Teatro Anatómico | christian berst

christian berstart brut

Invited by the Oliva Art Center, João Sousa Cardoso built a unique vision of the Treger Saint Silvestre collection, one of the most important European collections of art brut, in an in situ creation where the dramatization of bodies, objects and presences dialogues with the tradition of theater.

Inspired by the Anatomical Theater in Padua, Italy - the first permanent anatomical theater in the world, inaugurated in 1595, an example of scientific progress in the study of anatomy and a model for the anatomical theaters of the main universities in Europe - which Goethe visited and admired during his trip to Italy, “Anatomical Theater” intends to dissect and reflect a complex, sinuous and organic collection, out of sync with the contemporary art field. At the same time, “Anatomical Theater” invites to a local experience of the senses that involves the bodies and the materiality of the images, at the time of the virtual economy. And, in a political gesture, to reflect on the cruelty capable of suspending the cycles of barbarism.

Scenography by André Sousa.

Centro de Arte Oliva

Artists

Albert Moser

This American artist, autistic, lived most of his life with his parents, before joining the New Jersey foster home where he still lives. Moser first gained recognition for his tinkered photographic panoramas, then for his psychedelic geometric designs. But whatever the medium, his work testifies to the same obsession with space. They report, in their own way, the vertigo through which he tries to find his place in the world. Exhibited in 2019 at the Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, his work is as well in the collections of Antoine de Galbert (France) and Treger Saint Silvestre (Portugal).

Miroslav Tichý

Trained in academic painting, Tichý secretly engaged in photography only in 1970. Obsessive, if not fetishistic, he photographs women surreptitiously with the camera he built. His blurry photographs, sometimes enhanced with a pen border, are part of an immutable process, to which he adhered until the 1990s. Discovered by Roman Buxbaum, he was soon supported by Harald Szeemann. In 2005, he received the discovery prize at the Rencontres d’Arles and was given a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou three years before his death. In 2019, he is again presented in Arles for the exhibition event, Photo brut.

Tomasz Machcinski

Tomasz Machciński (1942–2022), a war orphan and Polish laborer, dedicated 50 years of his life to creating over 22,000 photographic self-portraits. Ten years before Cindy Sherman, Machciński embarked on an intense quest for identity. Recently discovered, this monumental work has been acclaimed at the Rencontres d’Arles, Paris Photo, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the Independent Art Fair in New York.

According to the artist’s wishes and in agreement with the Machciński Foundation, only 2,500 photographs from the estate will eventually be available for sale.

Teatro Anatómico

contact @christianberst.com