Who is The Crying Boy? Why is it swapped by a Coca-Cola Light? What does all this has to do with ExperimentaDesign 2009?

Dora Santos Silva

in Cultarascópio

Julho 24, 2009

in PT

The Crying Boy is the main character of a marketing campaign by Coca-Cola Light revealed a few days ago in advertising panels, TV and on the internet. Coca-Cola is celebrating the 21st anniversary of Coca-Cola Light in Portugal in an original way: promoting a challenge which will finish with the international Biennale for design, architecture and creativity ExperimentaDesign Lisbon 2009 (EXD 09).

What is the creative logic behind the campaign? It’s simple: the last generations grew up surrounded by key objects that are representative of their culture: the painting of The Crying Boy, the doily, the pair of white socks, the Senhor do Bonfim wrist ribbon, the gel nails, the “alternative” tie, the T-shirt with the name of the place you’ve been on holiday, the bibelot, the rubber flip-flops with heels or the rear view mirror decorations. According to Coca-Cola Light, it’s time to swap these objects by a coke can created especially as a decorative item of the modern times.

People in Portugal can exchange such objects for a collector’s edition Coca-Cola Light can in one of the swapping points indicated on cocacola.pt/gostadeti (it’s worth reading the project’s brochure). These objects will then be re-invented and presented at Experimenta Design 2009 which will take place in Lisbon from 9th September until 8th November.

Who is this boy?

The Crying Boy is an iconic element of the ‘80s, when almost every household had a copy of the painting hanging on a wall. However, there are several versions of the story behind the boy in the painting, none of which confirmed. Some claim the painting was done by Italian painter Bragolin, others say it is by Spanish Franchot. There are those who suggest the boy was a homeless orphan taken in by Bragolin against the will of an entire village who believed the boy was the reincarnation of the devil. Years later Bragolin’s atelier burned down by no apparent reason leaving the painter financially ruined. Another version states that the painter did a pact with the devil in order to be able to sell his paintings. There are also those who said the boy was Portuguese and was called Rogério (read more here)!

EXD/09 – It’s About Time

It’s About Time is the theme of the 5th edition of the ExperimentaDesign 2009 Biennale which will take place in various venues in Lisbon from 9th September until 8th November. For the organisers, there are “two ways of looking into this theme: a more literal one, about all time related things because time is an omnipresent element. As a phrase however It’s About Time refers to urgency: it’s about time we do something, we take an attitude”. EXD 09 will look at time “as a material, a resource and a challenge: time to think, time to collaborate, time to reflect.” A provisional programme is available at www.experimentadesign.pt.

translated by Maria José Anjos

traducao.arthoughts@gmail.com

first one … after the other!

Pina Bausch… Merce Cunningham!

Merce Cunningham
performing “Solo”

All Bodies Fall at the Same Speed

Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria
Photograph by Markus Tretter

Antony Gormley
CRITICAL MASS II, 1995
Cast iron 60 lifesize elements,
size variable
Installation view 3rd floor

Antony Gormley
Kunsthaus Bregenz
On view until – 04 October, 2009

Kunsthaus Bregenz presents four major installations made by the artist Antony Gormley over the last fifteen years in which we can trace a constant dialogue with the nature and dynamic of the sculptural project, the way that it investigates and occupies space, and the way that it invites us to re-orient ourselves, our perceptions and the terms of our self-knowledge. Refusing the fetishization of the object, Gormley’s work continually tests the limits and syntax of sculptural expression and the attention of the viewer, calling for ever greater participation and engagement.

The exhibition brings together four key series from Gormley’s oeuvre. Allotment and Critical Mass approach the collective body in dialectically different ways: body-forms falling or dropped, forming a chaotic and abject field, and void concrete cases arranged in a strict city grid. In contrast to these opposed masses and spaces Clearing creates a dynamic field: a drawing that acts like a web or nest to entrap and entrance the viewer, confusing and contradicting the clearly defined volumes of Zumthor’s architecture while remaining open to atmospheric changes of light. This sensation is contrasted by the results of a contained explosion where the physical meets the incommensurable in the seven tonnes of rusting iron that make up Body and Fruit.

These, the first works encountered on entering the KUB, are two of Gormley’s Expansion Works, made between 1990 and 1994. The skin, or sensory limit of the body, is extended through the application of consistent spars radiating from nodal points at the extremities of the body. These are linked together at their outer ends to form a continuous surface. Body (1991– 93, cast iron, 6 t) and Fruit (1991– 93, cast iron, 1.25 t) are derived from a body-mould in a clasped diving position. The hanging of these two sculptural objects sets up a relational field reconciling the human and planetary body and engaging the viewer in a gravitational field in which these large heavy objects hang just a few centimetres from the floor.

