Curator: João Fernandes
Production: Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto

Holidays in the Sun is a Sex Pistols song written in 1977. It contrasted the utopia of holidays and leisure with a world where the Berlin Wall still stood and where, like today, political and social problems illustrated the illusion of the problem-free life presented by tourism advertising in Western society. The world does not stop during holidays, despite the apparent suspension of time that characterises life during this time in comparison to the time spent at work. Newspapers continue to go to press, television continues to broadcast news and all of us, during our holidays, have been taken aback by events occurring in the world we thought we had left behind. Holidays are also a time for reflection. Some of the best books we ever read were read on holiday and we had some of our best ideas while on holiday.

In the contemporary world of artistic creation, we often find subjective testimony by an artist about the problems of the times in which we live. This does not mean it is political art. To label any form of artistic expression in this way is to ignore its specific nature. Paraphrasing Thomas Hirschhorn, who in turn paraphrased Godard, it is not a question of trying to make political art, but rather to work politically.

The Sex Pistols’ song is the starting point for an exhibition that brings together various national and international artists, in 2008, in the Algarve, paradise of tourism on the West Coast of Europe. The artists’ work will be installed away from conventional exhibition rooms, galleries, museums and art centres. They may appear at the airport, on the street, on a beach, in a square or at the roadside, in an old warehouse or in many other public places frequented by people visiting the Algarve in the summer 2008. The form of these projects will surprise and intrude in our daily lives in an unexpected way. Like the ice creams with which Cildo Meireles draws our attention to the problem of water on our planet and like Rogelio López Cuenca’s signs along public roads, the ‘objectuality’ of the works of art is transformed in situations which unexpectedly interrupt and change our expectations, showing something we would not normally expect to see in the places where we find those works of art. Such Art will invite all those who live in or are visiting the Algarve to discover or rediscover places which memory made singular. We will be surprised by how we will be able to identify these artistic expressions in everyday public places. In the Holidays in the Sun exhibition, the artists will interrogate places and situations associated with leisure and tourism in contemporary society, and the places where their work is exhibited will be transformed in the light of the change to their functions and characteristics, the outcome of a confrontation between the uniqueness of a work of art and the social role of the place where it is exhibited.

CILDO MEIRELES, CLAUDE LÉVÊQUE, FERNANDA FRAGATEIRO, JOÃO TABARRA, MIGUEL PALMA, ROGELIO LÓPEZ CUENCA, THOMAS HIRSCHHORN, TOBIAS REHBERGER, XANA

Useful information:
Albufeira - São Rafael beach - Xana
12 July, 9 August, 6 September at 16h00
Albufeira - Santa Eulália beaches - Xana
26 July, 23 August at 16h00 
Faro - Faro Airport - João Tabarra, Miguel Palma and Rogelio López Cuenca 
Faro - Mupis and Outdoors Circuit - Rogelio López Cuenca
Faro - Fábrica da Cerveja and Museu Municipal - Cildo Meireles
Loulé - Quinta da Fonte da Pipa - Claude Lévêque 
Loulé - D. José beach, Quarteira - Xana
5 July, 2 and 30 August at 16h00
Portimão - Antiga Lota (Old Fish Market) - Fernanda Fragateiro, Thomas Hirschhorn and Tobias Rehberger
Portimão - Rocha beach - Xana
28 June, 19 July, 16 August at 16h00

Fábrica da Cerveja
Faro Historic Center
Tuesday to Sunday from 17h00 to 24h00
Tel. + 351 289 897 400

Museu Municipal de Faro
Largo Afonso III, 14 - Faro Historic Center
Tuesday to Sunday from 17h00 to 24h00
Tel. + 351 289 897 400

Quinta da Fonte da Pipa
Rua Eça de Queiroz, Loulé
Tuesday to Sunday from 15h00 to 23h00; Saturday from 10h00 to 23h00
Tel. +351 289 400 811

Antiga Lota (Old Fish Market)
Zona Ribeirinha de Portimão
Tuesday from 14h30 to 18h00/ Wednesday to Sunday from 10h00 to 18h00
From 15 July: Tuesday from 19h30 to 23h00/ Wednesday to Sunday from 15h00 to 23h00
Tel. + 351 282 405 230 
Free entrance