Coimbra Art Biennial: Meet The Artists That Will Be In This Amazing Design Event ♦ The Anozero – Coimbra Contemporary Art Biennial brings works by 39 artists to different spaces in the city, partially classified as a World Heritage Site. Director Steve McQueen is among the participants in this third edition, which kicks off on the 2nd, extending until December 29th. Access is free. Secrets From Portugal brings you all about this amazing event, that also aims to potentialize Coimbra – The Third bank is the theme of this years bienal and tells the history of the encounter of the perpetual renewal of the river of Coimbra, tolled in the story The Third Bank of the River, by João Guimarães Rosa (1962). Anozero – Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art was born from a joint effort between the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra, the University of Coimbra and Coimbra City Council and, in its third edition, is curated by Agnaldo Farias with Lígia Afonso and Nuno de Brito Rocha.
♦ Discover All About The Amazing Coimbra & Subscribe to Our Newsletter ♦
The biennial emerges as an attempt to understand the symbolic and effective meaning of the new circumstances of the city – that of a World Heritage site — and proposes a confrontation between contemporary art and heritage by exploring the risks and multiple possibilities associated with this cultural heritage which now belongs to Humanity. Anozero, therefore, is an action programme for the city which, by systematically questioning the territory in which it is sited, may contribute to constructing a cultural era which can affect and transform Coimbra and the Central Region.
Steve McQueen, Susan Hiller and Tomás Cunha Ferreira are some of the 39 artists to be exhibited in Coimbra, at the Biennial, which this year’s theme is “The Third Bank” – an allusion to the story “The Third Bank of the River”, by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa. The general curator is by Agnaldo Farias and the assistant curator of Lígia Afonso and Nuno de Brito Rocha.
The list of participating artists is complete with Ana María Montenegro, Ana Vaz, Anna Boghiguian, Antonio Olaio, Belén Uriel, Bouchra Khalili, Bruno Zhu, Cadu, Daniel Senise, David Claerbout, Erika Verzutti, Eugenia Mussa, Joanna Piotrowska, John Gabriel, Joao Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Jose Bechara, Jose Spaniol, Julius von Bismarck, Laura Vinci, Luis Felipe Ortega, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Magdalena Jitrik, Maria Condado, Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Marila Dardot, Mattia Denisse, Maya Watanabe, Meriç Algün, Przemek Pyszczek, Renato Ferrão and Rita Ferreira.
The inauguration, on the 2nd, features performances by Luís Lázaro Matos and Daniel Melim and an ongoing action by Alexandra Pirici.
