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Santos, Ana
Ana Santos (Espinho, Portugal, 1982)Sem título, 2012- Untitled, 2012
- Pigment on MDF
- 134.5 x 63.5 x 2.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2013
- This ‘Untitled’ painting exemplifies the gathering impulse that is the source of the artistic practice of Ana Santos (Espinho, 1982). The artist has simply painted on an MDF board found in the street, giving it new life. The materials and objects that Santos regularly brings into her studio, such as scenery paper, balsa wood, rearview mirrors and fabrics are mostly ephemeral. The artist slightly transforms them through processes of cutouts, collages and paintings, thus showing the physical relationship established with them during their stay at her studio. This practice implies fully accepting chance and deliberately replacing the idea of manipulating materials with the notion of collaborating with those materials.Santos’ work recalls the historic moment of ‘arte povera’ and the use of poor materials as a way to denounce European consumerism marking the decades following the Second World War. Likewise built from remnants of our material culture, her work offers both an expression of its fragility and its surviving energy.
Sarmento, Julião
Sem título, 1975- Untitled (Fur coats), 1975
- 3 b/w photographs mounted on chipboard
- 75.5 x 178 cm
- Coll. Sarmento, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 1997
- In this untitled work, the vision of an archetypal, faceless woman associates the sensuality of the female body to a practice of seduction, making it the target of instinctive, or carnal desire. The relationship between text and image establishes a connection between this work and conceptual art, while the use of fur coats as consumer products links it to a pop imaginary and introduces the textures, backgrounds and patterns that characterize Julião Sarmento’s painting in the following decade.Often resorting to images that are semantically indeterminate, Julião Sarmento’s oeuvre combines different media, such as photography, video, installation or painting to explore themes linked to sexuality, desire, fetishism, voyeurism, violence, time or language.
Dias de escuro e de luz - II (jarro), 1990- Days of Dark and Light ? II (arum lily), 1990
- Polyvinyl acetate, pigments, graphite, acrylic on raw cotton canvas
- 190 x 341 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1991
- 'Dias de escuro e de luz' [Days of Dark and Light] is the first series of a larger body of works that, under the general title of ‘Pinturas brancas’ [White Paintings], Julião Sarmento produced during the 1990s. This painting depicts a female figure slightly parting one of the black dresses that are emblematic of the artist’s iconography. On the left, she is accompanied by her double (shadow or spectre), and on the right, by a roundish geometric shape and an arum lily, a flower with clear phallic connotations. The sober incisive drawing, associated with the neutrality of the white background, manifests Sarmento’s intention of eliminating the descriptive and impacting effect of colour in order to obtain ‘the simplest forms with the maximum effect. (...) I tried to eliminate all points of attraction, because I was not interested in them. I wanted one’s eyesight to be caught only by the essence of what was there. And what was there was the simplest form possible that would translate and transmit the idea that I wanted’.Shown for the first time at Galeria Pedro Oliveira, in Porto, the series 'Dias de escuro e de luz' reveals a pictorial shift in Sarmento’s work, in which an exuberance of form and an expressive saturation of colour, the hallmarks of his production of the 1980s, give way to formal restraint and tonal sobriety. Overlapping layers of different kinds of white pigment, mixed with earth and other materials, create a surface that the artist considers a ‘memory of the skin’ and upon which are inscribed graphite drawings that function as scars, reminiscent of the experiences lived by the body. The title of this new series echoes changes that occurred at the technical level but also the artist’s ongoing interest in the semantic indeterminacy of images. His works can never be explained by themselves; by representing actions that are about to happen or, on the contrary, just happened, they always contain a latent ambiguity, therefore opening to different meanings depending on the viewer observing them. The skin, as a zone of sensorial contact between conscious surface and the depth of the real, is of great relevance to Sarmento’s incursions into the territories of desire. It appears in the guise of animal fur, in close-ups of the human body captured by the camera and in the titles of some works. The impossibility of attaining the deepest regions where the meaning of things is formed is revealed in the exploration of suspended, fragmented narratives, that translate into the sequential logic of the artist’s post-conceptual, photography-based works of the 1970s, in the various scene paintings of his 1980s collages, in the symbolic investment of the sparse figures that came to occupy his subsequent painting and also in the sculptural installations and the films and videos produced throughout his career.The protagonist par excellence of Sarmento’s works is an archetypal woman, almost always faceless and surrounded with referents of spatial enclosures (architectural plans without entry or exit points, stairs and paths that lead nowhere) and objects (daggers, tables or flowers) that convey small disturbing stories around actions such as stalking, attacking, fleeing or falling. Sarmento seeks to represent the often voyeuristic, narcissist and transgressive, instinctive nature of the gestures of seduction. References from cinema and literature, with direct allusions to famous authors and characters, such as Raymond Carver or Gustave Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, stem from a deep interest in visual and symbolic resources that permit the transformation of moods into gestures and things with physical substance.
Estoril yellow plants, 2013- 197 x 222 x 6.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2016
- 'Estoril Yellow Plants' (2013) by Julião Sarmento (Lisbon, 1948) belongs to a series of paintings which includes forms and themes that characterize the artist’s work - house plans, the image and form of the female body, the gestures of painting and drawing and the use of archive photographs. The presence of flowers (a symbol of inevitable degradation) associated with architecture (solid, stable) may be understood in its commentary on the passage of time as an updated version of a genre of painting known as 'vanitas'. Throughout his career, Sarmento’s work has invoked a range of references and cultural narratives drawn from literature, philosophy, architecture, music, and cinema. This plurality of sources finds its parallel in the diversity of media employed by the artist that includes painting, drawing, writing, photography, cinema, video, sculpture, prints and books. Notwithstanding his refined understanding of various media, Sarmento is at heart a painter. In his works, the artist accumulates images, figures, motifs and texts to explore themes such as sexuality, desire, absence, time and language.Often resorting to images that are semantically indeterminate, Julião Sarmento’s oeuvre combines different media, such as photography, video, installation or painting to explore themes linked to sexuality, desire, fetishism, voyeurism, violence, time or language.
Sasnal, Wilhelm
Director, 2005- Oil on canvas
- 70 x 55 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2008
- 'Director' is part of a series that Wilhelm Sasnal has dedicated to his hometown of Tarnów, which also includes other paintings that are part of the Serralves Collection: 'Moscice 1', 'Moscice 2' and 'Moscice 3', all from 2005. The paintings are based on photographs of the State Works of Nitrogen Compounds in Moscice, an industrial borough of Tarnów, revealing unknown details of the local history and environment of the town. 'Director' depicts the first director of the plant, Tadeusz Zwislocki. In contradiction to the spirit of pride and optimism that informs the original pictures, Sasnal’s dark portrait suggests a corrupted reality: the utopian promise of industry offering employment and progress leading to a terrible failure. Sasnal’s interest in creating artworks on his experience of everyday life fostered the use of imagery from a range of readily available sources, including books, magazines, the internet and record covers. In an era saturated by photographic images, the artist confirms in his paintings the ability to seduce the viewer into paying attention to what at first sight may seem an ordinary subject matter but which contain more disturbing histories.
Schütte, Thomas
Bunker, Modell V, 1981- Chipboard, wood, papier machê, paint
- 26 x 48.5 x 38.5 cm Topo: 12 (aprox) x 48,5 x 38,5 cm / Base: 16,5 x 44,5 x 32 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2009
- 'Modell V' [Model V] belongs to a series of ideas for differently shaped shelters and bunkers that Thomas Schütte began developing in 1981 as a response to the general feeling of anxiety brought about by the political-military crisis which, in the context of the Cold War, culminated in 1983 with the installation of American Pershing missiles in Germany, the artist’s homeland. Conceived as a model and reminiscent of the architectural fantasies of French revolutionary architect Étienne-Louis Boullée, the work features an opening that could be interpreted as the entrance to a primitive shelter, but is also allusive to the human body. The analogy established by Schütte is the following: when confronted with an unknown threat people will seek shelter in structures that are modelled after the image of their own body.
