“CAXIFORNIA” by Renato Cruz Santos on display at the School of Arts
To see, from July 3 to October 4, at the Católica University in Porto
“If Americans have the original California, which is also a border zone, Renato Cruz Santos offers us in this exhibition designed from scratch for the School of Arts his vision of what we can call ‘our Caxifornia’, so unique and special, so real, but at the same time unreal.” This is how curator and photographer Carlos Lobo presents the new exhibition by Renato Cruz Santos, a multidisciplinary Portuguese artist who explores the themes of memory, fictionalized imagery, and the deconstruction of reality. “CAXIFORNIA” will be on display, in Porto, in the exhibition room of the School of Arts, from July 3rd to October 4th. The inauguration is scheduled for July 3, at 6:30 pm, and admission is free.
“CAXIFORNIA” is the first individual exhibition by Renato Cruz Santos, the look of someone who was born and grew up seeing his territory changing, through sedimentary movements or the shadows of the concrete. An exhibition is full of bright colors of sharpened pencils, from this frontier place, an antithesis to the iron that Caxinas carry.
Renato Cruz Santos was born in Caxinas, in the north of Portugal, and a large part of his work is produced in his homeland, where he has several projects. He actively works in various fields of photography such as journalism, music, theatre, dance, and cinema-dividing himself mainly between Porto and Lisbon. He is part of Bind’O Peixe, an association for the preservation of memory, heritage, and culture in Caxinas, where he was recently responsible for curating and producing the project and exhibition “Ruas da Praia”, the result of research work and data collection. images from family archives in the local community. As a photographer, he has held some exhibitions – the last one with the sound artist Duarte Ferreira, at Arquipélago – Center for Contemporary Arts, in Ribeira Grande (São Miguel Island); he collaborates regularly with Porto City Council, Porto Municipal Gallery, with record label/promoter Lovers & Lollypops, with Porto Design Biennale, with Culturgest, among others. He has also taken photographs for album covers and several books.
Carlos Lobo, the curator of the exhibition and professor at the School of Arts at the Catholic University in Porto, points out “The School of Arts is also an Art Center and this photography exhibition will surprise you because the images that Renato Cruz Santos presents to us of the territory of Caxinas have in itself something very real, but at the same time surreal because it is a vision or visual construction of a very peculiar territory”.
“CAXIFORNIA”, by Renato Cruz Santos, curated by Carlos Lobo, can be visited until October 4, in the Exhibition Room of the School of Arts of the Catholic University of Portugal, in Porto, from Monday to Friday, from 2 pm to 7 pm, with free entry.
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