Replacing the biological body with “the second body of architecture” on the first floor of KUB, Gormley presents Allotment II, made in 1996 in Malmö, Sweden. A total of three hundred people – men, women and children aged from one and a half to eighty years – were measured following a set of thirteen strict body measurements provided by the artist. The resulting data defines the height, width and depth of the body; the location of the head; the dimensions of the mouth, nose and ears; and the height of the shoulders, anus and genitals from the floor. From these detailed measurements the ar tist constructed three hundred reenforced concrete cases (each 5 cm thick), translating the individual shape of the respective person’s body into the form of a modernist bunker. All body openings (mouth, ears, anus and genitalia) are transcribed into the concrete box according to the individual’s measurements. The reinforced concrete case is the minimum space necessary to accommodate a particular body. Evocatively called “Rooms,” collectively they resemble a city and refer to a sense of community which transcends the individual subject. The smaller constructions of heads upon the plinth-like concrete columns resemble water tanks or plant rooms on high-rise tower-blocks while at the same time, in their proximities and apartness, play out family relations. Displayed in juxtaposition, a sense of the individual characteristics of these intimate architectures emerges. As well as through obvious variations in size and height, some subtle transfer of the character of the original subject is displayed through small differences and shifts in proportions. The geometrical grid and arrangement of the individual works into blocks with streets and squares provide a labyrinth in which the viewers can lose and find themselves, literally and in ghost form, by measuring their own heights and girths against those of absent subjects.

Since the early 1980s the artist has been developing works in which he has reflected upon the phenomenology of spatial experience and the limits of the empirical horizon beyond the physical boundaries of the body. In the Domain series, for example, the interior sensations of the subject’s body-space are evoked from a welded matrix constructed from lengths of stainless steel bar. In the Feeling Material series the energy field surrounding a body-space is generated by a continuous unbroken line. These experiments are linked to Clearing V (2009), which is presented on the second floor of KUB: an endless metal line that describes its own tensile capabilities while springing twelve kilometers of raw aluminum tubing from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Gormley’s intention here is to create a three-dimensional drawing in space: “I am trying to destroy the fixed coordinates of a room and make a space/time continuum that is both a thing and a drawing.” The complex field of spirals and sine waves takes on its own autonomously formal character, determined by both the framework of the architecture and the inherent qualities of the material. Here, as in all the installations, the viewer is an integral part of the work, becoming the subject of a constantly renegotiated visual field.

In the third floor Gormley presents Critical Mass II (cast iron, 1995, commissioned for the StadtRaum Remise, Vienna); an installation of sixty figures cast from moulds taken of his body – squatting, sitting, kneeling or bowed in mourning – which develop from a low crouching position and ascend to an upright standing position with the head tilted upward: a syntax of twelve body-postures that are here muddled and tumbled. Some works are suspended, most are earth-bound, all are at rest, evoking different readings depending upon which way they are orientated (for instance, the kneeling figure, when fallen backwards, becomes an arch of hysteria; when inverted, the mourning figure with its head bent becomes an acrobat). Their weight is actively engaged. To quote Gormley: “The suspensions are vital. Maybe there are two things identified here: Firstly, bearing witness to torture and execution, the worst destiny of the dispossessed. Secondly, through an arrested fall, activating a gravitational field” (these forms have ten times the density of an ordinary human body of the same size). As with the works Body and Fruit, exhibited on the ground floor, the artist wishes to re-enforce the connection between body and ground: “The use of this material – iron – is associated with the deep underground that lies beneath our feet and emphasizes that our body is on temporar y loan from the mass of matter constituting the planet and to which, in some way, we give shape.”

Partnership with the Jornal Dínamo

Was concluded, about two weeks ago, a partnership agreement with the Portuguese cultural newspaper online – Jornal Dínamo -. This Agreement is to further emphasize the dissemination of Portuguese contemporary artists. Thus the Portuguese art is disclosed in accordance with the number of interviews and biographies that are made by Jornal Dínamo or Arthoughts or vice versa.

on the other hand the Jornal Dínamo reserves the right to submit Arthoughts original articles that is intended for the production of Dínamo (http://www.jornaldinamo.com). Sandra Adónis, Director of the Journal, undertakes to “develop a dynamic partnership that is designed to the healthy development of both parts“.

