre-opening of the thirty sixth São Paulo Biennial on September 5, a non secular procession stuffed the austere Cecilio Matarazzo Pavilion in Parque Ibirapuera with rousing drums and smoke. With the festivities of poetry readings and dwell performances persevering with over opening weekend, it was nearly sufficient to neglect that not far off, on Avenida Paulista, one other giant crowd was gathering to cheer on Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, whose ultra-right-wing populism is embraced by thousands and thousands regardless of sturdy proof that he undermined Brazil’s democratic elections.
The biennial itself was shadowed by the bolsonarista rally, regardless of that includes few politically incisive works. As its chief curator, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, stated on the press convention, this yr’s version sought to deal with “the acceleration of dehumanization worldwide, from Gaza to Goma, from Kashmir to Khartoum,” fueled by “the belief that to make peace we must make war,” via quieter means than direct protest. Certainly, its title is impressed by a line in Conceição Evaristo’s poem “Da calma e do silêncio” (Of calm and silence, 1990): “there are submerged worlds that only the silence of poetry penetrates.” Taking this cue, the biennial options various excellent works that illustrate the methods through which the senses (attentive listening, particularly) can deepen a way of fraternity and mutual care. This attentiveness to undersung currents additionally extends to its forefronting of African and Black Brazilian artists and employs an elliptical exhibition mannequin impressed by estuaries, the place rivers feed into oceans. Even because it privileges quiet and reflective engagement, nonetheless, the biennial can not absolutely include the frictions and instabilities that encompass and infuse it.
Raven Chacon, Iggor Cavalera & Laima Leyton, in collaboration with members of the Etenhiritipa Xavante neighborhood, “Voiceless Mass”(2021)
The spare but piercing vocal efficiency, “Nothing Will Remain Other Than the Thorn Lodged in the Throat of this World” (2025) by Palestinian artist Noor Abed and Lebanese artist Haig Aivazian, carried out within the auditorium, set the expectation of cautious listening. Reproducing all the pieces from a bullet’s whizz to a cat’s purring — an animal technique to heal ache, the artists stated — the piece sees the pair singing, clapping, and syncopating forwards and backwards to recreate a sonic panorama of struggle, skilled from the civilian perspective. At one level, they are saying to one another, “Are you okay?” “I’m okay, are you okay?” “But are you really okay?” This stuttered chorus of solidarity is whittled down to a couple solicitous notes, but successfully conveys the sense that actually listening means synchronizing one’s physique with one other’s. It urged to me that the therapeutic energy of the human voice lies not simply within the that means of the phrases however in its resonant vibration, just like the cat’s purr.
By highlighting African and Black Brazilian artists, Ndikung and co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Keyna Elaison continued the trajectories of two earlier São Paulo biennials, which centered trans-Atlantic affinities. This yr, the summary work of British-Guyanese artist Frank Bowling, unfold over completely different sections, embodied the thought of South American artwork as born from a fancy negotiation between African and European cultures. Bowling’s portray sequence South America (c. Sixties), one in every of which could be seen on the bottom flooring of the exhibition, depicts a borderless continent in a sea of monochromatic shade in a pulsating instance of the pan-Latin-American motion, which gained specific urgency within the ’70s as artists fled native dictatorships and constructed networks elsewhere. In highlighting this sequence, the biennial appears to need to reclaim such supra-cultural interconnections as a solution to guard towards rising divides. But to me, this legacy appears extra part of the long-foreclosed dream of a Marxist solidarity that supersedes race, nation, or class, one much more distant than the dissolution of nationwide borders.
Set up of works by Leiko Ikemura
One of many biennial’s (quite a few) metaphors is that of the coastal estuary, the place rivers meet ocean. These are embodied by works exploring ecological devastation, comparable to Forensic Structure’s “Delta-Delta: People’s Court” (2025), that includes first-person accounts of mass air pollution attributable to Shell’s extracting oil in Nigeria, or Wolfgang Tillmans’s pictures of rivers, together with the Amazon. Others heart ecological grief, as in Emeka Ogboh’s sound-olfactory set up, “The Way the Earthly Things Are Going” (2025), that includes smoky odors, a choir, and cut-down tree-trunks; or hidden currents of tradition, historical past, heritage, as in Suchitra Mattai’s “Siren Song” (2022), for which she embroidered classic saris. Even Berenice Olmedo’s “Pnoê” (Respiratory, 2025), comprising out of date medical gear, featured cumbersome glass torsos that seemed as if stuffed with fluid in sure mild. In a piece centering incapacity and medical trauma, such an optical phantasm underscored the shared vulnerability of all human our bodies.
Estuaries additionally impressed this biennial’s meandering exhibition design, with flowy curtains bringing out the curves of the pavilion’s monumental staircase. I couldn’t assist noticing how typically guests had been inspired to wind, loop, and retrace their steps, enacting their very own riverine peregrinations. From Treasured Okoyomon’s “Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me” (2025), a backyard put in on the ground-floor entrance whose sinuous paths are constructed from Northeastern Brazil’s desert filth and crops, to Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’s “Macuto” (2025), through which gauzy, sinewy curtains enfold a flower-statue, this biennial inspired viewers to stream, suggesting many entry factors, and a number of connections between works. One may stroll from Okoyomon’s backyard into Nádia Taquary’s magical one, or step contained in the Certão Negro (Black Backwoods) archival part, offering context for historic Afro-Brazilian communities that additionally impressed Taquary.
Set up view of thirty sixth Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Stroll Roads
Not all digressions proved equally productive. In a fashion paying homage to Ndikung’s curatorial observe at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt, guests had been provided little steerage. Labels had been scattershot, some positioned removed from the works. The six sections titles, with bloated, portentous names like “Currents of Nurturing and Plural Cosmologies,” “Cadences of Transformation,” and “The Intractable Beauty of the World,” had been listed on columns additionally peppered with artists’ biographies. The torrent-like texts made it arduous to determine items, or make sense of them — an oddly lackadaisical strategy that always obscured somewhat than clarified the staff’s preparatory analysis. Whereas guests desperately looked for (not very clear) maps, some visiting curators griped in regards to the poor show of works they cherished.
Some items, comparable to Laure Prouvost’s “Flow, Flower: Bloom!” (2025), a cellular textile sculpture draped as if a bud opening above guests’ heads, felt like sensuous, ornate distractions. Nonetheless others — notably sonic works, of which there have been over 20 — would possibly solely shine (or hum) as soon as the crowds have waned. In the long run, some artwork getting misplaced within the flotsam underscored the spectacular actuality of biennials, through which dozens of works vie for consideration, and curatorial fanfare can supplant the voice of the artist.
To flee the biennial Babel, I attended a dwell offsite efficiency at Casa do Povo (Home of the Individuals) — although paradoxically, Marcelo Evelin’s choreographic piece, “Batucada” (2014/25) really concerned large noise, with dancers banging on steel lids and different objects whereas steadily stripping, generally huddling down, dispersing, or charging the gang, grinding elbows and butts. But the cacophony didn’t really feel like a diversion right here, however somewhat a provocation: Sweaty our bodies swaying dangerously between chaotic ecstasy and anarchic rage. Strolling out of the theater, I used to be reminded of co-curator Elaison’s remark on the press convention that “improvisation can be a technology of resistance.” Certainly, “Batucada” felt like a rehearsal for revolt — one through which not just one’s listening to however the entire physique, the entire collective physique, is engaged. The biennial would possibly lean into the quiet, however I used to be reminded that that could possibly be the calm earlier than a storm.
Set up view of thirty sixth Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Stroll Roads
Set up view of Suchitra Mattai, “Siren Song” (2022)
Set up view of Marlene Dumas, “Live Earth” (2025)
Set up view of Joséfa Ntjam, “Dislocations” (2022)
Element of Manauara Clandestina, “Transclandestina 3020” (2025)
Emeka Ogboh, “The Way the Earthly Things Are Going” (2025)
thirty sixth Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Stroll Roads continues at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (Avenue Pedro Álvares Cabral Ibirapuera Park, gate 3, Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion São Paulo, Brazil) via January 11, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Keyna Eleison.
