The die was cast, somehow: the old refectory of the friars of the Holy Cross Monastery, a room of about 500 m2 dating from the sixteenth century, was transformed in the 1990s in a room exhibition – the City Hall – but was closed and needed to be revitalized. The launch of a new biennial of contemporary art was seen as a good pretext for this action. Hence for an invitation to Pedro Cabrita Reis was a step “easy and obvious,” explains the PUBLIC Carlos Antunes, artistic director of the biennial of Coimbra that this Saturday opens this town classified as world heritage.
“Pedro Cabrita Reis is an artist working time as a continuum, without breaks between the past and the present. In it there is no difference between the ancient and the contemporary, there is continuity in time. Plus it has a great capacity to reactivate materials that may seem obsolete. “
That’s what Cabrita Reis made the old City Hall, making it temporarily n ‘ The House Coimbra , one of more than twenty exhibitions, installations, interventions that make the new biennial program, which spans 23 different areas of the city -. and will run until November 29
We entered n ‘ The House of Coimbra a few days before the inauguration and we found ourselves deep inside the world of Cabrita Reis: under a secular ceiling with a large dome pouring manufactory cut veins, and within four walls decorated with traditional blue and white tiles, the framework for an exhibition gallery was literally gutted and transformed into a new labyrinthine sculpture made of plywood boards on “wound” exposed and open to various readings.
“It was a very rewarding experience; a brutally hard work, both emotionally as creative, “explained the artist to PUBLIC by telephone a few days before returning to Coimbra to check in situ the final lighting, and participate in” Opening “.
For three days, Cabrita Reis worked with firefighters and carpenters of the city, which with a chain saw and other implements realized what the sculptor was thinking at the time. “I made no prior design. When I saw the place, immediately I knew what he wanted and was going to do; is the work that shows us own thing, “said the artist, reminding have already carried out a similar intervention in Maastricht, in a building designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta.
” Make this deconstruction-construction gave me one enormíssimo pleasure, and that it is a MO that touches me deeply touches me every floor of the body: physical, psychological, emotional …, “he added. And Cabrita Reis justifies the designation The House of Coimbra by association and continuity – it’s one of the series characteristics of his work – with two projects held this year in France and Italy: the Home Saint Etienne and House in Rome , is still currently installed in the square outside the MAXXI. – National Museum of XXI Century Art
“The house is a place from where you see the world, is not only the place where you are and live, “explains the sculptor, making the parallelism with the present intervention in Coimbra, where he wanted to take” a precarious side and labyrinthine “in a room is “a palimpsest, an authentic gallery of various eras and cultures memories” – remember that it was in this room that the pieces were found d ‘ The Last Supper of Hodart, a treasure of Portuguese sculpture however it was restored and is now on display at Machado National Museum of Castro (MNMC).
In addition to providing the two-year program with a reference signature of Portuguese contemporary art, “the” creative deconstruction ‘of Peter Cabrita Reis revealed and allowed aware of new things hidden and on the history of this area, such as tiles and columns, “emphasized the PUBLIC Carina Gomes, councilor of the Chamber of Coimbra.
The work of the sculptor will Moreover, remain open to the public until the end of the year, going beyond the biennial calendar. “In January will be removed so that the historical profile of the room is restored,” said the mayor.
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