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The decision to invite meditation comes at a moment when there are close to 200 biennials worldwide, a number that Bienal curator Ivo Mesquita regards as untenable. “Maybe all biennials could benefit from a pause for refl ection,” he says, citing as inspiration Lacan’s concept of suspension, which Mesquita explains as “removing imaginary certainties and looking for the effect of sense. It’s a pause to allow for a process of self-reflection and criticism. The symbolic gesture of the void posits emptiness as a place of potential.” The void as a Buddhist space of contemplation— probably the rarest experience to be found at any of the art world’s major events this year.

But while his curatorial approach to the world’s second-oldest biennial might conjure memories of Yves Klein’s display of an empty gallery in 1958 or John Cage’s four and a half minutes of silence, it is also a sober response to São Paulo’s last Bienal, which, because of poor administration, has left many of its contributors awaiting payment and its catalogue as yet unpublished (the original void, then, was in the coffers). It was high time to rethink the event’s purpose, suggests Mesquita, who maintains that the two objectives of the first Bienal, in 1951—to place Brazilian art in direct contact with international art, and to position São Paulo as an international artistic center— have long been accomplished.

Although the second-floor galleries will be empty, Mesquita has planned an ambitious program of events, including performances by Joan Jonas, O Grivo, and Los Super Elegantes. The glass panels on the Pavilion’s first floor will be removed, opening it up for film screenings and participatory actions and creating, Mesquita hopes, “a real social space.” On the third floor, visitors interested in engaging more deeply in biennialistic ruminations can access biennial catalogues from around the world and the complete archive of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo—an incredible record of the Brazilian art scene since 1949.

And how will the Brazilian audience, which usually represents three-quarters of the event’s total visitors, react? The Bienal has a special place in São Paulo: bakeries are named after it, and the university even has a department devoted to studying its role in the local imagination. Mesquita admits there may be fewer visitors this year, but he’s confident that this time they will leave “better informed.” "São Paulo Bienal" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.