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NATUREZA VIVA VENHAM MAIS SETE! ENTREVISTA P28
GAU| GALERIA DE ARTE URBANA
ON THE WALLS ...
LIVING NATURE Initiative promoted by Immochan Group in partnership with the Urban Art Gallery, that comprises works of urban art held in three municipalities of Lisbon’s metropolitan area: Setúbal, in the fences of the future Alegro Shopping Centre building; Oeiras, with interventions in Alegro Alfragide Shopping Centre parking areas; and in Lisbon, on 25th of April bridge pillars and in a wall nearby also located in Alcântara. The project uses the imaginary and language of seven national creators - José Carvalho, Klit, Kruella d’Enfer, Mosaik, Regg, Tamara Alves and Violant - who worked the motto “Living Nature” while guiding and aggregator element of the various artworks. In an ecosystem that develops in the various strata of a forest, between the subsoil and the treetops, the riverbed and the sea, the environment is populated by insects, other small animals and fantastic creatures that create an enchanting atmosphere and carry fantasy for our daily lives. The initiative was developed, by one hand, as part of the municipal strategy for safeguarding the cultural heritage and the artistic revitalization of public space, and by the other hand, to answer the desire to promote a positive and unique brand communication of “Alegro”, involving urban art, making it available to a broad and diverse audience in unusual places.
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ON THE WALLS ...
BLUE WALL FACES PROJECT Promoted by GAU, in partnership with the Psychiatric Hospital of Lisbon, “Blue Wall Faces Project” continues to animate Murtas Street. Last November, the wall hosted the edition of Writers’ Delight Burners 2013 graffiti event, organized by Dedicated Store Lisboa, with a collective work of German writers POUT & SEMOR and of the national ones, ODEITH & MOSAIK. Then in March of this year, 29 national and international artists performed 54 new sections, concluding the seventh phase of this project.
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GAU|GALERIA DE ARTE URBANA
EdisOne, Pariz One, Rote e Tim Tim
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ON THE WALLS ...
ROSTOS DO MURO AZUL
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VENHAM MAIS SETE! EXHIBITION The artists Carlos Farinha, Hugo Makarov, Miguel Januário Miguel Noronha, Nomen, Telmo Alcobia and Tinta Crua were invited to reinterpret the artistic heritage of murals produced during the post-revolution period, offering their vision of this iconographic heritage, in the works now patent in the panels of Glória Sidewalk and Oliveirinha Square, that comprise the new exhibit of GAU. Entitled “Venham mais Sete!” [reference to an iconic song from the Portuguese revolutionary period], the exhibition integrates the municipal celebrations dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the April 25th, as well as the artistic intervention in a set of municipal trucks for waste collection, done by the authors: Fábio Colaco, Hugo Lucas, Miguel Brum, Skran and Vanessa Teodoro, dedicated to the same subject and whose final works will present the next volume of this journal. The curatorship of the exhibition sought to highlight the stiffer plasticity from the creators, their committed attitude and the capacity for critical thought towards reality. This group is quite heterogeneous in terms of generations, techniques and style, and can offer us a contemporary vision of this revolutionary creativity, translating what the slogans, demands, dreams and today’s militancy is for themselves . Without censorship, we leave in direct discourse, the answers to the two questions we posed to them, namely: how they faced the challenge to participate in this exhibition and what the aesthetic concept developed in their street art pieces. Carlos Farinha: PPersonally, I think the theme is fantastic. This date must be celebrated because 40 years have passed and the values were forgotten, but the spirit is the most important. For that reason I was glad for the invitation, but also because I think the GAU is very important to give opportunities to young people and other artists to work in other scales, in other formats, which is sometimes very difficult. I think GAU’s work is very worthwhile and rewarding. In my piece, I did a reinterpretation of the painting “Liberty Leading the People”, from the artist Eugène Delacroix, from XVIII/ XIX century - only instead of putting the female figure, I put the Salgueiro Maia holding the Portuguese flag with a shotgun in hand and a carnation, which to me, is our hero national, nonpartisan, the representative of which has to be the freedom. Nomen: Taking in account the artistic journey that I have been doing in recent years, that is more connected to the Portuguese crisis and how it affects the country, more connected to political “anti” or “pro”, I think GAU did well to invite me, because I am one of the right people to participate in an exhibition related to the revolution, with the April 25th, with political murals. For the panel, I thought in painting a Last Supper with Portuguese politics eating at the table, because the topic is all about that: the Easter, the Last Supper, the state in which Portugal is being eaten, just for eating and spiting it out right after. Mais Menos: This invitation is always a good challenge because it makes us think and rethink April [the revolution]. Not only to us as artists, but also to the public, because more than ever it is essential repainting April, because we have to remember it and re-think of all the values that the revolution brought and also what remained unfulfilled. I think the murals can help to that re-thinking and help that change to happen. Today’s April, will have to be a new April. I painted the entire panel in black and wrote “April’s Moral” in gray. I wanted to get the blackness, the idea of mourning. I am aware that the panel can be vandalized because it is visually very simple. But this risk is interesting, because April is going to be deleted, but then there is fuss and noise: a guy comes and whips out a tag, then pops up a bombing, another writes that “I love someone” and it is interesting that noise all overthe street art piece.
