Exhibition "Ajax et plures" by João Paulo Feliciano opens at Porto Regional Centre
The new exhibition "Ajax et plures", by João Paulo Feliciano, opened on March 8, presenting a set of works from the 1990s and 2000s, belonging to the Serralves Collection, and a new work conceived specifically for the campus of the Porto Regional Centre of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP). The exhibition is part of the membership of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa as a founding member of the Serralves Foundation.
Isabel Braga da Cruz, president of the Porto Regional Centre and pro-rector of the UCP, highlighted the importance of consolidating the relationship with the Serralves Foundation and made a special compliment to the work developed for the campus "that we like very much and that makes us very proud".
The dean of the Escola das Artes and curator of the exhibition, Nuno Crespo, praised the way in which the Foundation and the School have been collaborating on different initiatives, whether in terms of conservation and restoration of works from the Serralves deposit, in collaboration with exhibitions, or in the integration of students. "It is a pleasure and an honor to receive and be able to live together until November with works that we not only like a lot, but that also challenge us in a very original and pertinent way," he concluded.
Joana Valsassina, curator of the National Itinerancy Program at the Serralves Foundation, praised the initiative and the multidisciplinarity of João Paulo Feliciano's work and what it seeks to show in the exhibition "Ajax et plures".
The artist João Paulo Feliciano highlighted the unprecedented work - Ajax - that he conceived for the campus of the Porto Regional Centre of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, more specifically for the windows of the Arts Building's corridor. Through this work, the artist intended to use the window as a "luminous interface, which channels light from the outside to the inside and vice-versa. The work establishes a game of changing forms and colors, resulting in an immersive installation that embraces the entire space of the corridor and overflows to the outside. Since for João Paulo Feliciano the titles of his works are "linguistic extensions" of each work, "Ajax et Plures" simultaneously evokes a mythological figure, a soccer club, and a simple window cleaner, referring to universes as distinct as those that his body of work tends to embrace.
Ana Pinho, during her speech, stressed "the importance of this partnership" and the certainty that "the possibilities of common projects with the Universidade Católica are immense. The president of the Serralves Board of Directors also referred to the brilliant work of the artist and his "will to impact the viewer in the interpretation of his work".
The inauguration ceremony ended with the speech of the Rector of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Isabel Capeloa Gil, who praised the importance of the partnership established between the University and Serralves for "the implementation of common projects both in the area of scientific research and in the cultural field". "We want the campuses of the Universidade Católica to be places where culture is breathed and where our students also feel challenged to create", she added.
The exhibition "Ajax et Plures" by João Paulo Feliciano
The works presented in the exhibition are representative of different moments in João Paulo Feliciano's career, where it will be possible to witness the artist's ironic and provocative attitude, as well as his desire to involve the viewer in the interpretation of his work, characteristics that are transversal in the diverse body of his work. The works from the 90s are characterized by gravitating around the world of rock music and urban reality. The works of 2004 and 2021 show an interest in the exploration of perceptual phenomena and allow us to distinguish a turning point in the relationship with technology.
The exhibition "Ajax et Plures" by João Paulo Feliciano is curated by Joana Valsassina, curator of the National Itinerancy Program at the Serralves Foundation, and Nuno Crespo, curator and dean of the Escola das Artes at the Porto Regional Centre. In total, four different works by João Paulo Feliciano are being shown in the windows of the corridor of the Arts Building and the Restoration Building, thus continuing a series of site-specific works that he himself conceived in 2004 for the buildings of the Serralves Museum and the São Paulo Biennial in Brazil.
The exhibition will be open until November 1, 2022.