5 SHOWS is the new Artissima twice-monthly feature that recommends 5 exhibitions not to be missed in various European cities, chosen from the viewpoint of curators and directors of important institutions familiar with the local context. A different way to find guidance in the discovery of contemporary art across borders, with a personal and always up-to-date perspective.
The third focus is on Porto, with a selection by João Laia, artistic director of the Contemporary Art Department of the Porto Municipality.
Here are the 5 exhibitions currently on view he has chosen for our readers:
Rita Senra. Pedra que pariu
Sismógrafo
Up to 22.03.2025
I’ve known about the birthing stones for a long time, but only now have they crossed my path to help me shout out loud: Pedra que pariu!
Beyond the simplicity of the materials and gestures that make up the pieces presented are several layers of different states of emotion and consciousness.
► READ MORE
Tony Cokes. Testament E: MF.slow.cancel.2014
Batalha Centro de Cinema
Up to 16.02.2025
Batalha Centro de Cinema presents the first solo exhibition in Portugal by American artist Tony Cokes.
Awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2024, Cokes has presented his work in museums such as Haus der Kunst, MACRO and MACBA over the last few years. His films and installations propose a unique and sonically powerful visual semantics, based on texts and messages that reflect on capitalism, coloniality, consumption and other systems of power.
►READ MORE
ACLOC O’CLOCK
Culturgest Porto
Up to 01.05.2025
Uma Certa Falta de Coerência (A Certain Lack of Coherence) is an exhibition project founded in Porto in 2008, by artists André Sousa and Mauro Cerqueira. Occupying a vacant ground floor flat on Rua dos Caldeireiros, in the historic centre of the city, the project challenges Portuguese and foreign artists to occupy new works, the sequence of narrow and degraded rooms that the project has maintained in this state since the beginning.
► READ MORE
Musa paradisiaca. Harlequin
Galeria Quadrado Azul
Up to 29.03.2025
Harlequin, a solo exhibition by Musa paradisiaca, curated by Antonia Gaeta, celebrates the figure of the banal hero—tragicomic, vulnerable, and ingenious. Like the Harlequin, who balances between drama and survival, the exhibition weaves an environment that acknowledges fragility as strength and collaboration as a method.
► READ MORE
José Loureiro. O defeito perfeito
Galeria Fernando Santos
Fino al 15.03.2025
Regardless of whatever, everything remains as it ever was: swerving through a ravine late at night.
As for depilation, it should be slapdash, letting disheveled hairs emerge freely to desecrate the monotonous uniformity of smooth, shiny surfaces: the heat is more bearable that way.
Still, regardless of how thorough depilation may be, one hair or another may escape and persist. But let them be well aware, those escapees, that it will be only a matter of time before they are captured and swept away into some insalubrious, filthy corner.
► READ MORE
