ON SIDE
27 June – 19 September 2004
CENTRO DE ARTES VISUAIS
Colegio das Artes
Patio da Inquisicao, 10
3000 Coimbra, Portugal
T. + 351 239826178
F. + 351 239820154
infocav@cav.net4b.pt
Image: Pelota ponchada, 1993, copyrights Gabriel Orozco / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Works by Adriana Molder, Alvaro Rosendo, Andreas Gursky, Antonio Julio Duarte, Augusto Brazio, Crispin Jones, Duarte Amaral Netto, Eduardo Souto Moura, Fernando Marques (Formidavel), Francisco Queiros, Gabriel Orozco, Henry Bond & Liam Gillick, Holger Kruse, Jeff Koons, Joana Vasconcelos, Joao Pedro Vale & Branca Bastos, Jonathan Monk, Laura Green, Leo Fitzmaurice, Maria Lusitano & Pedro Valdez Cardoso, Mark Wallinger, Nuno Cera, Nuno Ferrari, Omer Ali Kazma, Paulo Catrica, Pedro Letria, Roderick Buchanan, Samuel Fosso, Stephen Dean and Vik Muniz Curated by Albano Silva Pereira and Miguel Amado
In Portugal, as everywhere, the importance of football is indisputable. It is one of the most significant phenomena in contemporary culture. The European Championship of Football is taking place in Portugal during June and July. Euro 2004 is the greatest sports tournament ever held in the country. To celebrate this event, the Centro de Artes Visuais has promoted the exhibition ON SIDE. This project brings together thirty artists, both Portuguese and international, which examine issues related to football. The works on display have been commissioned and acquired or lent by the participants, commercial galleries and private collectors.
The imagery of football is poor; built up on a daily basis by sports newspapers photojournalists, it is only the pitch that is focused, usually through close-ups of the players on a blurred background. However, football has great aesthetic potential: on the one hand, expressions from the vocabulary of art, such as colour and form, underlie the emblems and kits of the clubs; on the other hand, contemplation of the movement of the players on the pitch or of their repertoire of moves is an experience similar to that felt when one is faced with art.
The artists presented in the exhibition ON SIDE explore the universe of football through innovating perspectives, increasing the angles from which it may be observed. Using media as diverse as photography or video and drawing or sculpture, they produce a view of the game that is not only different to the dominant approach but also richer. As an example of this, one should refer to some of the themes dealt with by the several projects: the faces of the idols, the grandeur of the stadiums, the logic of competition, the manipulation of the athlete’s bodies, the ritualised behaviour of the fans, the construction of national identities or the iconographical dimension of elements such as the ball, the goal or the kit.
Albano Silva Pereira is the Director of the Centro de Artes Visuais. Miguel Amado is a curator and writer based in London and Lisbon. He graduated in July 2003 in an MA in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, in London, and since then he has co-curated two group shows at the Centro de Artes Visuais and curated a group show at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Modern Arts Centre, in Lisbon. He is also the curator of the Project Room programme at the Centro de Artes Visuais and writes regularly for catalogues and magazines.
The Centro de Artes Visuais (CAV) is a contemporary art institution based in Coimbra, Portugal. The CAV is located in a recently refurbished historical building in the downtown of the city. The CAV has a main gallery that comprises around 500 square meters and an area devoted to small-scale interventions. The CAV is funded by the Portuguese government through the Ministry of Culture, as well as by the Coimbra Town Council.
The CAV holds a collection, organises five temporary exhibitions each year, both solo and group shows, and runs a Project Room programme. The CAV’s aim is to present the work of international and Portuguese acclaimed artists and to promote Portuguese emerging artists. The CAV opened its doors to the public in February 2003. Since then, the CAV has organised six exhibitions. One should highlight firstly “Gabriel Orozco”, the first solo show by this worldwide acclaimed artist in Portugal, and “Work”, a group show about work in contemporary culture. In 2004, CAV presented two monographic shows, one by the British artist Jemima Stehli and the Malian photographer Malick Sidibe.
