‘Pop Galo’ by Joana Vasconcelos “sings” in Barcelos
The ‘Pop Galo’ created by the artist Joana Vasconcelos will sing from December 7 in Barcelos, a city where it will remain until September 2019, for a value of 70 thousand euros, announced today a municipal source.
The same source added that “there is the possibility” of that work to be acquired by the municipality so that it no longer leaves the city that inspired it.
According to the official website of Joana Vasconcelos, ‘Pop Galo’ is a monumental public artwork inspired “in one of the most relevant” symbols of Portuguese popular culture: the Barcelos cock. ”
“Aware of its aesthetic value and iconic strength, Joana Vasconcelos revisited the Barcelos cock in the light of contemporary times, combining the tradition of national titles with the most modern technology,” he adds.
The text also notes that the work respects “the aesthetic wealth” of the Barcelos cock, but introduces “important” transformations, one of which is an enlargement to the monumental scale, since the Pop Galo is ten meters high.
Another transformation is the coating with about 17 thousand tiles, designed in the studio of Joana Vasconcelos and produced and painted by hand in the centenary factory Viúva Lamego.
The piece has incorporated a game of sound and light, through the composition of the musician Jonas Runa and about 15 thousand LED lights that fill the coloured surfaces of the work, “giving this Barcelos rooster technological different readings, transforming the work of the day for the night”.
Built in fibreglass and iron, Pop Galo was inaugurated in November 2016 in Lisbon under the Web Summit. In March of the following year, it went to Beijing to celebrate the Year of the Rooster on the Chinese calendar.
This year, between June and November, it was exhibited in Bilbao, Spain, in the context of the exhibition of Vasconcelos in the Guggenheim Museum, which received more than 640 thousand visitors.
On December 7th, the Barcelos City Hall will take advantage of the inauguration of the Christmas illuminations to “light” the ‘Pop Galo’ on Avenida da Liberdade.
