9 Kg de Oxigénio

The Galeria Municipal do Porto challenged the project Uma Certa Falta de Coerência to develop a curatorial exercise concerning the relationship between independent curatorial practice (and artist run spaces) and institutional contexts. Uma Certa Falta de Coerência has developed its activities on an independent basis since 2008, in a narrow studio in the Rua dos Caldeireiros, where one often wonders whether the atmosphere is breathable, “as if the studio’s percentage of O2 is lower than the average 21%”. The desire to gauge the level of oxygen is an indicator of its rarity, and of an economy of joint dependence and effort. Given the impossibility of transferring this unique atmosphere and its associated challenges, the project developed for the Galeria Municipal will test specific politics of production and forms of understanding. It will depart from the exercise of survival in adverse conditions subjected to institutional oppression, the sense of friendship and selfless exchanges between individuals (in an epoch of extreme individualism and hyper-capitalism), and the captivity of freedom by standards of good taste and fantasies of appearances and professionalism.

Artists: Babi Badalov, Daniel Barroca, António Bolota, Camilo Castelo Branco, Merlin Carpenter, Rolando Castellón, June Crespo, Luisa Cunha, Stephan Dillemuth, Loretta Fahrenholz, Pedro G. Romero, Dan Graham, Alisa Heil, Mike Kelley, Ruchama Noorda, Silvestre Pestana, Josephine Pryde e Xoan Torres.

Photography: Pedro Magalhães