AUTHOR: IVO MARTINS
EDITION: (Catalogue) Centro Cultural Vila Flor DATE: May 2008
The interaction of material and content in the pieces chosen for this exhibit will strive to establish new
perspectives on the work of José Loureiro. In developing two complementary platforms, the work of this artist is
represented: first, through the exhibition of specially selected pieces, and secondly through the catalogue, a
document that synthesizes the artist’s path of development in a clear way, allowing for a deeper glimpse into
options and reformulations in the context of a more extensive period of time.
In opting for a narrative and retrospective approach, we consider it quite interesting to contemplate the present
collection as encompassing work that manifests the utmost uniqueness and modernity. The work of José Loureiro
lends itself well to this type of approximation, given the elemental quality of the formal and visual aspects that it
possesses and the over-all purification in the materialization of the idea.
The set of pieces selected is just a possible sampling amongst many others - an open assortment of works
structured by a location and a moment in time, limited to two forms of artistic expression, painting and
drawings, which are guided by a model of simplification that, while augmenting the work as a representation of a
fraction of individual reality, seeks to minimize its sequential, historical and collective component, leaving to the
edited document the combined function of revealing a course trajectory that imposes itself on time in a more
definitive way while it reinterprets the proposals of the exhibit in the framework of the whole.
In the field of the plastic arts, there are many ways available to spark interest in the public, and at all levels. At
the Vila Flor Cultural Centre, we have opted for forms of organization and opportunity management in the
conception of projects that focus on an artist’s individuality in the context of activities that we develop in
collaboration with each artist. By adding the possibility of travelling with our exhibit, we strive to take our ideas
to areas that want for this type of event, even those places where critiques of cultural content are lacking and
where such themes receive lesser coverage from the local media outlets.
The options for the locations selected in a predictable tour route take us more and more to places outside large
urban centres where the public has been active and participatory in events that promote contemporary art. By
associating this type of event with a book that contains a relevant documentary collection of an artist, and with
the care we have taken to produce a catalogue of this landmark event at the Vila Flor Cultural Centre, and in the
desire to have it reflect well upon the important role that such activities can have in the context of contemporary
art in Portugal, we express our hope that this will be a valued contribution to artists and the artistic environment.
There exist conditions and means for the establishment of structuring and support which can allow each artist,
him/herself, to realize his own process of presentation and enable the artist, by him/herself, to be enterprising
with regard to the link between the artist and the artist’s work. This opportunity paves the way other types of
links through the exhibition process and generates new potential for the wider public’s reception of artistic work.
Broader exposure is promoted and other levels of contact are developed, increasing the range of options for the
viewing public, and at the same time, a set of new questions revealed as essential elements for the survival and
the confirmation of an artistic pathway are given a new incentive.
TRANSLATION: DAVID ALAN PRESCOTT