Is There Life Before Death?, 1998- Glass ceramic (16 elements)
- Dimensions variable
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- Between 1998 and 1999, Thomas Schütte created a series of works consisting of individually glazed vases made of (red or white) clay which he called 'Urnen' [Urns]. All the works in this series are part of a variable number of differently shaped vases that are stacked in pairs to create new, closed, vertical and almost always symmetrical forms. None of these works exhaust the ten vessel models previously drawn by the artist and none follows a fixed organizational scheme; instead, the elements are to be arranged in an organic and fluid manner. 'Is There Life before Death?' stands out from the other works in this series. It is the first time Schütte systematically worked the glazed surfaces with paint drips, using a yellow colour that contrasts with the ochre, blue and beige tones of the other pieces, and its title differs from that of the other 'Urnen', a situation that is only paralleled in another work of the same series titled 'Family'. As the artist has mentioned, these works are associated with families (in the broader sense of groups of people who share something in common) and are directly related to the human figure due to their scale and the proximity they establish with the viewer as they are installed directly on the floor. The reference to death is obvious not just in the title but also in the formal allusion to urns used to store the ashes of cremated bodies and in the content that the artist himself attributes to them. In a conversation with curator Ulrich Loock, the artist considered them ‘filled with a lot of emotions for which there is no form. That’s why I made a vessel’. The vases first appeared in Schütte’s oeuvre in 'Die Fremden' [The Strangers] (1992), a piece that marks the beginning of the international recognition of the artist, a decade after he finished his studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. With this work, Schütte reassesses themes linked to the migratory flows that beset Germany at the time, reflecting his interest in the socio-cultural context of his country and the need to question how Germany and Europe deal with their historical legacies. 'Is There Life before Death?' suggests yet another death: the urns and the void they contain gain a memorial quality that functions as counter-image of the symbols and consciousness-stirring experiments fostered by European socio-political totalitarianisms and artistic avant-gardes.'Is There Life before Death?' establishes a dialogue with the modernist artistic tradition which is one of the most defining traits in the artist’s career. His interest in the normative and revolutionary ideals of the early twentieth century is mainly directed at a research on the validity of the social usefulness of art, its public character and its role in peoples’ everyday lives. These themes are developed by Schütte from the distanced and disenchanted perspective of post-modernism (and from the suspicion it cultivates regarding the grand narratives), by resorting to traditional artistic forms, techniques and languages made obsolete by the value placed upon experimentation in artistic creation of the twentieth century. The use of glazed ceramic, the meticulous work on scale, colour and form, and the reference to decorative arts and monumental figural sculpture converge to testify to Schütte’s focus on artistic legacies and in an idea of representation that becomes particularly apparent in the bases, akin to traditional plinths, that support his celebrated architectural models.
Sehgal, Tino
Tino Sehgal (Londres, Reino Unido, 1976)This is New, 2003- Concept and performance
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2008
- When preparing the presentation of 'This is New' at the Serralves Museum in 2005, the artist asked the museum’s receptionists to choose a headline from any newspaper, memorize and repeat it daily to each visitor, and follow these with the title of the piece, the name of the artist and the date in which it was created. The title is itself an ironical play with the coincidence between listening to daily news and having an unexpected experience in a museum. Presented continuously during opening hours, this work, like all of Sehgal’s projects, can never be recorded, so that the Serralves Museum can only transmit its instructions orally to new receptionists. Tino Sehgal describes his work as ‘constructed situations’, to distinguish them from performances, and refers to the people involved not as performers but as interpreters. Challenging the conventions of the Museum as the presenter and collector of singular objects, Sehgal’s situations challenge the laws of the market, as they are not traded through a traditional written contract ? the buyer must accept that the work that he or she wishes to collect be transmitted through a strictly oral contract ceremony. Sehgal, who studied Economy before devoting himself to the visual arts, sees them as a microcosm of our economic reality based on the production, and subsequent circulation, of commodities. The artist focuses his work on the subtleties of everyday gestures ? and, through the pure immateriality of his ‘productions’, intends to reconsider the conditions in which art is produced, received and circulated as well as fundamental values of our social system, such as sustainability, ownership and originality.
Sena, António
António Sena (Lisboa, Portugal, 1941)Sem título, 1968- Untitled, 1968
- Spray and acrylic paint on canvas
- 121 x 121 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2011
- Generating a dialectic between intelligibility and dissimulation, appropriation and representation, ‘Sem título’ features a film clapboard stripped of its communicative function: it only shows a written or iconic code, removed from its conventional role to assume a meaning that derives from its own making and being in painting.Experimenting on the limits of painting, António Sena developed a study of colour, materials and composition by using industrial spray, drawing and calligraphic erasure. Often suggesting a palimpsest reading, his work implies the realm of communication in its usage of signs and graphic elements; however, the information is repeatedly denied, rendered undecipherable by the saturation of the canvas or the use of foreign words without any clear relationship.
António Sena (Lisboa, Portugal, 1941)Sem título, 1969- Untitled, 1969
- Industrial spray and acrylic paint on canvas
- 180 x 121 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2011
- ‘Sem título’ is a revisiting of Man Ray’s ‘Poème phonétique’ [Phonetic poem, 1924], a ‘silent’ poem in which words are replaced with segmented lines that mark the rhythm and metre. While Man Ray’s work consists of black segments over a white background, Sena inverts the image by covering the canvas with black paint and leaving the line segments in white. In this painting the silence of Man Ray’s poem is reaffirmed through the phonetic impossibility of its message, in which words are replaced with their memory and become present in absence.Experimenting on the limits of painting, António Sena developed a study of colour, materials and composition by using industrial spray, drawing and calligraphic erasure. Often suggesting a palimpsest reading, his work implies the realm of communication in its usage of signs and graphic elements; however, the information is repeatedly denied, rendered undecipherable by the saturation of the canvas or the use of foreign words without any clear relationship.
Serra, Richard
Richard Serra (San Francisco, EUA, 1939)Wood-Lead Prop, 1969- Wood-lead prop, 1969
- Wood, lead
- 46 x 185 x 18 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- Between 1967 and 1968, Richard Serra composed a list of transitive verbs - to roll, to curve, to bend, etc. - whose physical manifestation he sought to represent in sculpture. After exploring verbs such as to cast, to roll, and to tear, in works in which he threw melted lead on the ground and against walls, he used lead to materialize another transitive relation after 1968: to prop. Serra´s first 'Prop Pieces' explore the weight and inertia of lead in structures composed of several independent parts kept in balance or in a state of tension through their own weight and gravity. As the title indicates, 'Wood-Lead Prop' is an example of the act of propping: it is a rectangular lead floor piece supported by a wooden beam. The lead piece is kept in position by its own weight and by the tension resulting from the positioning of the two elements against one another. Only the materials’ precarious play of forces sustains their equilibrium. The installation of the piece on the floor, allowing the viewer to circle it, and the fact that it seeks to represent nothing but the form created by the relationship between its elements reflect the tenets of minimalism. Typically, the materials are left raw, taking on the process of oxidation, changing its patina with the passage of time.Wishing to go further into his exploration of materials and to create site-specific sculptures that could be circled and walked through, Serra started to employ steel to afford a more monumental scale and weight. Almost always created for a concrete location, be it a city square, a natural landscape or a museum space, Serra’s sculptures are comprised of large steel planes (straight or curved, isolated or in sets, parallel to one another, or forming an ellipsis or a spiral) that both defy gravity and change the perception of space.
Richard Serra (San Francisco, EUA, 1939)Boomerang, 1974- Video (Betacam), colour, sound, 4:3, PAL, 10'25’’
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, Richard Serra made a series of experimental films and videos in which he examined the support itself as a structure of communication. Anticipating the large-scale Corten steel sculptures for which he is perhaps most well-known, Boomerang involves a destabilization of the current perception of phenomena and the way these are effected through the passage of time. Here, artist Nancy Holt listens to her own voice as she describes the strangeness she experiences when listening to her own words played back with an echo and a slight time lag. Aside from her own doubling as a speaking subject and a listening subject, Holt identifies sensations of displacement, cognitive impairment and time dilation that alternately pass from hearing to speech and from speech to hearing in a circular movement extending to her own thoughts and the articulation of her ideas. The technical problems, such as image and sound glitches, that occurred during filming are considered as an integral part of the piece, correlatives of the echo and the time lag that impact the artist’s perceptual system in a similarly disruptive way.
Richard Serra (San Francisco, EUA, 1939)Walking is Measuring, 2000- Corten steel ( 2 elements)
- 532 x 244 x 15 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto. Tabaqueira Public Art Award to the city of Porto. Acquisition 2000
- 'Walking is Measuring' was specifically conceived for a site selected by the artist in the Serralves Park. Characteristic of Serra’s work is its precise location and the resulting relationships of the sculptural object to the surrounding area: ‘The selection of the site was prompted by the intimacy and sensibility of the old alley-way formed by the stones and trees where the man-made and the natural reciprocally support, complement and enrich each other. With the erection of the new Museum the function of the alley was lost, the site marginalized. The purpose of this sculpture is to restore its function and to return the public to the privacy and intimacy of the historic alley’. (From the project’s descriptive memory, Richard Serra, 1999) The work consists of two huge rectangular steel panels placed between a line of trees and the original wall that surrounds the grounds of the Park dividing it from the street. As visitors walk along the path, confronting the sculptural elements and their dimensions, they embody the idea expressed in the title of the piece (walking is measuring), while returning a human scale and usage to the space. 'Walking is Measuring' was installed in the Serralves Park in 2000, following the Tabaqueira Prize of Public Art awarded to the artist that same year.
Skapinakis, Nikias
Enlevo de Miss Europa, 1973- Ravishing of Miss Europe, 1973
- Oil on canvas
- 150 x 117 cm
- Coll. Portuguese State Secretariat of Culture, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 1990
- This painting belongs to a series entitled ‘Metamorphoses of Zeus’, that Nikias Skapinakis developed during the 1970s. In this case, symbolic themes in the history of art - such as mythological painting or the female nude - are desacralized and trivialized through visual exploration similar to the graphic aesthetics of the poster, with a clear pop art influence.The formal features of this series - in particular its two-dimensionality, large plain colour planes, absence of a background, exactness of the drawing, or the sinuous and delineated forms - reveal the kind of pictorial regime of formal synthesis that Nikias first began to develop in the 1960s, abandoning a style of painting closer to expressionism or symbolism. This led him to the abstractions of the 1980s, based on greater economy of colour and contour.
Solakov, Nedko
Nedko Solakov (Cherven Briag, Bulgária, 1957)Enlightened by the Decisions, 1986- Enlightened by the decisions, 1986
- Charcoal, graphite and red chalk on paper (7 elements)
- 71 x 95 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2013
- 'Enlightened by the Decisions ' is a suite of seven drawings produced by Nedko Solakov in 1986. They were first shown publicly in 1988 in the artist’s solo exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in Sofia. The title, inscribed on the lower part of most drawings, refers to a common phrase of propaganda rhetoric used by communist party apparatchiks in official statements that appeared in the media, subsuming government measures to the guidelines issued by Bulgarian Communist Party congresses. Solakov used this clichéd wording as an ironic accompaniment to the graphic scenes represented in drawings that depict situations and states of being that reflect the antithesis of enlightenment, whether philosophical or empirical. The drawings reveal rapidly drawn and exaggerated silhouettes and roughly shaded forms evocative of party leaders in meeting rooms, waiting in queues, or bent over in a state of blackened despair. In one of the drawings (no. 4), the expression 'enlightened by the decisions' was replaced with the phrase 'temporarily not enlightened by the decisions', an allusion to the frequent power cuts imposed by the government to save electricity that forced the population to use candles. The violent absurdity of Solakov’s expressive scenarios is summarized by the recognizable self-portrait of the artist (drawing no. 7) engulfed by a black mass. This visual parody of the notion of a bright future points to the original title of this series, 'Past #1', which, according to the artist, alluded to the idea ‘that all these problems in the socialist society were already in the past. Which, as we know, was not true but, still, in this way was defendable’.Along with the 1987 suites 'Endurance of a Nation (Past #2)' and 'Historical Decisions (Past #3)', also shown in the 1988 exhibition, these works belong to a period in which the artist directly approached the political situation of the time, particularly the failed utopias of totalitarian regimes. Life under communist Bulgaria formed the context in which the artist was working in the 1980s after he finished his classical education in Mural Painting at the Sofia Art Academy. In their impulsive gestural quality, these drawings reveal a critical, humorous deviation from figurative representation and narrative structure, which were favoured by the official culture of socialist realism. According to the artist, the presentation of the suites of drawings, unframed and installed on a single wall in three rows, was also a radical departure from the conventions of art exhibitions organized under the communist regime. Solakov’s work would henceforth be marked by the questioning of collective values and beliefs, the way in which societies deal with their own contradictions and the intersecting of his country’s history with personal events. The 26 April 1986 accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, whose radioactive effects reached Bulgaria after 1 May, and were hidden from the population for several days by the authorities at the request of the Soviet Union, fostered a climate in which the growing disaffection towards the regime, which had been brewing since 1983, mingled with certain factors in the artist’s personal life, at the time expecting the birth of his first daughter. The drawings 'Enlightened by the Decisions' were made in the autumn of that year, and the artist has described making them on the floor, working very quickly, in a cramped attic space of a house belonging to the parents of his wife.From the 1990s onwards, Solakov abandoned the exclusive use of painting and drawing and his expressive media extended to video, photography, assemblage and large-scale installation, which he explored with a narrative intention that often includes texts and written comments. With the widening of the context for the reception of his oeuvre in the post-Cold War global world, the characteristic political tone of his previous work was aimed at the artistic institution and its protocols of attribution of value to art, while he continued to keenly investigate the idiosyncrasies of democratic systems always from an understanding of art as a ‘social act; a statement against the system’.
