2011 » Portugal » Architecture Section
Curator: | João Brites |
Authors of Theme: | Rui Francisco, João Brites |
Designer / Architect of exhibition: | Rui Francisco |
Institution: | Directorate-General for the Arts (DGARTES) – Portuguese Ministry of Culture |
On the Other Side
“And when I see my back in mirrors that reflect me […] I am filled with the terror of my mystery.” – Fernando Pessoa, Dialogue in the Palace Garden An artist who represents a country as curator João Brites founded the O Bando theatre group in 1974 along with other theatre artists with whom he had worked during his political exile in Belgium. For the past 36 years, his artistic practice and theoretical formulations have been marked by a special way of conceiving and achieving scenic space beyond conventional stage constraints. Brites favours theatre that surprises in the way it relates to unexpected spaces and unusual “stage machines”. He has defended a broader architectural conception of set design while at the same time demanding that it be considered a true “visual action” that can involve artists and the audience. Brites frequently collaborates on performances at diverse national and international venues, and is especially fond of Portuguese folk culture – both its textual (legends, traditions, games, plays) as well as its material components (objects of everyday use, some no longer used but still marked by the anthropological interest manifest in his stage practice). This approach has not hindered him, however, from constantly seeking out different materials, different technical skills and new technological formats for the shows he directs. Another feature of Teatro O Bando creations are elective relationships with the modern aesthetic, vis-à-vis architectural constructivism and the abstractionist penchant for props and figurations, or visible in his playful parodies that provocatively combine criticism and dream, deconstruction and the signs of a sought-for social utopia. This project is the result of an artistic path wherein theatre, space and set design have been creatively coordinated and mutually transfigured. Its presentation at PQ11 enables an international dialogue, clearly based on an original and ongoing body of work that is undergoing constant change and renewal. The exhibition encourages a reflection on past work and ways of achieving new aesthetic inquiries and artistic practices. A set designer whose work is inseparable from his theatre group Teatro O Bando has shown itself to be a hub radiating disquiet and festivity, a basis for a kind of theatrical creation that has no tradition in our country. Since its very beginnings, the company has presented itself as a locus of social intervention that rejects inherited theatrical conventions. After the intense early experience of decentralisation based on an open idea of a theatre for children and young people, its language affirmed itself in line with contemporary ethno-anthropology, albeit with echoes of Grotowski, Brook, Barba, Schechner and Mnouchkine. Nevertheless, from the beginning these influences were reworked to include references to expressionist painting and sculpture, dissonant and grotesque size (recalling the Bolshevik Meyerhold), the presence of the Brechtian “epic”, music, technology and the most intimate crafting. Based on his stage concept – a scenic discourse centred on SPACE, FORM and OBJECT (even before IMAGE) that creates an extreme embodiment of scenic actions resulting from the actors’ confrontation with the “stage machines” and other physical obstacles – the aesthetic of João Brites must be placed alongside some of the most self-reflecting plastic abstractionism (rooted in the work of Malevich, Kandinsky or Mondrian). At the same time, it shows similarities to surrealist art, underscored by the concept of political theatre “hidden” in an accentuated formal conceptualisation, which in ecosophy (Guattari) weds the most profound identifying rurality. And where these two lines of the erudite and the common conduct meet, the presentation of the human grotesque rises in crescendo – the trademark of the collective. An intervention project with three components The Portuguese official representation at the 12th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space aims to be tentacular, composite and interdisciplinary. It is grounded in the work that curator João Brites developed with Rui Francisco, co-designer and coordinator of this exhibition project. The Portuguese intervention avoids a retrospective approach, instead presenting an interrelated set of three unprecedented interventions, each held at a different location on the same theme: “On the Other Side”. The three points of the triangle thus created under Prague’s skies are the street installation “From The Back” and the architectural intervention “From Above” (see the text for the Architecture Section), as well as the penetrable work “From Within”. On their own and as a whole, the installations aim to develop the principle of spatial representation. Their interrelationship represents the desire that the dilemma between architecture and scenography might emerge as a problem of creativity. The Portuguese entry to the 12th Prague Quadrennial recalls the work of João Brites in a conceptual manner, with particular emphasis on tangible material references to the following past performances: Essay on Blindness (2004), Clandestine Mourning (2006), Jerusalem (2008), and Quixote – Opera Buffa (2010). > From Within: a penetrable work > 3D models, photos, projections Inside the penetrable, 3D models, photos, projected images, words and other artifices recover the emotion and memory of past production of scenic spaces, attesting to the proposed metaphor. In the background, a visible wall of large ceramic tiles containing eight niches mirrors the seating arrangement from the public intervention “From the Back”, under projected letters and numbers that slowly and gradually shrink over time. On the ground, there is compost. The sound of people’s footsteps is amplified. In cycles, a light flashes suddenly across this atmosphere. From Above: An architectural intervention Prague, St Anne’s Church – Prague Crossroads. On the table proposed by the curators of the architecture section, behind a wall of large ceramic tiles, lives the model of the Teatro O Bando headquarters, designed by the architect Rui Francisco. The four-hectare site is located in Vale dos Barris in Portugal’s Arrábida Natural Park. The exhibition presents maquettes of the buildings (old pig-breeding sheds) and scenic spaces, as well as the “stage machines” that João Brites and his collective have developed over the years and considered a spatial definition, limiting or freeing up movement and travel. From The Back Portugal new In the wake of the show Jerusalem (2008), we propose an installation for Franz Kafka Square in the historic centre of Prague. It will have the features of a story – a beginning, middle and end – with the end being the beginning and vice versa. An audience area comprising 44 chairs conveys a memory. They were taken from Lisbon’s São Jorge Cinema – 50 years of intensive use had left them in a poor state of repair, unable to meet the technical standards of current legislation. Arranged in four equal rows, they await their public, facing a wall of large ceramic bricks. On the other side of the wall, a row of 11 chairs mirrors the same arrangement. As a compositional rule, we followed the visual axes of the nearby streets in order to ensure a balanced sensorial approach among the different streets and squares. The chosen north-south orientation bears in mind the site’s latitude and aims for a daily moment of total darkness for both faces of the brick wall. In the alphabet of forms, we have used the square. There is compost in the ground, acting as a symbol and simultaneously performing a function: as a finishing material between the metal structure holding the chairs and the square’s pavement with its uneven, imperfect and unexpected features. A sign (Know Your Back) invites the public to have their backs photographed by a resident photographer.