12th Planet Smog City Download [CRACKED]
Malvina Mago
Where the Air Is Not So Clear
During the early 1900s, Mexico City, Mexico, was known for having some of the cleanest air in the world. Author Carlos Fuentes wrote a novel about the city in 1959 and called it Where the Air is Clear. Today, however, Mexico City is one of the smoggiest places on Earth.
Undercover
During the Great Smog of 1952, coal pollution blanketed the city of London, England. More than 4,000 people died from respiratory ailments as a result. The smog was so thick that the city had to shut down roads, railways, and the airport. Robbers used the cover of smog to break into houses and shops.
THE 25TH SAO PAULO BIENNALE March 23 - June 2002 As I cruise along the highway, dusk setting heavily on an evening in the height of summer, I see in the distance large red letters signaling HOTEL from the roof of the Oscar Niemeyer Biennale Building situated in the immense Ibirapuera Park. Carmela Gross, an artist from Sao Paulo, emphasizes a hotel in capitals where roughly 200 artists from about 70 countries checked in, having seen in their rear-view mirrors a world in continual crisis and considerable change. Visitors, even school children, flock around. The Biennale is a popular venue, playing an important part in its 50 years of fostering art in Brazil and spawning a growing interest in art regionally . The visitors get to experience works by the great stars of the art world whose exhibitions they never would have gotten a chance to see in the United States or Europe. The bienniale's pedagogical function should not be underestimated by people in the West, spoilt by well-stocked art museums and mega-exhibitions with sizable budgets. But where were all the Western critics when one of the largest and most important exhibitions on the planet opened in this Third World country? Do one's own values and personal crises create a kind of mental blindness ? I was positively surprised by how well the richly diverse building, built in 1953, worked for the Biennale with its open shafts of light, a late functionalism in white with undulating ramps. In contrast, the outside of the building was an anonymous box, conveniently keeping together diverse ongoing exhibitions , as if package-wrapped. The two largest Latin American Bonita Alice,''Spirit2002" 2002, Sao Paolo Bienal, Photo Christian Chambert Cheri Samba, QuelAvenirpournotreArt, 1997, oil, 130 x 194 cm, Photo Christian Chambert biennials, Havana and Sao Paulo, are each other's opposites when it comes to presentation. In Havana the works are generously spread around the city, and are at times difficult to find. In Sao Paulo, on the other hand, they are placed in and around that single huge building. In that way the art, paradoxically enough, reaches a larger audience than if it had been scattered all over this difficult-tonavigate city of 20 million. In Sao Paulo, based on the considerably older Biennale in Venice, representing one's nation is part of the basic concept, a far cry from the case in Havana. Unfortunately only four African countries took part in the Sao Paulo biennial: Cameroon (Pascale Marthine Tayou), South Africa (Pitso Chinzima), The Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt. More countries: Ghana, Kenya and Senegal were represented in the exhibition African Video-Art curated by Marcel Odenbach. Moreover, special attention was paid to Johannesburg as one of the Iconografias Metropolitanas, each showing five artists. The Chief Curator, Alfons Hug, was in charge of the special exhibition Iconografias Metropolitanas . "Not particularly tempting or original," I thought as I left my hometown of Uppsala in Sweden. What could possibly surpass Cities on the Move that had toured between 1997 and 1999, about how metropolises inspire artists, and the Tate Modern's Century City, in 2001? But when I arrived, I traveled extensively on fast lanes in the city of 20 million and peeped in through the dingy windows of the houses nearby. I felt the intense pressure of smog from car fumes and the 34C heat. I saw skyscrapers blend with smaller buildings in an endless muddle, difficult to get the mind around. Sao Paulo is one of the world's most multicultural cities, influenced by Africa, Asia, Europe and Brazil's indigenous population. "All right then!" I conceded. This definitely is the right place for an exhibition on metropolises. The city, especially the megacity , has become a laboratory for humanity and a symbol for enormous success and technical efficacy . Mankind has created it as an alternative to nature. But September l l * n demonstrated just how vulnerable this icon is. Berlin, Caracas, Istanbul, Johannesburg , London, Moscow, New York, Peking, Sao Paulo, Sidney, Tokyo and the 12th Utopian city are all represented by five artists each, although I do miss an overall understanding of the iconographies of metropolises. What are the possible...
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