One can say that one of the raison d'être of art and culture is to expand the world. Different from Imperial and colonial expansions, ours is an expansion of views, ways of doing, knowledges, practices, wisdoms, tastes, experiences and also, economies. We expand the world to be able to acknowledge others, to stay curios, to be empathic, to learn from others, to keep ideas in circulation. Sustaining the idea of a large and open world requires a great collective effort. Sections such as this one entitled OPENING are a great example of this effort. Galleries and artists from very different places come together not only to have a market, but to have a reception, a recognition, an exchange that leads to the consolidation of a dialogue between the different participants that constitute the art system or—better said—the art systems. This section has been conceived as an opportunity for you to get closer to the work of artists you may have never heard of. Let's try to imagine for a moment the work of thousands of artists working in their studios to give a new form to the experience of the world. Thanks to them we can have different experiences of the multiple dimensions that make life something relevant, worthy of being lived.
As much as they try to convince us otherwise, we cannot get a deep and meaningful experience of life in our working hours, in our offices, in our homes plagued by screens and series and disastrous news. Nor is it easy to reach those levels of reflection through the experience of sport, however useful and wonderful it may be. We dare say that only art and nature provide us with those genuine and profound moments of conversation with our innermost selves. An intimacy that makes us perceive others –human and non-human—around us with more affection, that makes us a little better. If each of us expands our world by one millimeter, the world expands by thousands and thousands of kilometers. It is for this reason that we must approach all those who make it possible for us to approach the works of artists. In this sense OPENING is a section that only asks for one thing: a little time to engage in conversation with those who are part of this space and curiosity to listen to the multiple stories that nurture the generation of each of the works presented. There is no time better spent.
Born in Montecelo (A Coruña), she studied philosophy and history of art. She is currently director of the Institute of Art of the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel (Switzerland). Chus is also the associate curator of TBA21. and she is also curator at large for the Vuslat Foundation in Istanbul.
She previously worked as chief curator at Museo del Barrio in New York, department head and member of the Core Agent Group for dOCUMENTA (13), chief curator at MACBA, Barcelona (2008-11), director of Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005-08) and artistic director of Sala Rekalde de Bilbao (2002-05).
She has participated in the Biennale di Venezia in 2005 and has been a curatorial adviser of the Carnegie International and the 29th Biennial of São Paulo. At the same time, she has also curated numerous exhibitions during her tenure at the Frankfurter Kunstverein and MACBA, in addition to other institutions such the Museo de Arte Reina Sofía de Madrid.
Chus Martínez gives conferences, regularly writes critical essays for catalogues and frequently collaborates with Flash Art among other international art journals
Photo by Gina Folly
Luiza Teixeira de Freitas
Luiza Teixeira de Freitas is an independent art curator. Among the various projects she is involved in are curatorial and consultancy work with private collections, as well as active work with independent publications and artists' books, having launched her own publishing house, Taffimai, in 2018. Although based in Portugal, she frequently works on projects in São Paulo, New York, London, Los Angeles and the Middle East, among others. She is a strategy consultant for the Delfina Foundation in London and sits on the board of Bidoun.
Within the healthcare sector, Luiza completed her postgraduate degree in Paediatric Palliative Care in 2022, an area she has been developing and following closely. She is part of the communication group of the Portuguese Association of Palliative Care and advises on various projects related to art and health. Since January 2020, she has been president of Operação Nariz Vermelho, a non-profit association whose mission is to bring joy to hospitalised children and patients, their families and caregivers, and hospital professionals.
How many forms does the salt water that makes up the Atlantic Ocean take? What happens when artists from different Atlantic ports occupy a central space in the city of Lisbon?
These and other questions are among the many issues raised by the presence of a group of galleries from different parts of Africa, America and Europe. This year, Brazilian galleries are also joining the programme, presenting the Afro-Brazilian production, that is, the work of those men and women who were born in the country with the largest black population outside of the African continent.
What the forms of Océano seem to reveal is an artistic production of extreme sophistication that from its beginnings flirts with a dimension that transcends national borders and extends transnationally, bringing together experiences that affirm the centrality of black poetics in the international contemporary art scene.
During ARCOlisboa, actors from different parts of the world art scene will have the opportunity to strengthen their relationship with the production of an art that is inevitably born with the language of the Ocean, which in many ways invented the modern Western experience. That fact that this is happening from Portugal is further proof that the forms of the ocean are as brave as they are poetic.
Bringing together artists and galleries that connect the notion of Black America to a broader perspective of the Atlantic dimension of the world is one of the guidelines for understanding the different ways in which black people produce their poetic experience. Undoubtedly, there are artistic practices of extreme rigour that are presented here because of their proximity, but also because of their particularities.
This curatorship is based on a conversation between two curators and aims to address these (dis)connections in terms of visual arts: poetic exchanges between African and Afro-diasporic and Brazilian artists. Designed to reflect on Afro-Atlantic relations in an extended manner, not only limited by territory and geography.
Paula Nascimento (Luanda, 1981) is an architect and independent curator based in Luanda. She is the co-founder of Beyond Entropy Africa (2010-16), a research studio that has worked in architecture, visual arts, and geopolitics. She has developed a series of artistic and curatorial projects including Luanda Encyclopedic City, the award-winning Angola Pavilion at the Biennial of Venice in 2013. As an independent curator, she has worked on interdisciplinary projects exploring themes related to post-colonial cities, and contemporary readings for historical themes. She has curated of several exhibitions in Angola, South Africa, Portugal, Italy and has participated at Experimenta Design, Triennale di Milano, Bamako Biennial and the VI Lubumbashi Biennial. Since 2019 she has been curator of Africa em Foco at ARCOlisboa. Paula is currently the chair of the artistic commitee at Nesr Art Foundation and associate curator of the VII Lubumbabshi Biennale.
Igor Simões
PhD in Visual Arts-History, Theory and Criticism of Art-PPGAV-UFRGS. Adjunct Professor of History, Theory and Criticism of Art and Methodology and Practice of Art Teaching (UERGS). He was assistant curator of the 12th Mercosur Biennial. Work with the links between exhibitions, film editing, art history and racialization in Brazilian art and the visibility of black subjects in the visual arts. Author of the thesis Film Editing and Exhibition: Black Voices in the White Cube of Brazilian Art. Member of the curatorial committee of the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo/USP. Curator of the exhibition "Presença Negra no Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul"(2022). Member of the curatorial board of the exhibitions: "Social Fabric (Houston-USA); "Enpowerment" (Volfsburg-Germany), Fractured Times (MAC-USP-Brazil ) Member of the board of AWARE - Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions (France-USA),). In 2023 he was general curator of "Dos Brasis: Arte e pensamento negro", the most comprehensive exhibition of black Brazilian artists (Brazil-Sao Paulo). That same year he was guest curator at the Inhotim Institute for the 2023 season, curating the exhibitions: Mestre Didi: The Initiates in Mystery Don't Die, "Doing the Modern, Building the Contemporary: Rubem Valentim and the Right to Form”. In 2024, curated the show: Jaime Lauriano: Why You don’t know about the Western Remains (NY) curator with Andrea Giunta, the exhibition Rosana Paulino: Amefricana, at MALBA (Buenos Aires- Argentina). Currently he is invited fellow from The Clark Institut and Getty Center Foundation.
