NON DOMINIS

It is a sculpture, which directly refers to the traditional ornamental architectural and funeral sculpting of the Portuguese Baroque and Manueline periods.

In relation to previous works, particularly the tomb Fake (2008), the piece is not presented as an exact simulation of the sculpting style it references, rather it recreates that same style and appearance by using daily life objects, ephemeral and «pouco nobre» [not very noble], in order to reproduce decorative and figurative patterns and motifs, which usually make up this type of «monumentos» [monuments].

In its first presentation – NON DOMINIS – arrived at the exhibition venue in «estado bruto» [raw state], i.e. entirely white, and during the inauguration a graffiti artist took part in the sculpture. The performance raised questions about the identity of architectural heritage and of the public space, the notion of place and territory, and the concept of fixed and immutable heritage associated with the idea of a monument.

Pedro Valdez Cardoso

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Território e Acção [Territory and Action]

This new cycle is part of a strategy program that aims at civil society, which involves positioning some CAPC activities in places around the city of Coimbra where there is a larger demographic circulation. The main intention is to capture the attention of those who do not usually visit the CAPC, or those who are not even aware of its role in producing and promoting contemporary artistic production, thus socializing the artistic and symbolic assets fulfilled at the different CAPC venues (CAPC-Sereia, CAPC-Sede). From an expectant cultural space that awaits its viewers, and its visitors, and from a space representing the artistic contemporary field, the CAPC would take on a social contract with the anonymous citizens from Coimbra, and it would shift its content to the Civita Augescens circle, i.e. the dynamic interior of Coimbra, to its reception and welcoming skills towards others, to the multiethnic and supranational culture that define the efforts of this city to push away the demographic and economic downfall.

The CAPC goes down to the city, inquiring and disturbing its citizens, and mobilizing everyday life, promoting critical reception skills. The general cycle Território e Acção consists of four cycles: Santa Cruz, Espelho, Linha defensiva do Mondego, and Link

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Santa Cruz

A series of artistic initiatives will be organized at the altar, the «cabeça de Cristo» [head of Christ], critically and thoughtfully exploring representation protocols in a deeply iconolater society, marked by distractive, escapist, and of increased ambiguity semantically, mediation processes.

A place which, in the early stages, possessed a monosemic and prescriptive positioning, where the divine liturgy of sound, textures, smells and the visual impact of those moments was settled, and which managed to, through mishaps, inhibitions, and anxieties over time, accommodate itself to new duties, the most recent being the inclusive and plural Tertullian Café Santa Cruz. The CAPC intends to engage in a dialogue with its city, that place with this «excesso de consciência histórica» [excess of historic consciousness], through the «problema artístico» [artistic problem] (what is art? when is there art?), which it has been debating and trying to clarify, as well as blur, for over the last fifty years. In this initial moment, the inquisitive attention of the CAPC is expressed both in its condition as an experience, of something extrinsic that belongs to the subject it observes, that socializes, and also in its condition of significant form, of artwork.

This CAPC initiative adheres to the theme of representation protocols, which persists and is refined in the contemporary artistic object with other practical outcomes.

The historic permutations established by a modernist symbolic revolution between comparative aesthetics (narrative dramatization of the apparent, dialectics between likelihood and deception, between secrecy and transparency) and attendance aesthetics (of the nameable and the unrepresentable), are indeed not only audible but also active in the current artistic practice.

By removing the imitatio as the only active principle of the representation act (of relocation in the world), the artistic culture of the twentieth century, regardless of the paradigm or periodization it proposes, opened up new poetic negotiation and mobilization possibilities concerning the experienced world for even the most inexperienced viewer. This Art brought, even if residually, human interest and artistic interest together, forcing the subject to observe the determinist pathos recovery of the picturesque, of the «fácil» [easy], of the «expectável» [expected], of the «semelhante» [similar], forcing them to, paraphrasing Kant, «audare sapare (ousar saber)» [dare to know]. Whether successful or not, is another topic.

One thing for sure is, nevertheless and contrarily, that when nothing is recognizable, when not only is the perceptive tracking of the viewer prolonged but also unfamiliarized, becoming strange, and difficult to interpret, the Art — and the works exhibited here will speak of such — evolves (perfecting, criticizing, renewing representation mechanisms) into a historic effort to root the «Nós» [Us] and the «Eles» [Them] in the same conceptual plane, i.e. the correlation of forces between an I (I am an Imago, therefore I am) and the difference of the Other (the persistence of other identity anthropologies and the perception and representation of the world). Art trains us to question the world outside of our purposes, of our preconceptions. An effort is also positive here, at the head of Santa Cruz.

Pedro Pousada and Carlos Antunes
January 2012