Remai Modern announces new web commission by Pedro Barateiro
Saskatoon, Canada — Remai Modern is very pleased to announce its latest web commission, Currency, Currency, by internationally acclaimed Portuguese artist Pedro Barateiro. The project will be featured on the museum’s home page for the month of November. Remai Modern’s web commissions are curated by Gregory Burke, Executive Director & CEO, and Sandra Guimarães, Director of Programs & Chief Curator.
The work of Pedro Barateiro consists largely of critical reflections on narrative spaces, socio-political or historical. Using a variety of media—video, installation, photography, sculpture, painting, and performance—he creates generative frameworks and production areas. Materialized in the form of works of art, these spaces are characterized by their complexity, inherent discourse and enigmatic nature.
Barateiro’s newest video work, Currency, Currency, was created especially for Remai Modern’s website and features the artist’s distinctive golden pencils. Barateiro has been using these pencils to develop a specific language within his sculptural works, creating a series of projects over several years. Here, the glittering pencils are animated, and they oat and collide in empty darkness. Overlaid script appears and disappears, forming a poetic text that unfolds over the course of the video, along with a meditative soundscape, layered with bird song.
Currency, Currency deals with the formation and constant reshaping of a structure by internal and external forces, natural and mechanical. In this context, the artist uses the pencil as object and also as symbolic container; both as an immediate extension tool of the brain and as a device for creating a dynamic pattern or language.
“We’re proud to present this evocative work on our website,” said Burke. “Currency, Currency highlights the notion of speculative value in relation to the production of an art object. The concepts and issues that Barateiro addresses— language, repetition, distribution and connections between the mind, hand, and technology—are extremely relevant. This work is particularly thought-provoking as experienced online.”
About Pedro Barateiro
Pedro Barateiro (b. Almada, Portugal, 1979) is an artist, writer and performer based in Lisbon, Portugal. He studied art in Sweden, and has participated in numerous exhibitions, biennials and residencies around the world. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Parkour, Lisbon; Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; Kunsthalle Basel; Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto; MARCO – Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo; Pavilhão Branco – Museu da Cidade, Lisbon; and Spike Island, Bristol.
Barateiro’s work has been featured in international exhibitions, including the 29th Bienal de São Paulo; 16th Syndey Biennale; 5th Berlin Biennale; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; Firstsite, Colchester; nGbK, Berlin; Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp; SESC Pompéia, São Paulo; CRAC Alsace, Altkirch; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto; CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; ar/ge Kunst Gallery Museum, Bolzano; Le Plateau – Frac Île-de-France, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela.
About Remai Modern Web Commissions
In association with its pre-launch program, Remai Modern has been inviting artists to realize original projects exclusively for online viewing. On the first day of every month, work by a new artist appears on Remai Modern’s homepage. Past commissions are now accessible in the online archive. Through these commissions, the museum considers its website as an extension of its physical space and onsite program. Mobile and experimental, this online gallery allows for direct, personal encounters with art while connecting artists and audiences across the globe.
About Remai Modern
To open in 2017, Remai Modern is a visionary new art museum. The building, by leading Canadian architects KPMB, is at Saskatoon’s River Landing. Remai Modern, home to the world’s foremost collection of Picasso linocut prints, will offer transformative art experiences and innovative programming.
For further information, contact:
Sheila Robertson
Communications Manager
Ph +1 306 975-2242
srobertson@remaimodern.org
www.remaimodern.org