Sousa, Ângelo de
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Sem título, 1968- Untitled, 1968
- Stainless steel
- Coll. Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 1999
- This series of "Untitled" sculptures, produced by Ângelo de Sousa between 1970 and 1972, consist of seven stainless steel elements affixed by steel screws. It can be viewed as a materialization of a drawing, another medium in which the artist has excelled.The artist’s sculptures can be considered an exercise of drawing in space, in which the adopted form is a consequence of that which can be achieved using the chosen material. It is not, however, a question of giving volume to a two-dimensional representation in a project-based context. The deliberately improvised appearance of his works stems from ‘a certain premeditated approach, in the sense of letting things happen’. The artist is interested in rendering his working process transparent by producing sculptures based on simple actions, such as cutting and folding, fully respecting the materials’ physical characteristics.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Sem título, 1968 - 1969- Untitled, 1968 - 1969
- Steel, lacquered wood
- 67 x 133.5 x 77.5 cm
- Coll. Portuguese State Secretariat of Culture, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 1990
- This series of "Untitled" sculptures, produced by Ângelo de Sousa between 1970 and 1972, consist of seven stainless steel elements affixed by steel screws. It can be viewed as a materialization of a drawing, another medium in which the artist has excelled.The artist’s sculptures can be considered an exercise of drawing in space, in which the adopted form is a consequence of that which can be achieved using the chosen material. It is not, however, a question of giving volume to a two-dimensional representation in a project-based context. The deliberately improvised appearance of his works stems from ‘a certain premeditated approach, in the sense of letting things happen’. The artist is interested in rendering his working process transparent by producing sculptures based on simple actions, such as cutting and folding, fully respecting the materials’ physical characteristics.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Escultura, 1970- Sculpture, 1970
- Plywood, rope
- Variable height x 100 x 150 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2002
- In ‘Sculpture’ two of three square plywood boards rise up from the ground suspended by a rope linking the three of them. Rather than volumes, they are planes that occupy space; there is no interior to them, only two faces made external. Sculpture follows some procedures that are common to many of Ângelo de Sousa’s works: to project surfaces in space according to a front/back dichotomy, rather than the traditional interior/exterior duality; and an economy of means aimed at producing maximum effects. ‘Sculpture’ is unique in the artist’s oeuvre in terms of its vertical axis created by the rope that bores through two of the four orifices of each of the three elements, and the contingency of the work’s presence in space makes each presentation slightly different from the previous.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Chão, 1972- Ground, 1972
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 5'11''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Chão' [Ground] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Sem título, 1970 - 1972- Untitled, 1970 - 1972
- Stainless steel strips, steel screws (7 parts)
- 250 x 600 cm approx.
