EXHIBITION
Xana opens XPTO in Lagos
Artist and CIAC collaborator Xana opens his XPTO exhibition, on Saturday May 07, at 10:00 p.m., at Galeria LAR in Lagos. The exhibition is open to the public until May 28. Admission is free.
About the exhibition:
to a spiral of disorderly boxes (from the horizon)
PTOX are the oscillation of ideas in time
with obsessive, repetitive and communicating forms
OXPT with thousands of wheezing heads in an urgent present
in a complex experience until disruption
with the colours of every desire… even of rolling stones
XPTO is a human construct
how things should be (don’t forget the emphasis here)
XPTO rather! or an unstoppable dance
as if happiness were to be confused with LOVE
XPTO is FREEDOM, stretched out
can be the EVERYTHING in flapping flags
XPTO is the FUTURE in four letters
(unfortunately RIR only has three…)
XANA Spring 2016
About the Artist:
Xana was born in Lisbon and gained a degree in Fine Arts from the Lisbon School of Fine Arts in Lisbon in 1984, the same year in which he started living in Lagos, in the Algarve. Since 1995 he has been developing the LAC –Laboratory of Creative Ideas project, with other artists, in this city. He is co-author of the Visual Arts degree project, of the University of the Algarve, where he has been a guest professor since 2004. Since 1981, as a visual artist he has undertaken various exhibitions, scenographies and interventions in public spaces. In 2005, Culturgest, in Lisbon, presented an anthological selection of his works, entitled “Arte Opaca e Outros Fantasmas” [Opaque Art and Other Ghosts]. In the last seven years he has focused his artistic work on the creation of temporary public art installations/constructions. Highlights within this context include the construction, in 2009, of a large “Triumphal Arch” on the Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona. In 2010 he presented, in the gardens of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the installation “Assembleia”, as part of the “Res Publica” exhibition. From February to June 2012, his installation “Nova Assembleia e algumas próteses” appeared in the Chiado Museum. In the spring of 2012, he built the sculptural intervention “Uma Casa no Céu” [A House in the Sky] in the Almourol Contemporary Sculpture Park, Vila Nova da Barquinha. In 2013, he created the “Amor Libera Lux” installation as part of the “Vicente ’13” initiative in Belém, Lisbon. Xana’s work can be found in several museums and public collections, including: the Serralves Museum in Oporto, the Kunstlerhaus-Musonturm, in Frankfurt, the Luso-American Foundation and the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon.
