In 2017 shairart renewed itself: its team, energy and strategy. We wanted to make cool collecting Contemporary Art and inspired by Walter Chrysler’s words: “Buy art because you like it and because it moves you, and because it enhances your life”, we added the appeal: Be a collector.
The fabulous space at Raio street was also renewed, starting with the neon letters on a steel plate that announces gallery shairart dst. We are only shairart and always dst. We took off with the decision to change, pursuing two objectives: a reinforcement of the service provided to the represented artists (close to 300, at this stage), with a clear focus on the creation and management of quality multimedia content and the affirmation of shairart as a space of proximity that values the creators and that understands Art in its society’s transforming potential; and a strong but realistic commercial strategy that seeks the project’s sustainability in its material and immaterial dimensions, that is, considering the intrinsic value that the project imputes to the city, to the art market and, why not, to dst group in their commitment to development through culture.
Art, in its dimensions of creation and collection, is a firm and Free way for us to make our life something extraordinary. And so it is. Therefore, we believed and, although rowing against the tide, we scheduled and fulfilled an extraordinary year. At gallery shairart dst only there were five exhibitions and 17 artists who passed by: Diogo Goes, Florisa Novo Rodrigues, R. Gritto, Luís Freitas, Francisco Ferro and Miguel Neves Oliveira (Be a Collector, March); Filipe Rodrigues (Present View, May); Ana Monteiro, Alejandro Casanova, Gustavo Fernandes, José Higuera, Jaume Mora, