by Paddy Johnson on May 30, 2011
Can any art event truly be considered complete without spotting at least one person describing themselves as “living art” while walking around naked in full body paint? Perhaps only North Americans and the British tout this ridiculous tradition because I didn’t spot any during the 40 Hour Party at Serralves over the weekend. I did however do one step better: The locally famous James Lee Byars impersonator, Carlos Lobato. This is a man who participated in the Spencer Tunnick group nude installation in Porto (read: an expensive photograph of bunch of nude people likely infront of a monument of some kind), and managed to create quite a bit of ruckus. The best account I heard was that the artist often took his own dive-like poses in Tunnick’s sea of crouched figures, though the artist has a slightly different take on the matter. According to him he just had plenty to say while the camera was off, but when the actual photographs were taken he conformed. Oh well.
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by Paddy Johnson on May 29, 2011
Last night was surely a grim evening for bar owners in Porto. With the exception of only a few house ridden teenagers and adults, I’m fairly certain the entire city attended the Serralves 40 Hour Party yesterday. I saw babies. I saw parents. I saw grandparents. You name the age group and they were all watching art band Chicks On Speed perform last night. I exaggerate a little — many of the small children had gone home — but not as many as you would think.
All this is to say, that the free event, which is a marathon of performances in various disciplines, draws an incredibly diverse spread of people, most of whom live in Porto itself.
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