Here are some points that will be developed in future.

1 – Increased disclosure of Portuguese Contemporary Art

2 – More original content, either produced by the team Arthoughts either produced by the Jornal Dínamo.

4 – More interviews with Portuguese Artists

5 – More Biographies

Foi celebrado, há cerca de duas semanas, um acordo de parceria com o Jornal Cultural Português – Jornal Dínamo -. Este Acordo vem no sentido de enfatizar mais a divulgação dos artistas contemporâneos portugueses. Desta forma a arte portuguesa será divulgada de acordo com o número de entrevistas ou biografias que se fazem no Jornal para o Arthoughts ou vice-versa.

Em contrapartida o Jornal Dínamo reserva-se o direito de apresentar artigos originais do Arthoughts no site a que se destina a produção deste Jornal (http://www.jornaldinamo.com). Sandra Adónis, Directora do Jornal, compromete-se a “desenvolver uma parceria dinâmica que tenha em vista o desenvolvimento saudável das duas partes“.

Aqui ficam alguns pontos que vão ser desenvolvidos futuramente.

1 – Maior dinamismo e mais informação

2 – Mais conteúdos originais; ora produzidos pela equipa do Arthoughts, ora produzidos pelo Jornal Dínamo.

3 – Maior divulgação da Arte Contemporânea Portuguesa

4 – Mais entrevistas com Artistas

Les Voisins

high resolution

Courtesy of Ermida de Belém

LES VOISINS
Ricardo Jacinto
until the 30th of August
at Ermida de Belém – LISBON

press-release – PT |

Les Voisins. That’s what Ricardo Jacinto is bringing to the Hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, in Lisbon. They’re not exactly his neighbours, they’re the inhabitants of the Marta Pinto Alley where the cultural venue is located. From 18th July until 30th August the Portuguese artist shows the world that surronds him, a world which is strangely familiar to viewers, through fragments, games of visual slopes and sound.

The exhibtion Les Voisins is strongly defined by the space it’s being shown, and finds in the Hermitage its last phase. It all started in April 2006 in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris, an 18th century building. Last year, the “neighbours” were in the space Culturgest, in Oporto, for about six weeks.

Les Voisins’ visitors will act as spectactors in action, and not only for the opening, when a small performance will take place. Works from the first two exhibitions together with others created specifically for the closing of the cycle in the Hermitage will define an unique environment in which interior and exterior meet.

For the Travessa da Ermida (Hermitage Alley) project, Les Voisins will be a strong statement in its approach to a cultural and artistic promotion with special focus on contemporary artists, among which Ricardo Jacinto’s work is one of most interesting and acclaimed in Portugal.

Practical Information:

Exhibition Hours:
Tuesday to Friday: 11h00 to 17h00 (closed for lunch from 13h00 to 14h00)
Saturday and Sunday: 14h00 to 18h00 (closed at Mondays and day off)

Address:
Travessa do Marta Pinto, 21
1300-390 Lisboa

Contacts:

T. 00351 213 637 700
E. Coordinator Fábia Fernandes
ermida@ermidabelem.com

www.ermidabelem.com

Translation made by Maria José Anjos

Control Z

high resolution

Yonamine
CONTROL Z
Galeria Cristina Guerra
on view until September 19th, 2009

press-release – PT |

We have nothing of our own
Except time
Enjoyed precisely
By those who have nowhere

Anon. Graffiti on a wall in Lisbon

As a whole, we might term the works by Yonamine (b. 1975) as diaries or even archaeologies. On time, on the past and the present (on the re-invented, re-updated), on life. His and that of the world. The title chosen for this exhibition is perhaps so significant due to this fact. Control Z is a computer language that allows one to “undo” or go back, but here it almost becomes a manifesto about the accumulating of experiences from which we can truly take a lesson.

In this exhibition now on show at the Cristina Guerra Gallery we see a momentary crystallisation of this ephemeral set of references, from the history of art, covering politics and the artist’s everyday life, which allow us to reflect, through his “aesthetics of proposal” on a set of current and past concerns that we may consider to be eternal. In this manner there is an attempt to stand up to forgetfulness. As is shown in (I shoot can, 2009) the spiral, impressionist movement of the artist’s footprints serves to remind us that we are all in the crosshairs. The way he constructs the work (in puzzle) and its process of accumulation and random fragmentation, almost surrealist, can tell us a great deal about how today we all are fragmented identities, broken mirrors. Ongoing, flowing, frail identities, subjected to several different types of violence.

