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The exhibition dedicated to the Councilman of Culture at the Porto City Hall focuses on his visual discourse along two strands: the documental, in which homage is paid to the dazzling path carved out by this cultural agitator, and the complementary artistic propositions put forward by those who accompanied him in his interpellations to the aesthetic as an essential vehicle for an enlightened grasp of reality.

“(…) Paying homage to Paulo Cunha e Silva through an exhibition requires coherence and complexity. It stems from our sadness over his passing, our saudade (longing), but also the need to give him his due, and our pride at doing so. Although he is gone, we still cherish that smile, which never left him. What remains are his ideas, which still hover in the air. These ranged from the profound to the skin-deep, although the latter often proved to be the most important of all – as he used to say, skin is a vital and deepest of organs. So this occasion, for Paulo Cunha e Silva and for Porto itself, must not be seen as an end-point; rather, it is a point of departure for something that is greater and, by its very nature , defies description – the work of a figure who will never leave the city, as the city will never leave him. For this man, the horizon was merely the things that he had yet to do.”

Rui Moreira
Mayor of Porto

Artists: Alberto Carneiro, Albuquerque Mendes, Cristina Mateus, Dalila Gonçalves, Gabriel Abrantes, Joana Vasconcelos, João Leonardo, João Louro, João Onofre, João Pedro Vale, Julião Sarmento, Miguel Palma, Pedro Tudela, Rodrigo Areias, Rui Chaves, Yonamine e Né Barros.

Photography: Filipe Braga