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INTERVENTIONS OF ARTISTS IN LISBON'S DOWNTOWN WINDOWS By taking the proposals of six Portuguese artists and three French designers to shop windows and commercial spaces, Showindows is the Lisbon Biennale event furthest removed from the traditional contexts of cultural exhibition and the one that is closest to the public space of consumption. It is certainly the proposal that goes furthest in interacting with the public gaze and, more specifically, with the gaze of the consumer. Shop windows are one of the most effective interfaces in the logic of consumption and the area where the first contact is made between buyer and seller. They operate as a territory of seduction, creating a fiction in which the effects of the image, aesthetics and surprise come together to vie for attention, one of the most socially coveted goods in contemporary societies. They are windows where one looks inwards and not outwards, where we are invited to go in and not to come out, where the logic of consumption is constructed and deconstructed in an artificial landscape that tends to be dominated by the languages of marketing and advertising. When the idioms of art and design are brought into this universe through specific projects that question the banality and even the violence of the current rhythm of consumption, the usual consumer is invited to engage in unaccustomed patterns of thinking. Conceived in line with the identity and character of each place and entity, the different projects of the invited artists and designers make ironic comments or interact critically with the contents that the windows originally offer for consumption. Because circumstances dictate so, these installations will rarely enjoy the status of autonomous works of art that talk only about the artist or about the actual mechanisms of artistic legitimisation. It is actually the very consumption of art that has to be relocated when it invades the micro-territories of commerce in its purest and most uncompromising form. Catching the passer-by by surprise and causing him to think, for however brief a moment, about the mechanisms and expectations of consumption - not only of marketable goods, but also of ephemeral art - this is the challenge that Showindows attempts to meet.
— VENUE: Baixa, Chiado, Avenida da Liberdade DATE: September 21 - November 02 //Curated by: ExperimentaDesign //Selection and French participation coordination: Cédric Morisset //Production: Luisa Ramos [EXD] //Assistant: José Madeira [EXD] //Technical responsible for installation: Sérgio Costa //Supports: AEROFLOT– Russian Airlines, AFAA – Association Française d’Action Artistique, Ana Salazar - Anos Trinta pronto-a-vestir, Lda., ATL-Associação de Turismo de Lisboa, CTT – Correios, Grupo Atlantis-Vista Alegre, ICEP Portugal – Investimento, Comércio e Turismo, Hermès Internacional Portugal, Lidija Kolovrat, Renault Portuguesa. |
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