The Spiral and the Square: Exercises on translatability

What happens in translations between cultures, between languages, between a viewer and an artwork? In The Spiral and the Square, a large group exhibition this autumn, the works are varied exercises in translatability: Rivane Neuenschwander’s phantom draughtsman translates the visitor’s description of first love into a portrait on paper.

Cildo Meirele’s simple paper bags are translated into a series of volume units. In Laura Lima’s living sculpture the translation is between two bodies, a physical and demanding struggle. Cao Guimarãe’s full-length film Ex Isto challenges how history is written by transferring European historical events to the Amazon rainforest.

The Spiral and the Square has its starting point in an exciting Brazilian art scene, but an exhibition that is about the meeting of cultures inevitably and obviously will encompass the world, finding its way finally into Swedish art history. The winding themes and structures here echo the Brazilian cult novel Avalovara, in which a mysterious palindrome appears in a square drawn on top of a spiral.

The Spiral and the Square features work by nineteen internationally established artists of different generations and with many different expressions. Along side the exhibition Bonniers Konsthall, in collaboration with Södertörns Högskola and Albert Bonniers förlag, is arranging seminars, performances and screenings in which Brazilian culture take center stage.

Participating artists: Oyvind Fahlstrom, Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain, Eugenio Dittborn, Cao Guiamares, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Laura Lima, Arto Lindsay, Dora Longo Bahia, Renata Lucas, Cinthia Marcelle, Rodrigo Matheus, Cildo Meireles, Joao Modé, Fabio Morais, Rivane Neuenschwander, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Haegue Yang,

Curators: The Spiral and the Square is realised by two invited guest curators; Jochen Volz and Daniela Castro. Both residents of Brazil, their practices extend all over the international art world.

You can follow the exhibition process at Bonniers Konsthall’s blog.