Miguel Noronha: SThe 40 years of April 25th it’s a very important date to celebrate. I also find important the organization of your initiatives that are always colouring the city. The idea of my piece was to paint people in a manifestation, as an anonymous mass that is watching a football match. As the exhibition will continue until the world cup football [in june 2014] people will be looking at the panel and thinking about football, and my goal is that they don’t forget the date of the 25th of April, and don’t forget that problems remain. April 25th has also become a spectacle. The panel begins with a capitalist and ends with another, faceless and with many legs, representing many nationalities and different causes that are looting the country. In the middle, I painted the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic, turned into a goal with a sort of goalkeeper to receive people who are manifesting, with an attitude that “I hear everything you have to say but I do not care”. In April 25th, someone said that we won the right to speak, but we did not win the right to be heard. Tinta Crua: In my point of view I am honoured and it is a challenge. Normally I like to paint other things and when I put the “wheaten pastes” [collages on the wall], they are more abstract things, but also because of all my life, the places where I grew up, the people I met, I feel the need to speak of injustice, inequality, and other causes that are similar and which also identify the causes of the April 25th. In this case it was a challenge that I enjoyed very much, and part of my work also fits very well in it. Normally the work, I start with an idea, but sometimes follow paths which in the end did not have much to do with the initial idea. But basically my piece speaks of injustice and freedom. But basically my piece speaks of injustice and freedom. I try to give a picture of peace in the midst of all this, because I think the biggest revolution is to achieve our goals without hurting anyone. With peace, I believe that we obtain perfect revolution! Telmo Alcobia:: It is interesting that you have remembered of me and of my painting for this exhibition. It is a painting that is very inspired on the aesthetics of propaganda and protest and a painting of fast reading. The idea that the wall is a mean of communication, especially a political one, marks my work. Therefore, this invitation was pleasant but it was not completely unexpected, because it is the kind of thing that characterizes me. In this particular work and beyond the aesthetics of April 25th and of the murals pleases me a lot, I thought I should do something admittedly “poster” format. This is a poster, on the street, a political wall done in the “old” way. “April 25th always” is the idea. We have to remember every day of the April 25th Revolution, especially on these days, when they are cutting down everything that is social rights, and privatizing everything that should be a responsibility of the community to the community. In “April 25 Always”, people should realize what has changed and what still has to change, what did not actually change and what is changing again, but for worse. Hugo Makarov: I always wanted to work with you. I respect a lot your project and your dedication to urban art and artists. The 25th of April is such an important topic, as aesthetically appealing, so it was impossible for me not accept such an invitation and I think the idea is brilliant. Moreover, the artists who are participating are people I respect, that I’ve seen grow and it is a praise and an honor for me to be working with guys like them. In my piece I tried to meet the work I’ve been doing lately, something that already identifies me in various formats, at various stages, which are those puppets that have a broken head, and of which strange things come out. So I went back, and I remembered that image of a child putting a flower in a gun. The April 25th is inside us, inside our heads, from which come out carnations and flowers, the symbols of April 25th We are losing the opportunity to use our strongest weapon which is the head and our imagination..
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Miguel Noronha
Hugo Makarov
GAU|GALERIA DE ARTE URBANA
ON THE WALLS ...
