16 Jan 2013

Urbanarium: Opening night and open call

URBANARIUM: opening night and open call

The Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, and the ENTRE Project, in partnership with the Largo das Artes Gallery, invites participants to an opening and international convocation.
These events relate to the dynamic collective known as URBANARIUM, which will be exhibiting at the Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, showcasing the work of artists Anita Sobar, AoLeo and Virginia Mota, curated by Gabriela Gusmão.

On opening night, on 16 January 2013, the convocation will invite artists from around the world to submit their digital art work inspired by the urban universe.

The art work may comprise photographs, drawings, etchings or videos lasting up to 30 seconds. Interested parties should send their images in jpeg format (between 1Mb and 2Mb in size), and videos in mp4 format, by 1 February 2013. The pieces will be shown in public spaces beyond the limits of the gallery itself. The exhibitions will take place on 7 February 2013 at the Largo de São Francisco and on 30 March 2013 on the façade of the Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rua Humaitá, Rio de Janeiro.

The URBANARIUM collective exhibition sees the power of art as a two-way street between public spaces and cultural centres.

The life of the project is in the street, fertile ground for the expansion of art.

The three artists who are showing their work at the Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto Gallery have a direct line to the urban universe. Anita Sobar, in her series of public photographs 'Looking for a Utopia' constructs images based on the miscellany of those who wander in the centre of town. AoLeo's photographic work uses typographical marks in urban landscapes, viewed through the windows of public transport. Virginia Mota, with her project 'Library of Sentiments', breaks the barriers between institutions, and speaks to audiences both within and beyond museums and art galleries. Curator Gabriela Gusmão has led the way in the exploration of public spaces with her book and exhibition 'Street of Inventions', which showcased in several cities in Brazil, as well as in Paris and Rotterdam.

'Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.' Walter Benjamin

In their trajectories across the city of Rio de Janeiro the artists look for precious objects to construct a dynamic work based on mundane relics found on street corners, avenues, parks, squares, viaducts and other urban nooks.

This approach (whose unfurlings provide infinitely fertile ground) seeks above all to extend the gallery beyond its walls into the streets and squares of the city.

In poetry, the square belongs to the people, and we would like the same to be true in life. All hail Castro Alves !

In asserting an artistic occupation of areas such as the Largo de São Francisco, in the centre of the city of Rio de Janeiro, URBANARIUM invites artists, students, and the general public passing through or working in the area, to view the screening on 7 February 2013.

The Largo das Artes Gallery have also lent their support to this expansion of the URBANARIUM collective's activities. Together with the ENTRE project of the Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, they echo the call to artists who wish to join and amplify this movement.

The occupation of the Largo de São Francisco, which in some ways is the back yard of the Largo das Artes, strengthens the constant dream of returning to the square the joy of the people.


Delirium manifesto for an Urbanarium

From the profane cravings of every day to the sacred shroud, via the lonely man for whom the lamp post is a cupboard, we believe in the daily delirium of the imaginary universe.

Nothing here is mere scenery, or simple pageantry, much less a fool's chicanery.

May our collective be long-standing, but never grand-standing. There are things in the world whose names are not yet in the dictionary. Those rarities are what enrich our inventory.

From Boticário Square to São Januário stadium, we find precious all that seems precarious.

We shoot the arrow of Sagittarius towards planetary infinity.

We imagine things one way, but the contrary will approach sublimity.

Each one of us is a precious empty vase from the terrarium. Let the flower grow in the aquarium, the fish swim in the ovarium and a banal episode become a sanctum.

We suspect the madman on the corner may well be a great visionary.

Our project has barely reached the nursery and already it boasts more issues than any seminary. We will send all the doctors of philosophy back to elementary school, because discovering the world is not for the sedentary fool.

And if one day we seek rest, we will not go to the seaside.

Our challenge resides in the city streets, and everything that relates to the human belongs in our urbanarium.