[rohrpost] "The Escape Route's Design" by Mariana Silva & Pedro Neves Marques

[Sparwasser HQ]

Press Release
"The Escape Route's Design"
Artist book launch

by Mariana Silva & Pedro Neves Marques

June 12. – 14. 2008
Opening Thursday 12., 19h



Mariana Silva (PT) and Pedro Neves Marques (PT) present "The Escape  
Route's Design"; a bilingual Portuguese/ English text, edited and  
designed by the artists', in the shape of an essay of their own  
authorship and concept. The book launch is integrated with models and  
video loosely appropriating concepts of the book, translating not as  
an exhibition but a three day presentation, meant to finish when the  
last booklet is given away.

The essay stages a dialogue between the incomplete projects in Ilya  
Kabakov's installation works and the series of attempts at crossing  
the Berlin Wall from East to West from the 60s until the mid 80s. It  
takes the shape of a case-study which reads as a strange oblique  
comparison between artistic proposals and historical events. Through  
this dialogue it is advanced the supposition of an already made  
realization of the proposals made by Ilya Kabakov, most specifically  
in "The Palace of Projects", by way of the historical events occurred  
at the Berlin Wall.

Acknowledging the fact that Kabakov has intended the proposals in his  
installations simply as proposals, advanced for the sake of reflection  
and extracting from their incompleteness a poetical and utopian charm;  
the consideration of this utopian connotation of actions pursued and  
to pursue individually, sometimes of fairly easy execution, is then a  
key term in articulating Art with the respective actors/ participators  
in the crossing of the Berlin wall. As a relative aesthetic revision  
of these historical events is attempted in the booklet, this enables  
finally the consideration/ proposal of a ready-made historical utopia.

Using the urban context of the city of Berlin as a starting point,  
this oblique-case study is also a way to experience and confront  
oneself with the city's history, going through an experimental  
definition of what is considered Art or the meaning of its dissolution  
in Life and possible consequences of re-reading political/ historical  
events as performance/ activism. The choice of uniting the two  
historical and artistic subjects is drawn together in the booklet by  
speculation around a performative concept of Art, much in the sense of  
dematerialized action like the Situationists and Fluxus proposed (both  
curiously active around the same time as the events of the Berlin  
wall). In other words Art inquiring on the possibility of considering  
action-in-potential as one of its definitions.


Cv's

Pedro Neves Marques (1984) was born in Lisbon, Portugal. He studied at  
the Faculty of Fine Arts of  Lisbon. Has showed in the group shows  
"The Augusta Narval Pavilion" (2006; Lisbon), "Before production  
ceases" (2007; Avenida Space, Lisbon), "Eurasia" (2008; Anastácio  
Gonçalves Historical House, Lisbon), "Ocurrence" (2008; Baginski  
Gallery, Lisbon). Selected for "Arian Rothschild 3th Painting  
Prize" (2007; Lisbon) and was one of three awarded young artists from  
"BesRevelation 2007" prize (2007; Serralves Villa –Museum for  
Contemporary Art, OPorto). Is represented by Pedro Cera Gallery,  
Lisbon, where has had his first solo show "Abridged Imagetics" (May/  
June 2008; Lisbon). Is currently preparing a show for Spike Island,  
Bristol, GB.

His work tries to document perspectives of enrootment and communion in  
the world, and the constitutive relationship between the Individual  
and the collective whole. Eminently performative and documental, in  
the form of written text or video, the process of communicating this  
assessment and sharing subjectivities of being in the world, its  
possibility of translation to others, determines at each time his  
method of work.

pedronevesmarques at gmail.com

Pedro Neves Marques is a part of the Sparwasser HQ group.


Mariana Silva (1983) was born in Lisbon, Portugal. She studied at the  
Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon and UdK (class Möbus), Berlin. Has  
showed in the group shows "Third Floor, After' (2004; Lisbon),  
"Inhabited House" (2004; Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal), "Art Meeting  
2006" (2007; Unversität der Kunste, Berlin), "Before production  
ceases" (2007; Avenida Space, Lisbon), "Eurasia" (2008; Anastácio  
Gonçalves Historical House, Lisbon). Resident artist at Sótão Art  
Space (November 2007) resulting in the event "Open Session", with  
Margarida Mendes, at Quarteto Cinema, Lisbon. Mariana Silva has also  
worked as Editor of 'MArte', an Art Theory Journal of the students of  
the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon, co-directing its second issue on  
'Legitimization in Art' (in collaboration with sociologist Vanda  
Gorjão), September 2006.  This issue published texts from Nathalie  
Heinich, Thierry de Duve and various critics and curators from  
Portugal such as Augusto Seabra, Pedro Gadanho, Sandra Viera Jürgens.

Her work focuses on the construction of open structures, in the shape  
of installations and objects, reflecting on the concept of Spectator  
and its participation both in the understanding of Art as a social  
good and its platforms of production and presentation. The proposed  
participation of the spectators is thus built in the space between the  
ambiguity of an inclusive communitarian gesture and the tension of an  
imminent exteriority or opacity.

mariana.s.v.silva at gmail.com