EXPRESSO NEWSPAPER & SIC TV Gonçalo MAR ran his hand along the wall, trying to find the memory of what existed there in the past. Some layers below underlay two revolutionary murals from the 25th of April and was effectively on that wall that he was going to leave his reinterpretation of this propaganda imaginary. Because of this reason the place deserved total respect, also because of the name of the street where it is located - the 1st May [International Labour Day]. And when it all made sense, this national writer revived that past, and created a visual composition which summons a long red flag, the harbinger of a manifestation, an unavoidable battle tank, the child who puts the flower in the gun and, the profile of the admirable Salgueiro Maia [iconic military figure of the Portuguese revolutionary period]. It is confirmed - these images are in the collective unconscious of our people. So here are our gratitude to the owners of the wall and, especially, to the Expresso newspaper and the television channel SIC Notícias, by this evocation which also had the support of Lisbon’s Municipality.
40 YEARS / 40 MURALS PROJECT 40 years 40 murals is an initiative created and promoted by António Alves and developed with the support of APAURB [Portuguese Association of Urban Art] and of CEOML [Workers Study Center for the Labor Memory] and of several volunteers. Implemented in the framework of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the April 25, 1974, this, non-partisan civic initiative, unrelated to trade and open to the involvement of other organizations and individuals who wish to join its motives, aims to relate the murals interventions occurred in the 70’s to the present in Portugal, seeking territorial, plastic and motivational connections.
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INTERVIEW WITH…
P28 Do you know what is P28? 28 is the pavilion of the Psychiatric Hospital of Lisbon (CHPL). It was precisely in that space where the P28 Cultural Association arose, respecting and evoking in its name, the place of its birth. The association quickly gained notoriety through the ambitious decision to implement projects involving authors from “Atelier of Arts” with renowned national creators and artistic interventions in the public space, sometimes dedicated exclusively to the world of urban art. The case of “Pampero Public Art” initiative in partnership with Fundación Pampero and GAU, in the context of which were performed street art pieces in
a building located at Duque de Saldanha Square, by the authors Paulo Arraiano and Leonor Morais, among other interventions in city of Lisbon. Or the case of the “Blue Wall Faces” project that has been propagating a blue wave of faces in the vast wall of CHPL also held in partnership with the Gallery. Or also the case of projects as “Contentores Lisboa” which, among others, creators associated with graffiti and street art appear, like Alexandre Farto aka Vhils. And the list would continue with endless activities, in which P28 seeks to match plastics universes in a journey made step by step ...
- How and when did P28 appear? The P28 is the product of will and wanting to do. It is a path where we put feet to the road, a journey done step by step. The idea, the design, the layers. - You have been developing several projects with an element of intervention in public space. How was the process of leaving the walls of the Psychiatric Hospital of Lisbon to work on city streets? What interests you in particular the urban grid? We have projects that are designed and applied in exhibition spaces and public spaces. There is no “process” or “walls”. In our work in the Atelier of Arts of the Occupational Therapy Unit of the Psychiatric Hospital of Lisbon, the method and procedures are defined. Projects are specific per se. But yes, they touch in the reasoning and practice. About the urban grid, we have in
mind the sprocket wheel [as part of a gear] - Some of these projects are geared towards urban art or integrate creators from this plastic universe. Do you want to present us some of these events? We are interested in the creators and the space that they will “occupy”, and the crossing of universes. Currently in exhibition: “Sem Retoque” [No Retouch], photography exhibition from Artur Moreira, José Maria Santos, João Paulo Serafim e Luís Campos, at 31 Pavilion in Lisbon’s Psychiatric Hospital, Monday to Friday, from 10.00 to 16.00 until April 27 and “Contentores 5th Edition”, with Gabriela Albergaria, Luísa Mota at Fundação EDP/Museu da Eletricidade, Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00 to 18.00 until April 30. - What is the contribution that urban art may bring to a better living in the city? The sight
Contentores – Museu da Eletricidade ©P28 2014
Paulo Arraiano ©Duarte Lourenço 2011
Sem Retoque – Pavilhão 31 ©Pedro Ventura 2014
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MORE ON THE WALLS …
MONTANA SHOP & GALLERY LISBON 4th BIRTHDAY On the weekend of 7 and 8 December 2013, Montana Shop Lisboa celebrated its fourth birthday. Similarly to what happened in previous years, to mark that moment, Montana offered a piece of urban art to the city, for which they organized a collective painting in the Hall of Fame of Alcântara, located in Cais de Alcântara Street, by a set of recognized national and international writers, an event with the support of GAU.
