An Urban Silence

9th July - 17th September 2011 at The Exchange

Portuguese artists use photography, video and painting to focus on urban spaces.
Each artist has taken a perspective of cities without citizens.

Global megacities are so vast that the scale of individual lives is barely conceivable. Reflections of ultra modern hotel rooms, with only a trace of a figure, are superimposed against the neon city night outside. Decadent, modernist buildings are depicted as disconcertingly abandoned. Solitary protagonists disrupt derelict spaces and perform personal battles against a landscape of wastelands. These works, with awe and humour, address a disquiet of urban inhabitation. The simplicity of the artists' observations of the housing projects and tragicomic interventions belies the complexity of man's place in his made world. The concerns are not all specific to Lisbon and Porto, but universal and, as our cities multiply, increasingly familiar.

Curated by Blair Todd, An Urban Silence presents Nuno Cera, Mauro Cerqueira, Gil Heitor Cortesão Filipa Cesar and João Tabarra. An integral part of the exhibition will be Biblioteca, a cultural library created for this exhibition. It will present books and objects that offer a social and political portrait of Portugal with an insight into the current art scene and influences and references for each of the artists. Further activities for families exploring ideas in the exhibition will be available in the gallery café and education areas.

During the week preceding the preview there will networking sessions for the exhibiting artists with regional artists, artist-led groups and gallery curators. At the preview the artists will give an introductory talk to their work and the exhibition. For the opening weekend a programme of Portuguese performance/video is being developed, as well as other events during the exhibition.

An Urban Silence, 9th July - 17th September, Mon - Fri, 10am - 5pm FREE admission
The Exchange, Princes Street, Penzance TR18 2NL
www.newlynartgallery.co.uk

An Urban Silence, curated by Blair Todd and generously supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Thanks to Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Galeria Graça Brandão and Galeria Pedro Cera.

Participating Artists A selection of hi-res images of work by all participating artists is available.

Gil Heitor Cortesão's oil paintings on plexiglass are of beautiful modernist houses, expensively furnished, but Cortesão adds a certain decay, as if time has enveloped the homes and the people have departed.
Image: Atrás do Vulcão #5 2009 by Gil Heitor Cortesão

Nuno Cera presents work from two series. The Room With A View series of photographs are taken in international hotel rooms, the interior superimposed over the night time view outside. The high rise cityscapes absorb the anonymous décor, with just a glimpse of the transient occupant. Two projected video pieces from Cera's Futureland series are included; an aerial tour of the vast sprawl of Mexico City from a helicopter, where miles of roof tops blur to almost abstraction, and a newly completed housing estate, Marvel City, for second homers in the desert outside of Cairo. The construction company has left but the gardens are yet to be planted, there are no street signs, no cars, no people - it is blank urbanisation waiting to be filled.
Image: A Room with a View #15 Mumbai by Nuno Cera

Mauro Cerqueira's series of low-fi videos on TV monitors are specific to Porto, and the practice of squatting abandoned buildings. Behind the elegant façade, the derelict grandeur becomes a place of experimentation and exploration for artists and skaters.
Image: Port Morto #15 by Mauro Cerqueira

João Tabarra's projected video O Encantador De Serpentes depicts an individual's personal battle in an urban wasteland. Without an audience, or obvious motive, it is comic, brave but ultimately futile.
Image: Still from video by João Tabarra

Filipa Cesar's Porto 1975, a lingering high definition portrait of Bouça, the social housing project in Porto, draws in at the end of the video many threads of its place in recent Portuguese political and social history; the revolution, SAAL, the subsequent fame of the architects and final completion of the estate 30 years later.
Image: Porto by Filipa Cesar

Exhibition Events at The Exchange
Artists' Talk
Friday 8th July, 6.30pm. Join the curator and the Portuguese artists to launch the exhibition.
Donations for admission.

An Urban Silence, curated by Blair Todd and generously supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Thanks to Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Galeria Graça Brandão and Galeria Pedro Cera.

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is a charitable foundation established in Portugal in 1956 with cultural, educational, social and scientific interests. Its founder, Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, was an Armenian born near Istanbul. Multicultural and multilingual he spent his career bringing people from different cultures and nationalities together. The purpose of the UK Branch, based in London, is to help enrich and connect the experiences of people in the UK and Ireland and secure lasting, beneficial change. One of its core aims is to improve cultural, understanding between cultures and through culture. For further information please visit www.gulbenkian.org.uk.

For more information on the show, to request images or artist interviews please contact

Kathy Hill, Marketing Officer, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange
Telephone: 01736 363715 email: Kathy.hill@newlynartgallery.co.uk

Blair Todd, Exhibition Curator, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange
Telephone: 01736 363715 email: blair.todd@newlynartgallery.co.uk www.newlynartgallery.co.uk

The Exchange, Princes Street, Penzance, Cornwall TR18 2NL
01736 363715 www.newlynartgallery.co.uk
Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm FREE ADMISSION all year round

The Exchange and Newlyn Art Gallery is part funded by Arts Council England and Cornwall
Council.