Spontaneous and popular fair where you can buy birds, food and cages. Even if you do not want to buy anything, you can enjoy the singing birds, their colour and the liveliness of the fair. When passing through the fair, one must take a look at the breath-taking view of the Douro River and its bridges.
Station 1 reveals the history of absence, rather than the history of presence. Fragments and further fragments are used to narrate moments that indicate the existence of the current and previous epochs. Materials from different periods coexist with audiovisual devices and different types of image, to show us how PortuCale - the city that gave Portugal its name - became Porto.
The Miró Collection, owned by the Portuguese State, on loan to the Municipality of Porto and deposited at the Serralves Foundation, comprises 85 artworks and includes paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings and tapestries by the renowned Catalan artist. The Collection spans six decades of Joan Miró's work, from 1924 to 1981, thus being an excellent introduction to his work and his main artistic concerns. The exhibition follows on from the conclusion of the works of the Serralves Villa’s restoration and adaptation project, by the architect Álvaro Siza, who had the support of the Porto City Council, under the terms of the protocol that defines the conditions for depositing the Miró Collection in Serralves. Joan Miró (1893-1983), one of the great “form-givers” of the 20th century, was simultaneously an aesthetic “assassin” who challenged the traditional limits of the medium in which he worked. In his art, the different practices dialogue with each other, crossing the mediums: painting communicates with drawing; sculpture seduces woven objects; and collages, always conjugations of disparate entities, function as a major principle or matrix for exploring the depths of reality. This exhibition does not follow a chronological or linear format: the works are thematically aggregated, trying to give a holistic view of the artist's career. The various rooms address different aspects of his art: the development of a sign language; the artist's encounter with abstract painting that was done in Europe and America; his interest in the process and the expressive gesture; its complex responses to the social drama of the 1930s; the innovative approach to collage; the impact of Southwest Asian aesthetics on his drawing practice; and, above all, his incessant curiosity about the nature of materials.
METAMORFOSES focuses on the profusion and the process of integration of the imaginary and the vegetal, mineral and animal themes in a romantic domestic space, bringing to the halls of the house of Quinta da Macieirinha several pieces, some previously exhibited in the former Romantic Museum and other spaces of Museu da Cidade, others never exhibited, showing the unquestionable quality and diversity of the municipal collections. This exhibition also marks the beginning of the evocation of the centenary of the death of Porto artist, Aurélia de Souza, a key moment of the 2022/2023 programme. The celebrated self-portrait of the artist as “Santo António” (Saint Anthony), made around 1902, will be part of the new collection that brings together paintings, furniture, tapestries and textiles, ceramics, crockery and silverware, as well as other surprising sections of the collection, such as sets of fans, cut-out papers and malacology.
Leonilson was one of the major exponents of a generation of Brazilian artists known as “Geração 80” (80s Generation). After the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the mid-1980s, this group of artists celebrated their newly acquired freedom with a gestural, colourful, and expressive style of painting. While American Pop Art appropriated the symbols of a highly industrialized society in the 1980s, the Geração 80s’ art was firmly critical of society. Born in 1957, Leonilson studied art in São Paulo from 1978 to 1981. Apart from Eva Hesse and Blinky Palermo, both of whom he met during his travels in Europe, his first major influence was the Italian transavanguardia movement. Formed in the late 1970s, transavanguardia turned to figuration, ancient mythology, and expressive use of colour. Similarly, Leonilson’s paintings and drawings from this period show an eclectic subjectivism and an emblematic visual language. An exhibition of textiles produced by the Shakers, a Christian American sect, marked a key moment in the artist’s early career. The Shakers’ embroidered maps influenced him greatly and inspired him to embrace textiles as an artistic medium. When Leonilson was diagnosed with AIDS in 1991, his visual language changed significantly: between 1991 and 1993, his work, which resembled a diary, revealed his deteriorating health and showed his concern with death. Towards the end of his life, he was only able to work with needle, thread, and fabric. In this period, language and abstraction, as well as religious, visual and formal language played an important role in Leonilson’s work. The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to present the first major retrospective of the work of the Brazilian artist Leonilson in Portugal. The exhibition presents a selection of over 250 works that encompass a broad range of mediums and styles, from the artist’s early paintings to the introspective embroidery of Leonilson’s last years, providing an overview of his entire oeuvre.
