Leonor Antunes: Villa, How To Use

Leonor Antunes (b. 1972, Lisbon) has lived and worked in Berlin since 2004. Over recent years, she has regularly exhibited her works in leading international museums and galleries. The current exhibition, held in Serralves Villa, offers a rare opportunity to view this artist’s work in Portugal, chosen and produced in a very specific context: the works have been specially designed for the Villa’s interior, reflecting the fact that the artist always strives to tailor her works to the surrounding architecture of the exhibition spaces.

Leonor Antunes took part in the “Squatters” exhibition, produced by the Serralves Foundation in 2001, in which she presented a sculpture which superimposed a new floor over the Villa’s original floor. In this new exhibition - “villa: how to use” - she returns to Serralves Villa to occupy the totality of its spaces, as well as the adjacent area of the Chapel.

Drawing upon the heritage of minimalist and conceptual art from the 1960s and 1970s, Leonor Antunes’ oeuvre has always reflected on the premise that the spectator should experience the work, in interaction with its exhibition space. The characteristics of the respective exhibition venues thus determine the form of her work, in interaction with the surrounding architecture, leading to absorption and transformation of the work’s presentational context. For this reason, many of Leonor Antunes’ works are initially ephemeral, irrespective of the solidity and durability of the materials she uses - which may range from pine wood to polished aluminium.

Over the last 10 years, Leonor Antunes’ work has almost always commenced with a process of meticulous observation, paying attention to the tiniest detail of the respective exhibition spaces; indeed she frequently replicates several of these spaces’ characteristics. In 2004, she moved to Berlin to attend an artistic residency in the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, and thus began new directions in her work that accentuated the relevance of a city undergoing profound transformation. She thereby began a process of discovering the city - starting with observation of many of its buildings - and thus furthered her knowledge of the history of 20th-century design and architecture. This investigation will serve as the basis for a series of future projects which will now gain visibility through this exhibition, “villa: how to use”.

Curator: Nuria Enguita Mayo