Name: Álvaro Siza Discipline: As little as possible This confessional note - once written by Álvaro Siza on the inner endpaper of one of his sketchbooks – was the starting point for this commemorative exhibition of the 20th anniversary of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art. Álvaro Siza: in / discipline reveals to us the salutary disquiet and insubordination of his creative method which, forged at the cross-fertilization of knowledges, cultures, geographies, works and authors, has sustained, for more than six decades, a constant questioning of architecture from, simultaneously, what is inside and outside the discipline. Featuring thirty projects carried out between 1954 and 2019 (both built or unbuilt), the exhibition traces the professional trajectory of Álvaro Siza, since the period of his education to his full consolidation as an architect, through his readings, his sketchbooks and travel records, and the way his work was portrayed, photographically in seminal publications and verbally in personal statements by many of those contemporaries who have crossed paths with it over time.
Galeria Municipal do Porto opens the exhibition "9kg de Oxigénio". The exhibition is the result from the challenge launched by Galeria Municipal do Porto to the project "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência" to develop an exercise that reflects on the relationship between independent curatorial practice, self-managed by artists, and an institutional exhibition context. In this sense, "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência", which has been developing its work independently since 2008, will present this exhibition in which it will "test the production policies and ways of understanding, taking as its starting point the exercise of survival under conditions adverse and subject to institutional oppression". "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência" will transfer the atmosphere of the small space it occupies on Rua dos Caldeireiros, where air breathability is often questioned, and will feature works by artists who, over the past few years, have collaborated with the project: Babi Badalov, Daniel Barroca, António Bolota, Camilo Castelo Branco, Merlin Carpenter, Rolando Castellón, June Crespo, Luisa Cunha, Stephan Dillemuth, Loretta Fahrenholz, Pedro G. Romero, Dan Graham, Alisa Heil, Mike Kelley, Ruchama Noorda, Silvestre Pestana, Josephine Pryde and Xoan Torres.
Galeria Municipal do Porto opens the exhibition "Depois do Estouro", curated by Tomás Abreu and results from the "Expo'98 no Porto" competition project. "Depois do Estouro" was selected by an independent jury of the Galeria Municipal do Porto’s artistic team, composed by Daniela Marinho, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Miguel Ferrão, who directs with Eduardo Guerra the artistic project Musa paradisiaca, and Nuno Faria, artistic director of Museu da Cidade. This exposition arises from the effects that the socioeconomic and technological developments by the end of the last century had on contemporary culture and "proposes a reflection on paradoxes of their consequences, while challenging notions of time manipulation". It brings together a set of works, produced at the end of the last decade by 13 young artists who grew up in Portugal in the 1990s, which "focus on issues of humanity, physical space and time": Alice dos Reis, Francisco M. Gomes, Henrique Pavão, Hugo de Almeida Pinho, Igor Jesus, Jorge Jácome, Lucia Prancha, Mariana Rocha, Mariana Vilanova, Pedro Huet, Rodrigo Gomes, Sara Graça and Tomás Abreu.
The exhibition marks the 30 years of the Foundation and the 20th anniversary of Museu de Serralves, presenting the programme of the Performing Arts Service between 1999 and today. It was born and developed through compromises between seemingly irreconcilable objectives: on the one hand, the need to present concrete data (names, dates, images) that showed where, how and when certain artists performed, and mirrored the pioneering character of the importance given to the performing arts by Serralves; on the other hand, it translates what seems to immediately distinguish these arts: the implication of the spectator, the eminently collaborative spirit, the "here and now" as opposed to "this was". The compromises included by putting on display documentation and letting its visitors know who has performed in Serralves (and when, how and where), while presenting elements that evoked the “here and now.” The documentation was incorporated through a process of collaboration: once the programmers Cristina Grande and Pedro Rocha selected the images and words that best illustrated the last twenty years of their programming (between stage photography and graphic materials that announced and accompanied the activities), it was commissioned to a graphic designer, Luís Teixeira, to create a book that would never be published, whose pages would be exclusively presented on the walls of Biblioteca de Serralves, along with the recordings of shows and props to which these programmers considered to be of special importance. At the same time, it was decided to occupy a considerable area of the library’s mezzanine with an object that would immediately evoke the idea of theatre and could "trigger" the viewer: a small stage waiting to be occupied. The visitor can and should sit down to read (programming texts, key books to understand the performing arts today) and, most importantly, to hear testimonials and memories of spectacles written by people especially attentive to Serralves' performing arts programming - between artists, musicians, writers and current or former directors and programmers of theatres and music and performance festivals - and then read by two actors. These testimonies came to reconcile the irreconcilable: the memories of certain shows, or of concerts and performances - necessarily subjective, incomplete, fragmentary - constitute the necessary counterpoint to data, dates, chronologies, documentation. It is largely thanks to them that this exhibition is not just about "what it was"; it is also now, and it is also here.
The return to one of the most fascinating countries in the history of music takes us on a journey through various ages, from the Middle Ages to the present time. In addition to the in-house ensembles of Casa da Música, will be on stage special international guests such as pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, conductors Sofi Jeannin and Hervé Niquet, and tenor Cyrille Dubois, as well as the National Choir of Spain. The programmes include remarkable works such as Berlioz's Te Deum and Messiaen's Les Oiseaux Exotiques, among many others by important figures such as Debussy, Ravel, Charpentier and Boulez. Do not miss the beginning of Philippe Manoury’s residency with the first three of several works that will be premiered in Portugal throughout the year. The Education Service presents a new performance inspired by the French writer Jules Verne that will entertain the whole family. Also keep checking for the special programming that will be announced in due course for this opening programme of the Year of France, which spans various music genres.
The title Dialogues de l'ombre double is from Paul Claudel's play Le Soulier de Satin, a drama that tells the story of an impossible love and explores the dialogues between earthly and heavenly characters. The piece was written in 1985 by Pierre Boulez on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of another great composer, Luciano Berio, and is presented here in its original version for clarinet and magnetic tape. Also, from France comes to us an early piece by Gérard Grisey that includes excerpts with multiphonic sounds - two simultaneous sounds produced by a single wind instrument. Hugo Vasco Reis and João Pedro Oliveira, prominent figures in Portuguese composition, also explore the dialogues between instrumental and electronic dance music.