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- This series of "Untitled" sculptures, produced by Ângelo de Sousa between 1970 and 1972, consist of seven stainless steel elements affixed by steel screws. It can be viewed as a materialization of a drawing, another medium in which the artist has excelled.The artist’s sculptures can be considered an exercise of drawing in space, in which the adopted form is a consequence of that which can be achieved using the chosen material. It is not, however, a question of giving volume to a two-dimensional representation in a project-based context. The deliberately improvised appearance of his works stems from ‘a certain premeditated approach, in the sense of letting things happen’. The artist is interested in rendering his working process transparent by producing sculptures based on simple actions, such as cutting and folding, fully respecting the materials’ physical characteristics.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Marmeleiro, 1973- Quince Tree, 1973
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 12'20''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Marmeleiro' [Quince Tree] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Muro, 1973- Wall, 1973
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 12'06''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Muro' [Wall] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Ribeiro, 1973- Stream, 1973
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 21'16''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Ribeiro' [Stream] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Sem título, 1971 - 1973- Untitled, 1971 - 1973
- Polyvinyl acetate on canvas
- 200 x 170 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2003
- Angelo de Sousa’s paintings attained a level of abstract purity in the late 1960s, manifesting a pictorial perspective of fusion between form and idea. This untitled painting is part of his group of ‘monochromes’ that are reduced to geometric form, in which the painted area is circumscribed to a delimited area of the painting. The remaining part constitutes an ‘extrusion’ of the white, that alternately may be, or may signify, the background or form. Black and white thereby emerge as an opposition of planes in the painting, as well as spaces of texture, light and diffuse movement in colour.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Flores Vermelhas, 1974- Red Flowers, 1974
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 11'57''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Flores vermelhas' [Red Flowers] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Sem título, 1975- Untitled, 1975
- Stainless steel strips
- 200 x 430 x 200 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- This series of "Untitled" sculptures, produced by Ângelo de Sousa between 1970 and 1972, consist of seven stainless steel elements affixed by steel screws. It can be viewed as a materialization of a drawing, another medium in which the artist has excelled.The artist’s sculptures can be considered an exercise of drawing in space, in which the adopted form is a consequence of that which can be achieved using the chosen material. It is not, however, a question of giving volume to a two-dimensional representation in a project-based context. The deliberately improvised appearance of his works stems from ‘a certain premeditated approach, in the sense of letting things happen’. The artist is interested in rendering his working process transparent by producing sculptures based on simple actions, such as cutting and folding, fully respecting the materials’ physical characteristics.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Água no chão, 1976- Water on the Floor, 1976
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 2'27''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). 'Água no chão' [Water on the Floor] belongs to a series of works Ângelo made in the 1970s with a Super 8 camera. These ‘ground films’, as he has called them, constitute film experiments that explore the pictorial effects of the image (colour, light, depth, definition) and record the performative relationship of the artist’s body to the spaces it moves through. A casual result of aimless walks with the camera pointing down at the ground, the planning of these films is in most cases reduced to the control of light and the adaptation of the captured motif to the available length of film. With their blurring, deceleration of the image and a general effect of dragging, reminiscent of impressionism, the artist’s films would prove important to his paintings and drawings of the 1980s.Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)A Mão, 1976- The Hand, 1976
- Super 8 film transferred to DVD, colour, no sound, 6'28''
- Coll. Estate Ângelo de Sousa, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2000
- Ângelo de Sousa is one of the most important artists of his generation in Portugal. His works in painting, sculpture, drawing, film, video and photography were informed by his in-depth knowledge of the major artistic trends of the time, from minimalism to conceptual art and experimental filmmaking. This highly experimental oeuvre is marked by a set of concerns that he repeatedly explored and which underwent a constant process of renewal: an attachment to simple forms (‘within everybody’s reach’), a refined use of colour (also in sculpture), an indifference towards narrative, and an extensive exploration of the possibilities afforded by different media (the gradual building up of surfaces in paint, the cutting and bending of metal in sculpture, the freedom of lines in drawing or the shooting and projection speed in film and video). Describing himself as a ‘sublimated expressionist’, Ângelo de Sousa worked with different media, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film or set design. He always remained on the fringes of the various artistic currents with which he was linked, although his unique imagery shows affinities with artists such as Klee and Kandinsky, primitive art and art brut, expressionism, or movements such as Colour Field painting, Op Art or Pop Art. Simultaneously free and multidisciplinary, he resisted any form of stability through a persistent sense of freedom and experimentation in the use of forms and materials.
Ângelo de Sousa (Maputo, Moçambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011)Um jardim catóptrico (Teuseus), 2002- A Catoptric Garden (Teuseus), 2002
- Corten steel, mirror (11 elements)
- 234 x 41 x 41 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2002
- The sculptures of Ângelo de Sousa (Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, 1938 - Porto, Portugal, 2011) are exercises in constructed form in space. Located at the far north of the Park not far from the Villa, Um jardim catóptrico (Teuseus) consists of a set of eleven pairs of vertical mirrors, each forming a right angle, reflecting the Park and its visitors. According to the artist: ‘The idea was to make an installation that is very discreet, hidden, lost in the nature in which it stands (?)’. Triggered by the reflection of the light (hence the title ‘catroptic’), the surrounding environment is reflected on several mirrored surfaces that become a game where the visitor’s image is continuously revealed and hidden, merging with the landscape. This work was conceived for Porto 2001: European Capital of Culture programme, and was installed at the Serralves Park in 2002.
