Gallery: the 31st Bienal de São Paulo

How to (…) things that don’t exist?

Established in 1951, the Bienal de São Paulo is the second oldest art biennial in the world after Venice. The 31st edition opens next week, with a deliberately broad programme that encompasses education, sociology, architecture and performance in addition to more traditional forms of art.

‘How to (…) things that don’t exist’ poses a challenge to its participants, redacting its working title (how to talk about things that don’t exist) to something far more open-ended. Over 100 participants respond in different ways to the concept, imagining, depicting, remembering, creating…and exploring, in the process, how contemporary art can engage with and challenge existing histories, and suggest or even bring about new ones.

The artworks they have produced engage directly with the bold architecture of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, which has housed the Bienal since its fourth edition in 1957 and whose designer, Oscar Niemeyer, died in the final days of the previous Bienal in 2012.

Click on any image to open the slideshow.