Laboratório de Curadoria at #UmbigoLAB presents “Daí esta escadaria infinita- Hence this endless staircase” — first online exhibition in collaboration with College of Arts. Curated by Daniel Madeira, Mafalda Ruão and Sónia Honório, a dialogue between artists Bárbara Bulhão, Carolina Serrano, Diogo Costa, José Taborda, Mafalda Santos, Marcelo Moscheta, Margarida Alves, Nuno Sousa Vieira, Pedro Pedrosa da Fonseca, Rita Gaspar Vieira, Rui Horta Pereira, Teresa Carepo and Zé Ardisson.
“Who are you?” asked Zarathustra vehemently,
“What do you here? And why call you yourself my shadow? You are not pleasing to me.”
“Forgive me,” answered the shadow, “that it is I; and if I please you not well, O Zarathustra! therein do I admire you and your good taste.”
in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche (1883-1891 )
“We read in the last issue of Spike Arte Magazine(#66), in the words of Nicolette Polek, that religion could never be replaced by art. The first would teach us to be, while the second would provide us experiences of being. We believe we have read that only religion allows action and grace, the ongoing act on the path to eternal life. We conceive, as ironic as this expression may seem, that it was said that art is a mere shadow of religion, better than that: replacing religion with art, would be to replace a form by its shadow, a shadow undoubtedly permeable to light.
We cannot allow art to be this shadow of the uncertain. If art would be the shadow of the divine, it would be autonomous, worth per se. A shadow without any corporeal need and capable of giving us the light back. And if we attribute to art this distinctive form of light, to this shadow, we praise. It is not the equivalent of the truth, but it is the one that reverses the force of the light that drags and submits everything. That turns everything equal. The quest for eternity will not find answers in the fact, in the form and in the knowledge, rather in the positive absence of canons, the fuse capable of clarifying the subtle and the symbolic, the true illumination that leads to beauty and individuality, as Jinichiro Tanizaki tells us.
We found in Cruzeiro Seixas’ words the best way to name this (im) possible, indefinite path, the “infinite staircase”.
Daniel Madeira, Mafalda Ruão and Sónia Honório
2nd year students of the Master’s Course in Curatorial Studies at the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra
Parceria UmbigoLAB e Colégio das Artes_UC