EXHIBITION
Artist and CIAC researcher Xana opens Floração Secreta [Secret Flowering] at the Ermida de Nª Srª de Guadalupe
The intervention by artist Xana, entitled Floração Secreta, part of the Derivas Continentais series, opens on April 30, at 4:00 p.m., at the Ermida de Nª Srª de Guadalupe. The aim of this exhibition is the inclusion of personal icons that dialogue with the site, constructing a new reality using a subjective visual discourse.
Various artists from the visual and performing arts are invited to take part in this series, using media such as drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, sound, movement and/or voice to temporarily engage with the Ermida de Nª Srª de Guadalupe, starting from the mapping of the site. This mapping, which may involve geography, botany, geology, anthropology and/or different readings of history, will enable the construction of a multiplicity of approaches with different poetics.
The exhibition is open to the public until June 03.
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. 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 five 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.
