Serralves: “Há Luz no Parque”

This year's edition of Há Luz no Parque (There’s Light on the Park), at Serralves gardens, brings a new concept that counts on artist João Paulo Feliciano participation.

 

Since 2015 that Serralves Foundation illuminates its park during the summer nights. Until September 9th the Serralves gardens will be open during the evening, proposing various visiting experiences and innovative cultural involvements.

Aiming this, several paths, trees and built elements, considered also iconic, will be artistically illuminated, making all Serralves exterior atmospheres an admirable sight, open to various experiences.

  

This year's edition adds a new concept, with the special participation of the artist João Paulo Feliciano. The collaboration of Feliciano in this Há Luz no Parque edition will have different aspects: on the one hand, the artist will install some of his works of light; on the other, his intervention will extend to the illumination of the House, as well participate in the Park lighting design.

 

João Paulo Feliciano (Caldas da Rainha, 1963) began exhibiting in the mid eighties and is currently one of the most multifaceted artists on the national scene. And if in his work we find installation, objects, painting, drawing, photography, video, sound, graphic design, architecture or performance, it is nevertheless for his work with light and luminous pieces that his name is best known to the general public.

Throughout his career, Feliciano has frequently explored the phenomena and technologies associated with light and illumination: types of light, lamps, filters, control systems, optical systems, the mechanisms of perception, the phenomenological dimensions of light in his relation with space. His solo exhibition at Serralves Museum in 2004 focused particularly on this area of his work: light and colour in its relation to time, space and architecture.

 

The collaboration of Feliciano in this Há Luz no Parque will have two distinct strands: on the one hand, the artist will participate directly in the light design of the event; on the other hand his intervention will extend also to the House of Serralves. In the interior will be installed some of its "luminous pieces" and the exterior lighting of the House will be intervened by the artist.

 

For this occasion, João Paulo Feliciano has selected a number of works ranging from the late 1990s (White Cube / Color Cube, 1999) to the present (Nostalgia and Temporary Lamp Sculptures, 2018).

On the side wall of the Museum, Feliciano will install an updated version of the piece Colour Building, a light projection that was part of his 2004 exhibition in Serralves, now presented with another colour combination.

The diversity of potential color combinations of Color Building has given rise to another piece that will be on display: Color Studies for Color Building, a sophisticated light box that displays dozens of possible combinations of three colors. In the remotest part of the Park, in the middle of the Prado and in almost total darkness, Feliciano will install White Cube / Color Cube, a cube of intense bright light, with a random program that allows endless and surprising chromatic evolutions.

The pieces installed in Casa de Serralves will be visible from the outside. However, more than installing works in the interior, the artist will intervene in the usual lighting of Casa de Serralves, thus altering the night's remarkable presence of the building.

Among the works on display at Serralves is the Tree Without Shadow, a tree entirely constructed with fluorescent lamps, belonging to the Berardo Collection, and previously exhibited only in the National Parliament in 2006, within the scope of the exhibition "3D - Berardo Collection in the AR" In total contrast with the luminous exuberance of Tree without Shadow will be the already 2018 Nostalgia piece, a small table sculpture. In the main hall of the House, Feliciano will expose what he calls Temporary Lamp Sculptures: a series of sculptures that resorted to different types of lamps and supports, developed specifically for the intervention in Serralves.

 

This is an opportunity to get acquainted with a natural heritage classified in a nocturnal environment and participate in the various activities offered by Serralves, such as the nocturnal visits to the park accompanied by specialized monitors of the educational services, or the Turno da Noite, the Night Shift,  initiative, with circuits that will allow to observe phenomena and exclusive games of seduction and predation that dictate the dynamics between the different inhabitants of the park, accompanied by researchers from CIBIO-InBIO (Center for Research on Biodiversity and Genetic Resources) of the University of Porto.

 

There are also night photography workshops, taking advantage of the enchanting and mysterious night landscapes, and empowering the photographer to become one of the most spectacular aspects of photography. Taking advantage of the light installation Há Luz no Parque, this is an opportunity i this is an unforgettable opportunity to photograph the unique landscape of the illuminated Serralves Park. A challenging proposal for a different night out! In this workshop, guided by the photographer Filipe Braga, we propose that the participants increase their technical knowledge and in this way to make even better nocturnal photographs.

 

During the event, the Tea House will be open to welcome all visitors to the Park.

 

 

More info about the Há Luz no Parque here.

 

 

Images courtesy from institution.