Do salão ao cubo branco

Do salão ao cubo branco (“From the salon to the white cube”) for the exhibition “Que horas são que horas- Uma galeria de histórias”, at Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto

The exhibition Que horas são que horas: uma galeria de histórias is the result of an invitation made by the Galeria Municipal do Porto to three curators, José Maia, Paula Parente Pinto and Paulo Mendes, to reflect upon the historical landscape of Porto’s art galleries – inscribed between the apparent post-WWII cultural opening and the retraction of the cultural sector after the recent economic crisis. Looking at this time period enables us to understand the many different sides of the civitas, and the transformative complicities that exist between the city’s artists, cultural agents and audiences that shape it.

The exhibition presented three axes: the chronology of the galleries of modern and contemporary art exhibitions in the city of Porto (1945-2010), a selection of artists and works presented along that chronology and five new works commissioned from Arlindo Silva, Mafalda Santos , Maria Calma [Maria Trabulo], Nuno Ramalho and Pedro Tudela who worked from the research for the exhibition or the events related to the two previous axes.

One of these new works is “Do salão ao cubo branco” (“From the salon to the white cube”) by Mafalda Santos who has been working for more than a decade on the network of the Portuguese artistic system, deconstructing the connections between the various agents that compose it: artists, galleries, museums, institutions and critics. The work “Do salão ao cubo branco” results from a spatialization of research and archive, which was created specifically for this exhibition, focusing mainly on the chronological progression of the different galleries in the city.

Access here photos of the opening

Access here photos of the work in progress “Do salão ao cubo branco”