02/07/2023, 2:00 pm,

Pedro Barateiro, My body, this paper, this fire

, Kunsthalle Münster

In the context of the exhibition opening Crying in Public will Pedro Barateiro perform My body, this paper, this fire. His performance departs from an event—the student demonstration of November 24, 1994, in front of the Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon, against university fees—as the starting point of a narrative that deals with the role of the individual and the collective. The work focuses on the idea of touch and care between people as a way of conducting the viewers through possible dystopian scenarios. A particular event of Portugal’s recent history, the demonstration was one of the most violent since the fall of the fascist regime in 1974. During the performance, Barateiro, along with a second performer, moves through the audience in a slow and firm embrace. With the embrace and the title, the artist addresses both violent and traumatic experiences such as powerlessness, helplessness or fear, which an entire generation experienced through police violence during the demonstrations. At the same time, it evokes longings for community and feelings of solidarity. Particularly during the pandemic, themes like caring, loneliness, and closeness took on new meaning. Barateiro explores the permeability of these ambivalent feelings and experiences of society in order to negotiate, in the spirit of Foucault – to whom the title of the work alludes – where madness ends and civilization begins.

Pedro Barateiro (born 1979 in Almada, Portugal) works in a variety of media, including sculpture, film, performance, writing and drawing. His work focuses on the deconstruction of Western binary narratives. He had solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Kunsthalle Lissabon, REDCAT in Los Angeles, Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon, among many others. He has participated in group exhibitions such as the 13th Sharjah Biennial, the 29th São Paulo Biennial, the 16th Biennale of Sydney and the 5th Berlin Biennale. His performances have been presented at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, ZHdK in Zurich, Théâtre de la Ville, L'école nationale supérieure des beaux-arts and Fondation Ricard in Paris. Barateiro organises events and exhibitions at Spirit Shop, a space founded by him