MARCO

(Almada, Portugal, 1979)

In Pedro Barateiro's work (photographs, collages, drawings, films, objects, installations), there is an underlying interest in investigating the interpretation, appropriation and uses of the image and, although not in a purely literary manner, text is understood as an inseparable part of it. In the Sydney Biennial of 2008, he presented Eighty Two Poems, eighty-two videopoems to be exhibited one a day until the end of the exhibition. In Composição, presented in 2007 at the Pedro Cera Gallery in Lisbon, he begins with images of propaganda made during the Salazarism, in Portugal, to reflect on the use of cinema in the creation of totalitarian discourses.

Documentary material and fiction combine in his work, always on the basis of historical or literary references, on the loss of references or references to the author, as in the case of the altered photographs taken from the pages of the French magazines Cahiers du Cinéma and Positif. Space and its representation (or construction) are dealt with in series such as Psychogeographical Maps or the film Travelogue (2006), which represents a continuation of the psychogeographical maps and includes fragments of documentaries on the development of cities in the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique. As the artist points out, ‘Part of my recent work has much to do with archaeology, through the appropriation I make of the images and montage methods I apply' [...] ‘I am interested in abstraction and in history-deconstruction processes.' At the 5th Berlin Biennial (2008), he presented The Naked City/A Cidade Núa, with a publication and two structures located in the street, which reproduced two bus stops that once existed in the Soviet Union, re-constructed on the basis of photographs and, in the context of the Biennial, they became sculptural. In Amanhã não nasce ninguén, the new production presented in the MARCO, the artist uses 16mm images filmed by himself during his visits to the old Lisnave (Lisbon) and Vigo shipyards.

Pedro Barateiro was born in Almada in 1979. He obtained an MFA in Visual Arts at the Mälmo Art Academy, Sweden (2006) and attended the Escola Mamaus in Lisbon (2002-2004) following his graduation from ESTGAD (Caldas da Rainha). Ensaios para uma Pintura Sonora was his first individual exhibition at the Pedro Cera Gallery in Lisbon (2003), where he later presented No Limite do Mundo (2005) and Composição (2007). The artist's other individual exhibitions are What are we doing here?, Spike Island, Bristol (2005), Estrutura Social, Sala do Veado, Lisbon (2007) and Domingo, Pavilhão Branco, Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2008). The collective exhibitions in which he has taken part include, in particular, the 16th Sydney Biennial. Revolutions: Forms that turn, Sydney (2008), 5th Berlin Biennial. When things cast no shadow, Berlin (2008), Lugares comprometidos. Topografía y actualidad, Fundación ICO, PhotoEspaña, Madrid (2008), Art Premiere, (with Ricardo Valentim), Art 39 Basel, Basel (2008), STREAM, White Box, New York (2007), Por Entre as Linhas, Portuguesa das Comunicações, Lisbon (2007), Import/Export, Factory, Guimarães, Portugal (2007), Antimonumentos, Galeria AH Arte Contemporânea, Viseu, Portugal (2007), MORR, Projecto 270, Costa da Caparica, Portugal (2007), Some stories on paper, Pedro Cera Gallery, Lisbon (2007), Intro, Espace Photographique Contetype, Brussels (2007), Rasura, Avenida, Lisbon (2007), Art Nova, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami (2006), Busan Biennial 2006, Busan, South Korea, Arquivar Tormentas, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela (2006), EDP Young Artists, Museu de Serralves, Oporto (2003), Expect the World, Kunstlerhaus Bethatnien, Berlin and Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (video programme), 2003, and Video Exchange, New York University, New York, 2002.