On the Best State of a Republic (2013)
On the Best State of a Republic (2013)
On the Best State of a Republic (2013)
On the Best State of a Republic (2013)
Exhibition “The End of Violence”, curated by João Fonte Santa, Casa Bernardo, Caldas da Rainha
“Poverty is the worst form of violence”
“As Michel Foucault pointed out in his detailed study of the mechanisms of power, nothing suits power so as well as extreme individualism. In fact, he explains, political and corporate interests aim at nothing less than “individualization”, since it is far easier to manipulate a collection of discret and increasingly independent individuals than a community. ”
“[…] Arendt and Foucault reveal that power does not lie in armed individuals but in assembly- and everything conducive to that.
“The Freedom of an Armed Society”, Firmin Debranbander, New York Times
“We must reinvent utopia, but in what sense?
There are two false meanings for the concept of utopia; one is the old principle of imagining a society that we know will never materialize, the other is the capitalist utopia in its exponential systematization of new and increasingly perverse desires, in which, not only are we not allowed to materialize, but it is mandatory to participate .
The true utopia is that which happens when the situation cannot be thought, when there is no predetermined path that guides us to solve problems, when there are no possible coordinates that take us out of the sheer urgency to survive: we have to invent a new space!
Utopia is not a game of free imagination: utopia is a matter of the utmost urgency, when we are obliged to imagine it as the only possible path. The only way out.
And that’s what we need today! ”
Zizek! Zeitgeist Films
The End of Violence is the third in a series of three exhibitions curated by the artist João Fonte Santa and which reflect and act on the economic crisis, but above all the political one we are experiencing. After the first and second exhibitions, foccused on contestation and analysis, respectively, this third exhibition proposes as a study case the hypothetical end of this crisis and what type of society or UTOPIA can be created. Within this assumption, the participating artists are asked for two types of intervention, on the one hand, a response to the above, and on the other, collaboration in a documentation center that reveals examples of situations of popular self-organization as a way of transforming society.
Participating artists: António Caramelo, Gustavo Sumpta, Inez Teixeira, João Belga, João Fonte Santa, Mafalda Santos, Margarida Dias Coelho, Paulo Mendes, Pedro Bernardo, Pedro Amaral, Rodrigo Cotrim, Sara & André and Susana Gaudêncio.
João Fonte Santa
Casa Bernardo, 2013, Caldas da Rainha.