“Uma caminhada à descoberta da cidade” [A walk to discover the city] is the motto for the second edition of “Porto Saudável”, a programme that offers walks guided by physical exercise professionals, designed for the whole family and that take place every weekend with different start points. In total, there will be 11 routes that will tour the most iconic places in the city.
The municipal programme Domingos em Forma returns with a warm-up session at Pavilhão do Largateiro follower by a walk along the footpaths of Parque Oriental da Cidade do Porto, between 10am and 11am. Those interested in participating should send an email with name, age and the Sunday desired class to desporto@agoraporto.pt and wait for confirmation. Participation is not suitable for pregnant women and people over 60 or with chronic diseases.
Yuri Dojc, a photographer renowned for his portraits of Jewish Holocaust survivors, and Katya Krausova, a veteran British filmmaker who, in 1997, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (with "Kolya") and is now also the exhibition's curator, show the memories of the inhabitants of Bardejov, a small Slovak seaside town. The exhibition and the accompanying documentary began its journey in 2009 and have already travelled to three continents, in the most diverse venues: from the Cambridge Manuscript Library to the United Nations building in New York, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, followed by Berlin and Moscow. Currently, several pictures from the exhibition are already part of the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington (USA).
Warhol, People and Things: 1972-2022, a collection of 68 photographs, from the 1970s and 1980s, donated to the Mishkin Gallery by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and exhibited, for the first time, in Portugal and Europe. The exhibition reveals "the work of Andy Warhol and his contributions to the development of experimental art, the media and critical art discourse, in conversation with contemporary artists, while also exposing the pioneering pop artist to a new generation in Porto". In addition to Warhol's photographs, contemporary works of art will be exhibited, several of which were commissioned for the exhibition. Among the works on display are "Scenes from the Life Of Andy Warhol" (1982), by director Jonas Mekas, John Miller’s "Middle of the Day" photographs, three films by Jeff Preiss, including his most recent "Welcome to Jordan", 2022, and recent paintings by Anna Ostoya. Works by Portuguese artists Sara Graça and Pedro Magalhães were also commissioned, and pieces from Casa São Roque will also be included, such as photographs by Augusto Alves da Silva and Robert Mapplethorpe. The exhibition program also includes lectures on photography and the relationship between Warhol and Jonas Mekas.
Danish Peter Asmussen’s (1957-2016) oeuvre includes theatre, opera, novel, film and television. His play “A Praia” [The Beach] (1996) appealed to João Reis, an actor and stage director so inextricably linked with the history of this Theatre: “What is extraordinary about this text is that, despite the impending catastrophe, there is still room for one last breath.” Two couples meet during a summer holiday in a deserted hotel on the Nordic coast, returning to it year after year. Doubts, demons, melancholic exaltation blur, with each return, the boundaries between conviviality, confession and confrontation. “Whoever seeks or repeats a place where nothing happens is saying goodbye or running away from something.” The performance takes us through the restlessness and misunderstandings of “this quartet, almost always out of tune”, the things that are left unsaid, the always unsatisfied need for solace. “It is from this impossibility that the strength and game of approach and escape of this text come”, says João Reis. “As if the characters were waiting for someone who could rescue them and lead them back to another place, even if in a deceptive harmony.”
“talvez … Monsanto” returns to the stage that witnessed its birth. A theatre-music-word show that interweaves a plurality of materials, turning it into a singularity. The traditional music from Beira Alta and fado, the countryside and the city, timbrel and Portuguese guitar, religious chants and Ruy Belo’s poetry, granite and wind, ancient and modern, childhood and death, the wheel and the cross. We've never seen or heard such tunes and. How does all this happen? Perhaps the keyword that will allow us access to “talvez … Monsanto” is “cohabitation”, the art of transforming strangeness into affinity, the art of bringing the root of one thing into contact with the root of another. “talvez … Monsanto” is perhaps Ricardo Pais’ most important ethical and aesthetic statement, a place so sensuous and austere, so ready to bring silence and beauty into the world.
Spiritus –The best way to travel is to feel is an innovative multimedia show that goes beyond the walls of the Church of Clérigos, in Porto. This immersive experience explores music, light, energy and colour, creating an atmosphere of visual poetry, synchronicity and lightness that fills the entire architecture of the Church of Clérigos. Created by OCUBO and freely inspired by the poem “Afinal, a melhor maneira de viajar é sentir” by Álvaro de Campos, Spiritus awakens the imaginary, spirituality and mindfulness in each spectator.
