The Centro de Arte e Cultura of the Fundação Eugenio de Almeida is pleased to announce Strata, a solo exhibition by American Artist Deanna Sirlin. This exhibition, Sirlin’s first in Portugal, is part of 2020’s program of exploring light, heritage, and history at the Fundação.

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The building that now houses the Centro de Arte e Cultura was originally built in the 16th Century to house the Court and Prison of the Inquisition. Its current use does not erase the past but incorporates it. The interior space and its history will be her partners in the creation of a new series of site-specific artworks. The area Sirlin will address is defined by the twenty large windows that surround the galleries of the Centro on the first floor. Each of these windows will contain a translucent geometric abstraction whose content reflects on ideas of history, time, and place through the layering of form. This work will be seen by the public from the outside at night and the inside during the day. The artwork and how it is made and presented are new, but the work will be in dialogue with the history of Évora.

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History is not linear but layered: things do not simply replace other, older things but are built over them. When viewers look through the windows from the interior, their perception of the environment will be mediated by the structure of the work, a further layering. Sirlin’s work will address this notion of history as a kind of palimpsest: historical strata will inform the structure of the work. This work will enter into a visual dialogue with both the history of the space and its architectural elements. In this large-scale artwork, Strata, Sirlin will address the concepts of light, heritage, and history, this year’s focal themes at the Centro de Arte e Cultura.

To see the individual windows please click here.

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