ARTWORX If Malevich visited Lisbon and produced a work inspired by the city, how would it be? Maybe something close to this street art piece from João Samina. Having the Santa Justa lift as leitmotiv, Samina fragmented into splinters and has combined it with geometric elements, in this composition that evokes the most dynamic aspect of Suprematism. A plastic canvas placed at Carmo Street, right in the heart of Lisbon’s downtown, arose in the context of “Artworx” project promoted by Worx Real Estate Consultants, in partnership with Design Chiado Flats, and had the support of GAU.
FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE CLINIC
Within the framework of the celebrations of its twentieth anniversary in Portugal, Fresenius Medical Care Portugal, invited the street artists Eime and Add Fuel to undertake an artistic intervention in the wall next to their facilities, perched on José da Costa Pedreira Street, in Lumiar, work that had GAU’s support. The two artists resorted to the their
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excellent technique of stencil and their usual aesthetic discourse that combines figuration and tiles patterns, which combines the historical heritage and the contemporary pieces of urban art patents in the streets of Lisbon, to create this relevant and extensive piece, that contributes the artistic revitalization of that area of the city.
GAU|GALERIA DE ARTE URBANA
SWEET N ‘EIGHT
ParizOne e EdisOne
GAU along with the writer ParizOne opened another wall dedicated to graffiti and street art, this time on Calhariz Street in Benfica. This project gives continuity to municipal strategy for urban art in the city, seeking to share with the surrounding community the management of creativity in public spaces. The wall is available for collaborations of artists both national as international, so we invite all interested parties to submit
their proposals to: http://sweetneight.blogspot.pt/. Beyond the artistic component, the idea of the project also includes the revitalization of the surrounding area in order to animate the wall with the rotation of pieces of street art, but also periodically giving a new face to the neighbourhood, enhancing the public space, the daily life of residents and local businesses and the urban landscape of that part of town.
BACKYARD
In the context of the event “Backyard”, organized by the Creative Studio Half Pipe at the “Taberna das Almas” in Regueirão dos Anjos, last March 22, the dual of national creators akaCorleone and Kruella d’Enfer, held a piece
of urban art in the city wall located in this street, which stands out from the landscape through a vibrant palette and through the figures that have come to populate the peculiar artistic discourse these artists.
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OBSERVATORY
Unknown author
Unknown author
MEGAPHONE LECTURES Seminar “1st International Seminar - Interdisciplinary issues on built environment, urban design and urban regeneration” Promoted by the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona and the Centre for Research CR POLIS, Art, Ciutat, Societat, December 2013 Debate “Tourism, Culture and Development. University and Society in Dialogue” Organized by the Centre for English Studies, Faculty of Arts from University of Lisbon, February 2014.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM Guided tour with technicians of the Youth Division from Municipality of Almada [county near Lisbon], to the most iconic pieces of street art in the city, held in February 2014. Organization of a guided tour with children of Preschool and Primary School EB1 from Lumiar, to the artistic interventions of Alcântara Underground Crosswalk, with the presence of the writer Slap, from APAURB - Portuguese Association of Urban Art.
PUBLICATIONS Título: Trespass - History of Uncommissioned Urban Art Editor: Ethel Seno “That first time you notice a stencil on the pavement, on a sticker in the mailbox or a metal sculpture attached to a traffic signal, you are suddenly transported to another world - to a vibrant sub-culture
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that infiltrates and eradicates monotony of day-to-day life. Your daily journey to work or that walking to the store, now becomes an adventure as you seek creativity in unexpected places.” Título: VSP – Visual Street Performance 2007 “We are a collective of urban artists, aware of contemporary Portuguese art and also aware of what surrounds us in regards to art. And as such, we concluded that it is necessary to use a different approach to show the general public what is happening in relation to graffiti, this artistic segment of the twenty-first century. “ GAU ISSUU magazines in digital platform We indicate the link to the page of the GAU ISSUU platform: http://issuu. com/galeriadearteurbana, where they are available in digital format, all of our publications, including three volumes of GAU Magazine version in Portuguese and English. GAU Magazine Vol 1 | Portuguese version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/gau_vol01_2012_issuu GAU Magazine Vol 1 | English version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/gau_vol_01_en GAU Magazine Vol 2 | Portuguese version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/revistagauvol2_issuu GAU Magazine Vol 2 | English version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/revistagauvol2_ingles_issu GAU Magazine Vol 3 | Portuguese version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/gau_3_portugue____s_issuu GAU Magazine Vol 3 | English version: http://issuu.com/galeriadearteurbana/docs/gau_3_af_ingle____s_issuu
GAU|GALERIA DE ARTE URBANA
Tinta Crua
Doa
Le Zoo
Unknown author and José Carvalho
Unknown author
PCTP/MRPP
Grud Legenda
Nuno Costah Legenda
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EDITORAL
TO BE CONTINUED...
