CAP or C.A.P.... these are the letters to fix if the reader ever goes to Coimbra and wants to speak “under the pretext of art” with people from the “arts”. Arts of action, fine arts, malas-arts of freedom: of encounter with oneself. And with the others. In fact, “individuality is a relationship that addresses itself” (oh! Kierkegaard my friend), and the others, how can you find them if not in yourself?
But this meeting has very little to do with the (renowned) Fine Arts, Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, Music, Cinema, etc... Rossellini's recent word in Lisbon (which should be framed by foolish movie makers... but it's not, it's not going to be) applies well to all these entertainments: “I really think that the cinema doesn't matter today!” Yeah, no. Not the painting, not etc.
What matters is not all this stupidity of techniques and alienation, labyrinthically pre-constituted and pre-established beauty; this path for all Academies (and for the market economy, of course). What matters is this discovery, which can only be achieved through a total exercise of body and spirit, hands and head.
This exercise is the daily practice of CAP. Yes the CAP there in Coimbra on Rua Castro Matoso, right in front of Clépsidra. The reader goes there and drink coffee at Clépsidra and ask. Ask, because “they” don't have hours. Ask for Dixo, or Túlia Saldanha. Or for Alberto Carneiro, who may have come from Porto that day. Either by Armando Azevedo, if the “troop” has run out, or by José Casimiro, Teresa Loff, and some others. Sometimes I jump in there too. Ask, and don't expect anything well-defined. Don't expect to go to see an exhibition or listen to a well-tuned concert — because, in short, all of this can happen... or maybe, simply, you'll talk for a bit, and in the evening eat a snack at Túlia's house. Or maybe... who knows? You go to the CAP to practice with brushes and colored pencils. Remember when I was a “kid”. Did you paint things too? ... And now? You are certainly not very happy with this history of gasoline and the rest: why not then try to regain that time of innocence and strength? And notice that this may not be running away from problems, maybe you will face them later with new strength. For the rest. Are you sure that, in your daily life, you are not precisely running away from problems?
Well, for your peace of mind, I must tell you that the CAP is a reputable institution, it has Gulbenkian grants and everything. And I'll even tell you (in secret) what the letters CAP mean:
Plastic Arts Circle. “Plastic Arts”? Forget it, it's an old and system designation.
But words don't bite, the system does, but we can (must) defend ourselves. That's what CAP's “plastics” are trying to do. However, in this defense story I suggest one more thing to you, remember Napoleon: “Only the offensive leads to victory.”
In the photographs you can see the people at CAP. To paint. In a group, or individually. In great freedom. It was a total painting session: they ended up painting themselves. It can also happen. The session (the event, the “happening”, the “performing art”... whatever you want to call it) was called “Guerra das Tintas”. On January 17 there will be (or has already been) an offer, “under the pretext of art”. It is an idea and an invitation from Robert Filliou. And mine and CAP's too.
In one of his essays, Edgar Morin refers to people and classes that subsist on diligently gnawing “a bone from the past”. This attitude is more frequent than one might imagine, or simply... say. Because the past stalks us at every door of the present, it comes with unprecedented news as well as the redundant security of proven knowledge. One of the tricks of the past is to assert that the modern one was, exaggeratedly it was, and now what is necessary is to re-establish the balance. Now modern is exaggeration by definition, and I'm already thinking about mastering the visual arts. Sade (brilliantly betrayed by Pasolini) would say that exaggeration justifies everything...
The exaggeration. For example, to live in Coimbra, to be from Coimbra, “our city” and to dare a (visual) activity that exceeds all measures (of the City, of the street) returning people to their lost dimension (to the Lost Paradise)... to the Party — this is the example of total exaggeration, of clear modernity. A unique opportunity, perhaps impossible to repeat so soon, because here too it was necessary to bring together highly contradictory factors: a power contaminated by the poetics of these people, and these people (perhaps a single person) also contaminated by the countercultural hope that is all Poetry, which is to sing like Camões. “we are deaf and hardened..” immersed only in “the taste of greed and rudeness/From Hua austera, erased and vile sadness”.
An exaggeration. An exaggeration to bring together in the same function the children painting on the street and the Philharmonic Band of the Headquarters of the Military Region of the Center; Folkloric Ranches here and there, the Anar-Band of Porto and the “Luis Vaz” (which ends by evoking Camões's “Lira Destemperada”); the C.I.T.A.C. and the Casa da Comédia; hooded marches and the door always open (at Círculo Sede) for reflection, for conviviality, for the rare body art actions that were even carried out now in this country...
To understand how this is possible, it would be necessary, first of all, to take a course about Coimbra, a city where the class struggle in permanent upheaval is directly cultural, but with a pundonor and a panache that are not only university students. It would be necessary to pay careful attention to this phenomenon, which is almost unique in Portugal in its kind: the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra. It is the only “artistic society” in this country that maintains a work-shop spirit, which was not possible to achieve either in Lisbon, for example, the S.N.B.A.; or in Porto, such as the Cooperative “A Árvore”. It would be necessary to chronicle the many past activities of this Circle, from the collective exhibition “Coimbra Nossa Deles” to the “Aniversário da Arte”; the Free Courses, guided mainly by teachers from the E.S.B.A. of Porto. Ângelo de Sousa, João Dixo, Alberto Carneiro, etc. These precedents will explain, in part, the success of the initiative, but it is necessary to go further:
Who made those magnificent “Street Art” slides? There is always someone to discover in an “open” work; and as our friends from Coimbra say, ART can be LIFE.
Ernesto de Sousa