The Art for Art movement, created by the Lionesa Group, has teamed up with the Soares dos Reis National Museum’s Other Places project and the company SIGN to present LUGAR CATIVO, an exhibition open to the city of a selection of works from the museum’s collection.
The opening of the exhibition – installed on the façade of the buildings – is scheduled for the 29th, at 3.30pm, on Rua do Cativo, in Porto, and will be presided over by the Secretary of State for Culture, Isabel Cordeiro.
Lugar Cativo is a set of portraits that position their gaze on the city and the viewer, a two-way observation between the character represented and their audience, and vice versa, in a dialogue tailored to each person. These 40 or so works are reproductions placed on the façades of buildings.
Reinforcing the Museum’s motto “A museum of people, by people for people”, the Other Places programme aims to continue the touring of the Soares dos Reis National Museum’s collections with partner organisations. The action aims to go beyond the Museum’s space and its formal organisation to involve unlikely and different curatorships, given the nature of the partners, the place of presentation and the respective contexts.
The selection of artworks that will be on display in Rua do Cativo over the next few months for the enjoyment of those who pass through the street will find in Cativo a space dedicated to cultural democracy. This is a joint initiative between the Lionesa Group, the Soares dos Reis National Museum and SIGN – Wide Format Printing.
The exhibition also marks the 1st anniversary of the Lionesa Group and continues the Art for Art initiative, a movement that sees art as a magnifying glass on the territory, a stethoscope on the neighbour, a stereoscope on an entire community.
About the Art for Art project
The Art for Art movement began when investment was made in buildings in Porto’s historic Rua do Loureiro. Temporarily walled off due to health safety and municipal guidelines, the Lionesa Group began to refurbish the building, opening up the street to the city through art. Five artistic interventions were the result of the partnership with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. This first initiative provided a real open-air art gallery, completely open to visitors and inhabitants of Rua do Loureiro.
This will be followed by the Lugar Cativo project, which will continue the Art for Art Movement, in partnership with the Soares dos Reis National Museum and SIGN, with the clear aim of transforming the area into a centre for sharing culture, life and art.
About the Other Places project
The purpose of the Other Places programme is to affirm the Soares dos Reis National Museum as a place that goes beyond its formal space and organisation to involve unlikely and different curators, given the nature of the partners, the presentation venue and the respective contexts.
As part of this programme, the 42 DRAWINGS BY ANTÓNIO CARNEIRO FOR DANTE’S INFERNO exhibition has already been presented at Casa dos Livros in Porto; and the LIFE CYCLE exhibition, which, based on the allegory FOUR SEASONS, a series of four 17th century canvases, took to the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Porto, a group of paintings that establish a relationship with the different stages of the human being’s life.
Lugar Cativo materialises a new model for managing cultural heritage through the association of public and private entities, in an effort to increasingly democratise access to culture and confront the public with works of art in unlikely spaces, seeking to encourage visits to the works in their formal exhibition context at the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto.