The phantom of liberty
Curators Ángel Calvo Ulloa and Marta Mestre are delighted to announce THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY as the title for the forthcoming edition of Anozero – Bienal de Coimbra, which unfolds across the city from 6 April to 30 June 30 2024, the year that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution.
In the imperative milestone of the celebrations of the fifty years of 25 April, the curators recall the revolutionary process that overthrew an authoritarian regime in Portugal that lasted almost five decades and put an end to the Portuguese Colonial War, paving the way for a democratic transition in the country:
“The fifth edition of Anozero – Bienal de Coimbra explores the idea of liberty and the strategies of contemporary art to challenge, displace, and inhabit it. The title has an ambiguous and open meaning. If, on the one hand, it suggests the idea that liberty is a phantom, an inescapable and spectral presence, on the other, it also points to a failed process, a disbelief in a once certain truth, more of a promise than something real.”
The focus of the artistic production is in the Global South and the curatorial board for this fifth edition is led by João Fernandes, Artistic Director of Art of Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil, and former Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Spain, and Paula Nascimento, the architect and curator who won the Golden Lion for Angola’s National Participation at the 55th Biennale di Venezia.
Anozero’24 – Bienal de Coimbra is organised by the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra (CAPC) in partnership with Câmara Municipal de Coimbra and the University of Coimbra, and takes place throughout the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the birthplace of one of the oldest universities in the world.