The cult of the virtuoso artist has given us the habit of attending concerts for soloist and orchestra. But the concerts for two soloists, in dialogue with each other and with an orchestra, bring other challenges and other stimuli to our ears. How do two pianos converse, without one trying to overlap the other? What do a percussionist and a pianist have in common? Or more common combinations in the Baroque period, with two violins or two oboes, for example. This was brilliantly done by Vivaldi, Telemann and Albinoni, key composers that Orquestra Barroca will present, with several of its members being soloists. But the first concert of this festival brings us contemporary music: the Remix Ensemble presents a Unsuk Chin’s Double Concerto, featuring pianist Jonathan Ayerst and percussionist Dirk Rothbrust. We have the prestigious French conductor Sylvain Cambreling to direct not only this concert, but also Orquestra Sinfónica, which invites the fabulous GrauSchumacher Piano Duo to perform Bach and Wolfgang Rihm — an opportunity to compare the approach in the same way in pieces separated by 250 years. The Orchestra closes the festival with conductor and pianist Christian Zacharias, who plays a Mozart Concerto in dialogue with pianist Yumeka Nakagawa.
The night tours to the Clérigos Tower are back. Visitors will be able to be dazzled by the privileged landscape of Porto until next October 16th. Tickets can be purchased at the entrance of the monument and the adult ticket price remains at 5€ per person. “Clérigos by Night” is already a programme of tradition and a hit, sought after by both local families and tourists from all over the world who visit the Invicta. This programme began in the summer of 2015, to fill the limited cultural offer available after 6 pm, which the city of Porto had at the time. For Father Manuel Fernando, President of the Institution, “it is a great pleasure to see the city regaining its visitors and to realise that various players have contributed with cultural offers of international interest and also outside the usual opening hours”.
“Serralves em Luz” is back for a second edition and transforms the entire Serralves Park into an impressive light exhibition, providing the night-time enjoyment of this magnificent space through a surprising experience. After the success of the first edition, mentioned in the British newspaper The Times as one of the 10 best exhibitions to visit in all of Europe, “Serralves em Luz” is back, with the creative direction of Nuno Maya and organised in conjunction with the Serralves team and with light designs by the OLAB Collective, Sophie Guyot, Tamar Frank and Tilen Sepič. Along a 3 km route, twenty-five light installations, using multiple sources, low energy consumption technologies and even plants recovered in the Park itself, provide a magical sensory experience, in an immersive environment that provides new perspectives of this remarkable space and beckons to discover its natural and architectural heritage. Nuno Maya's light designs, created specifically for this exhibition, combine various forms of light with different locations in the Park, awakening in the spectator different visual sensations and emotions, while international interventions focus on luminous and interactive sculptural pieces that enable, for the for the first time, an active role of the audience that can thus transform, through light, the natural landscapes of the spaces. From the workshop for children, designed by the exhibition’s creative director and held with the collaboration of the Serralves Environment Education Service, was also born a video mapping projection on the facade of Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, created by 2nd year students of Escola Básica da Pasteleira do Porto. In parallel with this great open-air and night-time exhibition, there will be a programme of guided tours and photography workshops, which complements and enhances the experience of the different dimensions present: light, nature, art and architecture. Visit “Serralves em Luz” and enjoy a truly luminous evening.
Botanical Garden of Porto will host an immersive night show, designed with the whole family in mind, where there will be plenty of light sculptures, holograms and visual effects with lights and lasers that will highlight some of the garden’s botanical species. The show is a “sensory and interactive journey” that will feature some of the most fascinating characters from the world of Alice in Wonderland, such as the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, The Caterpillar and the Queen of Hearts, but also with well-known passages from Lewis Carroll's two books, the aforementioned and Alice Through the Looking-Glass. some sound environments and multimedia and interactive installations in mind, that is, there will be an “augmented reality app that will enable to add magic to one of the settings, using a smartphone, and a projection mapping on the south façade of the Galeria da Biodiversidade. This year there is something new. The ticket for the immersive exhibition gives direct access to Galeria da Biodiversidade – Centro Ciência Viva. Talk to us through livechat and find out everything!