40 years | April 25, 1974 Evoking this past, preserving its memory, promoting its values and working its recollection in the public space, means going back to the time where more than anything people wanted to conquer the street, and have the possibility to leave in the walls the words resulting of the freedom of thought and expression, until that moment, so gagged. Therefore, the “Urban Art Gallery” could not fail to join these celebrations because the streets and the democratic fruition that they provide, are GAU’s main work space. Therefore, in the first panels of GAU, installed in Glória Sidewalk, we organized the exhibition “Venham mais Sete!” because seven was the number of artists invited to make a renewed reading of the iconography of the murals of the Revolution. Under the same motto were also intervened a number of waste collection trucks that will circulate in different areas of the city, carrying somehow, this revolutionary flag. The street artist MAR, in a wall located at 1 º de Maio Street, where before existed propagandistic murals, also strengthened our memory of the April Revolution, through an artistic intervention promoted by Expresso Newspaper and by the TV channel SIC Notícias. António Alves and APAURB started the first mural in Cais de Alcântara Street, with the contribution of many artists and volunteers. It was the first of a total of forty walls they intend to paint across the country. More murals are emerging trough the impulse of various entities such as: Municipal Assembly in “Fórum Lisboa” building, Universidade Nova in their installations located in Berna Avenue and by Lisbon’s City Museum in Pimenta Palace, among others, of which we will give news in the next issue of this magazine. However, I could not fail to point out the “Living Nature” project, which is on the cover of this magazine - result of a partnership with Immochan group and co-organized by the Urban Art Gallery. It is a peculiar intervention in the path of GAU, because it involved carrying out work in Setúbal and Alfragide (in two commercial spaces from that business group) and in Lisbon on two pillars of 25th of April Bridge. This triptych assembled a set of national urban art creators and brought something natural, animal and forest to the arid urban media which they emerged. Once again, we highlight the “Blue Wall Faces Project”, with two new phases of work at the wall of Psychiatric Hospital of Lisbon involving 29 artists, demonstrating the success of this initiative. Therefore, the walls of Lisbon continue to receive numerous works that reveal an undeniable creativity, willingness to contemporaneity, coupled with the exercise of freedom of expression and thought, perhaps the most precious heritage that April 25 has left us.
GAU launched a competition to design/execution of artistic interventions in Lisbon Fórum Building under the theme “April 25 Today.” The celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the April 25th revolution, Lisbon City Council will promote during the month of April, the execution of a piece by the author Tamara Alves, on the north side facade of its facilities, evoking the rich tradition of political murals.
Jorge Ramos de Carvalho
CREDITS GAU vol 04 - April 2014 Publication of Urban Art Gallery Edition of the Lisbon Municipallity Cultural Council of Lisbon Municipallity Municipal Direction of Culture Department of Cultural Heritage Director - Jorge Ramos de Carvalho Associate Director - Sílvia Câmara Copywriting - Inês Machado, Miguel Carrelo, Luís Pousinho, Sílvia Câmara Graphic Design - GAU Design – Tiago Morais | Divisão de Promoção e Comunicação Cultural
Secretariat - Gracinda Ribeiro Cover photo - © José Vicente | DPC CML 2013 – Klit e Mosaik Other photos - ©JoséVicente|DPC CML|2013 (exceto onde indicado) Print- Novagráfica do Cartaxo Print Run - 1300 exemplares Type font -Helvética|MrsEavesXLSerNar ISSN - 2182 – 777X Legal Deposit – 351671/12 Distribution - Gratuita Contacts - Rua do Machadinho, nº 20, 1249-150 Lisboa| telef. 21 8171945 gau@cm-lisboa.pt