The Project

A MONTRA is a project that has emerged due to recent observation of an increase in abandoned spaces, something that has spread to each of our city’s neighbourhoods. Wherever we go there are other closures, with papers covering their shopwindow glasses. For sale or rent. The country?

At a Calçada da Estrela’s segment, the current shops are there for decades: the drugstore, the retail shop, electric appliances one or the grocer’s with crystallized fruits - these are all closed. The Pharmacy and Baker’s still persist. It’s there, between these two spaces, where A MONTRA (The Shop Window) is located, a fact that is nothing but ironic as we might think that this is exactly how the country has been surviving: between the Pastel (a Portuguese pastry) and the Pill.

A MONTRA, with very distinct characteristics, acts like a device which privileges the work of art’s observation and presentation, through the glass, by who walks in the street, at any time of day or night.

The project assumes that the physical space, where a MONTRA is at, should always be closed, which means that the works of arts need to be seen, exclusively, from its exterior.

A MONTRA had its beginning in October 2013 and is a project where different artists are invited to intervene at the shop window of an abandoned shop, closed due to bankruptcy, right in the centre of Lisbon, at Calçada da Estrela, on the way to S. Bento’s Palace.

The challenge is to produce, monthly, a specific work of art for that place by each of the invited artists, bearing in mind its way of acting and also its distinct and complementary expression.

In the meanwhile, A MONTRA, will work as a subtle action of intervention in the city. An urban rumour.

After the first cycle which gathered 12 artists during one year, between them Luisa Cunha, a second cycle is now beginning in January 2015.

Direction: Benedita Pestana | Texts: Maria do Mar Fazenda

Other Support:

O ARMÁRIO

CONTACTS

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