Another facet of your project was to take the Madera artists to ARCO in Madrid, which was the importance of this event for door 33?
MPR: We went to ARCO for nine years after opening the door 33.
But, why nine years later? Because it had a certain maturity?
MPR: No, the ARCO is an international exhibition of art. Very professional and very demanding in financial terms. It is very expensive and very competitive. In the first year in which we participated was devoted to Portugal. All editions devoted a large space, a central focus, to a country.
CVF: In that year the fair invites galleries to their country. Commissioner selects institutions and therefore they do not pay the stand. There are some expenses, but the country is invited by fair. Then we had opportunity to be present, in previous years, it did not occur us to be there because the cost was unthinkable.
MPR: That year was very important. We were integrated in the Portuguese delegation and later confirmed by the direction of the fair for moving to Madrid. And from there we felt the need to represent us at ARCO. We've been in five editions from 1998 to 2005. Our stand stood out at the time, because we asked an artist to draw up the design space form the root and participated in these editions in which four artists were locals. Rigo, Antonio Dantas, Lourdes Castro and Rui Carvalho. Being non-locals, Pedro Cabrita Reis is an unavoidable name in Portuguese art and international environments. It is an artist with a route and an age that does not raise doubts about the quality of his work.
FVC: In the case of João Penalva was a project that was born here. It was a video with a long duration. All of it was filmed here and thought in 2001. Then by economic reasons we stopped going.
But what was the feedback from an ARCO to door 33? Apart from the fact of being an international fair and gave your gallery a great international visibility?
MPR: We feel that the relationship changed in Madeira. Our work began to be better. The door 33 has become a reference in the ARCO. The newspapers of the time devoted much space to the culture. Today is very little, is residual. Not only in the fine arts, but in music and cinema. The cinema is still a subject with some media coverage, but not the film itself, but the industry of the Oscars, Hollywood produces a lot of money. The more artistic films and author motion pictures will appear, but very little. Culture is much more abused. We know this is not new. On the other hand, the experience in Madrid was important for us to have made known to a medium that is worldwide. In the case of the video of João Penalva, those three days that lasts the fair, we had the directors of major museums around the world present at our booth. The video was virtually sold there, for the Museum of Luxembourg, to the Serralves Foundation and was also circulated in the main European institutions. It was shown in Japan and even in New York in a big gallery. At that time, there was also a confidence in the country and institutions. Today, the energy is different; people in Europe are experiencing great difficulties.
In ARCO did you felt that people had the notion that there were great artists in Portugal?
MPR: Yes
CVF: In terms of the artistic environment there are great artists, there is no country to defend them. Anyone in global terms has the notion that Portugal has a very good group of artists. What we needed is the commitment of our country.
MPR: It is also necessary collectors and serious cultural policies. Basically, what happens as there is in some South American countries as Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico that were ignore by the international art scene for years and now due to recent economic strength and its collectors, today these artists are scattered throughout the great museums and highly economically validated but until that moment they did not exist, artists were considered of third world and people would not look for them. Portugal continues to be inserted at this level. A country that does not invest in its education and culture, this is the real Portuguese problem. It was a hotly debated topic and thought, there are solutions on the table nothing is done.
Since 1989 until now, little has changed is that it?
MPR: I think not. There was this peak. In the '90s there was this confidence, the Portuguese thought it was this strain that will move out of the mud, we felt that in the institutions. The door 33 when it appeared there was not a CCB or the Serralves Foundation, the Museum of Chiado existed but was closed, and people could not visit. Notice the emptiness of these times in terms of contemporary art. And now notice the difference in those institutions. Fewer exposures, lack of means, we know that the major museums in the country has no money for basic expenses. This energy is from a lost generation, dynamics that were turned backwards, because people to be present in this artistic environment have to be there constantly. If recedes, it disappears. This world is very competitive and this aspect Portugal lost a big bet, and note that the country appeared later in the midst of contemporary art, because Serralves appears at the end of the twentieth century, every country has its contemporary art space at the end of the nineteenth century. One hundred years later one appears and yet we know the difficulties that this institution has to impose itself and keep that energy that we had used in recent years. This is a retreat for artists, particularly in Portugal. Our image out there today is just football.
Another component of your work is the scholarships. Why only twenty years later?
MPR: We were doing twenty years of existence and thought what do we do to mark that date? Let's do a book about us and it is a testimony of the door 33. It is a remarkable date in terms of personal and institutional.
CVF: It was also the year that we did not have any support.
MPR: We had some luck to be able to benefit from placements with some regularity and that helped a lot. This year we had an intern who showed potential. He had some academic training by the school of Fine Arts of Porto, but had something else, which is a great curiosity in the right direction is a characteristic of the artists that feel a need to decode the world around them and a maturity to unravel alone in art school. The scholarship was held in AR.Co in Lisbon, which is not an official school; there are no masters or doctorates. It is a space where artists are teaching and have exchanges with international universities that recognize this teaching institution. In our country it has not recognized academic value, but abroad yes hence the scholarships. The need to leave for an artist is urgent and essential. A person has to confront itself with other means, other ways of thinking and is off-island people who are evaluators of that artistic journey and that were we started. The experience went well, next year we reconfirm the scholarship and delivered over two semesters and in the end he went started to work for the City of Lisbon.
FVC: The City Hall had several workshops that are occupied by the same artists for years and years. The city council managed to free twelve of these spaces and put out to tender two and our student won one of them. This means that our bet was valid.
MPR: Nuno Henrique continued to develop his skills and we ended up doing a show here in Funchal. Then appeared a young man named Roger. The scholarship has this condition; the person must have been born here and must reside on the island. The idea is to put people in contact with an art school, contact with other artists, be confronted with other situations. In the fourth year, we had a surprise, Roger needed to continue, but appeared to Joao Mendonca who is also a young value and despite not having money to duplicate the scholarship, we thought we will try to give it to the two of them and that's what we did and we been supporting them both. Now if you ask me, if for next year's we can keep this scholarship, I feel not. We will die here. The scene is devastating. It is bleak in all areas. By 2004 in addition to the regional support, we had an extra budget of 50,000 euro, which for us was a lot of money, from the former Ministry of Culture. It was essential. But starting this year, the government of Socrates did pass a law that prevented people or institutions outside of mainland Portugal to benefit from any financial support from this public institution. That is, we cannot compete for funds from our own country. In that year, we were working with artists of first water. We could have made the leap. But who pulled the rug was our very own Ministry of Culture.
CVF: Supports outside the continent was just us in Madeira.
MPR: We and an institution in the Azores. It seems that there are second hand citizens and we feel it.
