Lfc 453 2/8/2006 16:07 hrs f32/1:00 min.

Photography; Inkjet Print, 2006

Artist Statement

O P E R A - 2005 - 2009

This series proposes a cartographic reading of the S.Carlos Theatre, in Lisbon, home of the Portuguese National Opera. It was made between July 2005 and January 2009 at a time when the building was undergoing significant changes. As such, most of the places pictured no longer exist anymore.

Not merely intent to document and "fix" the place before impending change, these photographs, in their ability to slow our way of looking at things, propose a hypothetical narrative which emphasizes the contemplative and comparative aspects within each image and between them. In this case they strengthen and contrast the relationship between the different kinds of spaces/places of the theatre—between the representational, essentially public places (the foyer or the main room depicted from the stage) and the working areas (the backstage, the dressing rooms, the storage rooms, the mechanism that holds the main chandelier or the back of the clock on the main façade).

Depicted during a transitional phase these workshops and storage areas can be seen as suffering from the impact of the new economic scale schemes which map contemporary cultural production. In fact, all the major opera productions are nowadays co-productions between different European theatres which in essence have made the working areas of S.Carlos obsolete or un-used.

Part of a larger series, which includes thirty photographs, these pictures should be understood as fragments of the place, tangential to the subject itself. Roland Barthes referred to the photograph as a ‘temporal catastrophe’, as the rescue of past events and their confrontation with the present. These photographs seek to explore the ambiguity of that statement: confronting an historic object, the Theatre, with its present condition (2005/2009), which is also past. Photographs are always past occurrences, therefore they maintain a strange bond with History. Whereas in fact they should be perceived in the present as memory events.

Lfc 453 2/8/2006 16:07 hrs f32/1:00 min.

Photography; Inkjet Print, 2006

Buy	Edition	Image Size

$0	Contact Gallery	larger +
Prices in Canadian dollars. No Handling fees. Shipping is additional.

This edition, supervised by the artist, is printed with archival pigment inks on Hahnemühle PhotoRag paper. The ink and paper combination have a display permanence rating of 200+ years.

Paulo Catrica

b. Lisbon, Portugal

Short Bio

Paulo Catrica is a Portuguese photographer currently living in Lisbon. Since 1998 his work has regularly been exhibited in Europe: Portugal, Spain, Finland, UK, France, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia. His work is in numerous public and private collections in Europe, including the Siemens UK Art Collection, the Museum of London, the Colecção Nacional de Fotografia (Porto), and the Museu da Imagem (Braga).

Catrica's recent solo shows include OPERA, Circuit Gallery, Toronto (2010), H08, Silo Cultural, Porto (Jan.2009), No Ruses So To Speak, at Galeria Quadrado Azul, Lisbon (March 2008) and Images & Pictures, Arquivo Fotográfico da C.M.Municipal de Lisboa (May 2008).

The near future is an equally busy one for Catrica as he has exhibitions opening in Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, and Lisbon later this year, as well as an artist residency in the Galapagos Islands and a related exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, planned for 2011.

Paulo Catrica studied Photography at Ar.Co. (Lisbon, 1985) and History at Universidade Lusíada (Lisbon, 1992). He received his MA from Goldsmith’s College, London (1997) and currently is a PhD candidate at the University of Westminster in London. His current project is entitled "Subtopia: the New Towns Program in Britain."