In his modus operandi Yonamine proposes a universe that coincides more with the authentic aspect of life, going against the most machine-like and homogenous view of a world that nowadays one wants to be “hygienic” and perfect. As is shown by some of the symbols in his works, here it is forbidden to wash, iron or tidy up. Unlike other artists we may evoke here, like Basquiat, the whole process here is, however, drawn up within a greatly humorous Pop language. As if laughter, in its derisory understanding, were the best weapon of catharsis. Perhaps this is why he invites us to chill out on sandbags that remind us of the beach on which (peacefully or not) George W. Bush socializes with the picture of the Kinguilas (women who change money in the streets).

This ambivalence between the serious and the playful provokes interpretative short-circuits in the spectator, as this installation can also be likened to a treacherous trench in which we are all invited to share the above-mentioned guilt over our fatal and inevitable humanity. It is also a reference to our capacity for opting between an exercise in reflection and a form of pure contemplation.

Yonamine brings together a set of situations that oscillate between a past, a present and a possible future, offering a concept of time that escapes limitation. Like in the language of Reggae DJs, in his work we may think about the concept of rewinding, and at the same time we are located within today. The evoking of his past is done in several different ways, form African tradition (as can be seen in the reference to the drawings in the sand by the Quiocos from Northwest Angola) to the memories of Angola with a search for a type of blue (Kind of Blue, 2009), in the style of Yves Klein, inspired by the different “personalized” tones used on the kandongueiros (taxis), or also through the use of old photographs taken from newspapers found in the Lisbon Feira da Ladra flea market. He gives these a new life in a new context.

In High Tech Retro, 2009, we find another manner of re-updating. The “Last Supper”, painted by Da Vinci, simultaneously serves as a springboard for a reflection on the history of art revisited and as a “political” and ironic commentary in telling us about the current financial crisis, which has in fact existed since 1975, when our “messianic” hegemony starts to crumble, among other factors, through Angolan independence. The flies on the canvas thus verify the stating of a certain parasitical mentality that is present to this day in Portuguese culture.

All this is saying little about such a rich and complex world that this artist’s work becomes. His canvases, just like this text, need “physical” yet not necessarily limiting containment. Through his vast and labyrinthine set of subjects and forms, Yonamine grants us the possibility of travelling beyond the physical space of the canvas. “If I weren’t a painter, I would be a writer, or even a musician … That’s it … For me it’s all about communication”.

Impossible to do CONTROL Z… Just as well.

Carla de Utra Mendes

CONTROL Z is slow, sliding over the natural disorder of things until it
weaves and waits, and we want slow sliding on the unnatural order of things,
because thinking hurts.

Kalaf Ângelo

Practical Information:

Visiting hours:
Tuesday to Friday from 11 am to 8 pm
Saturday from noon to 8 pm
Closed Monday

Address:
Rua Santo António à Estrela, 33
1350-291 Lisboa Portugal

T. +[351] 213 959 559
F. +[351] 213 959 567
E. Cristina Guerra Director
Inês Teixeira Administration / Sales Enquiries

www.cristinaguerra.com

Music Lessons Vol. II

high resolution

Flying Saucer
1991

Vinyl record (LP), pan cover, photography tripod.
97 x 66 x 66 cm
Collection Pedro Cabrita Reis, Lisbon

this object is not on display in the gallery

JOÃO PAULO FELICIANO
Lições de Música, Vol. II
On view until 30th July, 2009

press-release – PT |

Following its last exhibition in 2008 in Galeria Cristina Guerra (Lisbon), entitled Lessons in Music, João Paulo Feliciano (JPF) continues to explore the metaphor of music as a learning process of developing an artistic language.

As in previous exposure, JPF cross references to their own history and experience with musical and artistic ideas and quotations more or less ironic the idea of culture as an unbroken chain of transmission of knowledge.

However, this “Music Lessons Vol. II” , the artist goes beyond a certain formality and restraint purposely made in the previous exhibition, showing works where the impulsive gesture, the disruption, the breaking of rules, the failure, the ineptitude, the abandonment , limitations, and even a certain brutality takes an expressive and creative urgency.

In the Music Lessons Vol. II, João Paulo Feliciano presents us videos, photographs, and sculptures / objects in a variety of records that is characteristic of his work.