Sousa, André
André Sousa (Porto, Portugal, 1980)Parábola, 2014- Acrylic paint on cotton fabric, copper tubing, northern wire
- Variable dimensions
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2014
- ‘Parábola’ (2014) by André Sousa (Porto, 1980) consists of a 29 metre long painting on cotton suspended with copper pipes and string. The painting’s unfurled form is inspired by the victory pennant taken from the flagship of the Battle of Lepanto between the league of catholic maritime states and the Ottoman Empire fleet in 1571 and conserved in the Cathedral Museum of Santiago de Compostela. Other references to the work include The Star-Spangled Banner in Washington D.C., and the Shroud of Turin. Parábola, an authentic visual atlas, shifts from seemingly indiscriminate scrawls and scribbles, marks and blotches, to delicately drawn plants and insects, and bold geometric compositions, reminiscent of twentieth century modernist painting. André Sousa’s paintings do not conform to the conventions traditionally attributed to the medium such as paint applied to a wooden support or stretched canvas. His works are simultaneously architectures, landscapes, and characters in a staged narrative that calls upon lived memories.
Starling, Simon
The Pink Museum: Photografic Studio in Rua Passos Manuel, Outside of Serralves Villa in Rua de Serralves, Museum in Rua da Alegria, Collection Liga dos Combatentes, Machine gun, Club, Hand grenade, Helmet, Basket, Shell transportation basket, Chair , Pot plant, Ammunition case, Mine antipersonnel, 2001- Colour photograph on paper (16 elements). Ed. 1/10
- 75 x 98.3 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2006
- With 'The Pink Museum', Simon Starling simultaneously addresses the display of objects - in terms of how their particular staging affects their meaning - and the history of Portuguese colonialism. The installation of sixteen photographs was originally produced in 2001 for the exhibition ‘Squatters’, presented at the Serralves Villa and other different locations in the city of Porto and later that same year at the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam). After visiting the Serralves Villa and the Combatants League Museum, which both had pink walls, Starling photographed, in a purposely-built studio, ten objects from the first and second World Wars, as well as from the Portuguese Colonial War in the collection of the latter. Along with these photographs, he also produced images of each of the three ‘pink exhibition venues’ in Porto: the Serralves Villa, the Combatants League Museum and Maus Hábitos.
Stratmann, Veit
Para o Porto, 2001- For Porto, 2001
- Painted iron (2 elements)
- 110 x 105 x 83 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Artist's donation 2015
- Consisting of two iron structures, 'Para o Porto' [For Porto] resembles permanent urban furniture which confronts passersby. In the artist’s own words: ‘They offer the possibility of passersby to choose whether they are concerned by the status of the structures they encounter, to choose how to qualify their status, to name the use they can make of them and to choose the distance they want to establish between the structures and themselves’. Conceived for ‘Squatters/Ocupações’, an exhibition co-produced by the Serralves Foundation, Sociedade Porto 2001 - Capital Europeia da Cultura, and the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, the work was initially displayed at the Palácio de Cristal, in Porto. It was installed in Serralves Park in 2005.
Pour le Parc, 2007- For the Park, 2007
- Iron structure, folding plastic seats, steel (3 elements)
- 52 x 207 x 62 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2010
- Veit Stratmann (Bochum, Germany, 1960) intervenes in urban and natural settings, reflecting on the surrounding space and its use.' Pour le Parc' [For the Park] consists of a set of three (out of an original fifteen) gyratory benches, spread through the Serralves Park, each made of four folding plastic seats mounted on a metal structure capable of 360º rotations. The dimension of the benches, the neutrality of their forms and colours, materials used, and their positioning, which gives the work an aspect of street furniture, invites viewers to think about their habits of looking and their ideas about space. The work was conceived by the artist in 2007 for the Park as part of an exhibition organized by the Serralves Museum that same year.
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