Noelia Portela - Pivô

SP

Exhibitions SP Pivô Research Pivô Hosts Library Pivô Satellite

SSA

Exhibitions SSA Pivô Residence Pivô Public Programs Pivô Projects Reading Room Pivô SSA Hosts

Pivô is an autonomous contemporary art platform founded in 2011, opened to the public in 2012, dedicated to artistic exchange, research, and experimentation. At its core, the institution seeks to reflect on artistic practice and advance its understanding as a distinct form of thought and active participation in visual culture, society, and politics—operating as a space for proposing, investigating, exploring, and experimenting. This purpose unfolds through an ongoing program that includes commissioned projects, exhibitions, artist residencies, publications, and public programs, creating conditions for the creation and circulation of ideas in direct collaboration with artists, curators, and publics, both nationally and internationally.

Pivô Copan, the institution’s first venue, is housed within the iconic Copan building in downtown São Paulo, where it has consolidated this experimental and collaborative approach. In 2023, Pivô inaugurated its second venue in Salvador: Pivô Boulevard, situated in the historic Suíço Boulevard mansion, a former gathering place for movements such as Tropicália and Cinema Novo. This multidisciplinary platform reinforces the institution’s commitment to decentralization and the development of cultural networks in dialogue with diverse contexts.

The expansion in Salvador will continue with the opening of Pivô Coaty on Ladeira da Misericórdia, occupying buildings designed by Lina Bo Bardi and João Filgueiras Lima. Across all three venues, Pivô shares a desire to occupy and reclaim historically significant locations, transforming them into vibrant cultural centers that foster artistic dialogue and community engagement. This new chapter reaffirms the commitment to circulating situated knowledge and building diverse cultural ecosystems.

Today, Pivô operates as a network, privileging movement over stability through dynamics of exchange that value differences and specificities. More than physical spaces, it constitutes a dynamic field of artistic dialogue and ongoing investigation that has already welcomed hundreds of artists at different moments in their trajectories.

Pivô SP

Edifício Copan, loja 54
Avenida Ipiranga, 200
01046-925
São Paulo, Brasil

+55 (11) 3255-8703
contato@pivo.org.br

Pivô Salvador

Rua Boulevard Suíço, 11A
40301-110
Nazaré, Salvador
Bahia, Brasil

+55 (71) 4101-0540
+55 (71) 9402-0025
pivosalvador@pivo.org.br

Noelia Portela

lives and works at Paris, France

Noelia Portela is an independent curator, art worker and educator based in Paris. She studied at the School of Architecture and Design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She has held various positions in galleries, art organizations, and contemporary art fairs in New Zealand, Europe, and the United Kingdom. She served as commissioner for the AWARE Prize in 2024. And in 2025, she was awarded the Fluxus Art Projects grant for a curatorial research trip in collaboration with The Showroom in London. The same year she was a mentor in the programme Atelier des Savoir Portages directed by Tropical Papers.

In 2017, she founded Persona Curada, a nomadic, experimental non-profit curatorial project that promotes Latin American contemporary art in dialogue with the
French art scene. Through this platform, she expands her practice and research around decolonial and diasporic perspectives within a situated approach. The project also functions as a space for critical discourse and collective practices, fostering collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and long-term relationships between artists, and cultural institutions.