Practical Information:

Exhibition Hours:

Tuesday to Friday
10h00 > 12h30 and 15h00 > 19h30

Monday to Saturday
15h00 > 19h30

Address:
Rua Miguel Bombarda, 526 / 536
4050 – 379 Porto – Portugal

Contacts:
T. +351 22 606 1090
F. +351 22 606 1099
E. geral@galeriafernandosantos.com

www.galeriafernandosantos.com

ARTIST ROOMS

Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #1136
2004

ARTIST ROOMS: Sol LeWitt
On now until 13 September 2009
Tate Liverpool

Free Entry

Tate Liverpool presents a major wall drawing by influential American artist Sol LeWitt as part of the first UK tour of ARTIST ROOMS, a collection created by dealer and collector Anthony d’Offay and acquired by the nation in 2008. The concept was to devote one room to an artist and show simultaneously in galleries across the UK.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) was a pioneer of Conceptual Art and Minimalism. He believed “Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical”.

In 1969, he began to conceive guidelines for two-dimensional works drawn directly on the wall. Over 1,200 of his wall drawings have been executed so far, and his art continues to influence artists and fascinate audiences in various sites across the world.

At Tate Liverpool the monumental and colourful Wall Drawing #1136 (2004) will span the 22 meter long wall of the ground floor gallery.

The UK tour of ARTIST ROOMS has only been made possible through the exceptional generosity of independent charity The Art Fund and, in Scotland, of the Scottish Government.

Practical Information:

Exhibition Hours

Tuesday–Sunday 10.00-17.50.

Open on Mondays from June-September (and Bank holiday Mondays)

Getting there

Tate Liverpool
Albert Dock
Liverpool
L3 4BB

Telephone: 0151 702 7400
(international: +44 151 702 7400)
Fax: 0151 702 7401
TextPhone: 18801 7027400
Email: visiting.liverpool@tate.org.uk

You can get all information following this link HERE

Heaven and Earth – a line between

On now until 6 September 2009
Tate Britain

This major exhibition is Richard Long’s first survey in London for eighteen years and is a unique opportunity to understand afresh the artist’s radical rethinking of the relationship between art and landscape.

Long’s work comes from his love of nature and through the experience of making solitary walks. These take him through rural and remote areas in Britain, or as far afield as the plains of Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia. Long never makes significant alterations to the landscapes he passes through. Instead he marks the ground or adjusts the natural features of a place by up-ending stones for example, or making simple traces. He usually works in the landscape but sometimes uses natural materials in the gallery. His work explores relationships between time, distance, geography, measurement and movement.

Featuring over 80 works, Heaven and Earth includes sculptures, large-scale mud wall works, and new photographic and text works documenting walks around the world, plus a big selection of the artists’ books, postcards and other printed matter.

Richard Long,
A line and tracks in Bolivia,
1981

Practical Information:

Tickets

To book your ticket in advance, book online or call 020 7887 8888 (booking fee applies). You can also book advance tickets in the gallery during normal opening hours.

€ 11 Full price
€ 9 Concessions
€ 10 Senior
€ 28.50 Family

Free entry for Tate Members, Patrons and individual children under twelve when accompanied by an adult.

Exhibition Hours

Tate Britain is open daily, 10.00–17.50
Exhibitions 10.00–17.40 (last admission 17.00)

Getting there

Millbank
London SW1P 4RG

Email: visiting.britain@tate.org.uk

You can get all information following this link HERE

Waste Not

Song Dong.
Waste Not.
2005.
Courtesy of Tokyo Gallery + BTAP

PROJECTS 90
Song Dong
MoMa
on view till September 7, 2009

Organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator,
Department of Media and Performance Art,
and Sarah Suzuki, The Sue and Eugene Mercy,
Jr., Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books.

Conceptual artist Song Dong (born 1966, Beijing) is known for a range of art including performance, video, photography, and installation. His work often uses humor to explore such themes as memories and the future of urban life.

Song Dong (b. 1966) explores notions of transience and impermanence with installations that combine aspects of performance, video, photography, and sculpture. Projects 90, his first solo U.S. museum show, presents his recent work Waste Not. A collaboration first conceived of with the artist’s mother, the installation consists of the complete contents of her home, amassed over fifty years during which the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or “waste not,” was a prerequisite for survival. The assembled materials, ranging from pots and basins to blankets, oil flasks, and legless dolls, form a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through. Song Dong’s work has been exhibited internationally, including museums and galleries in Australia, the United States, France, Germany, Korea, and India.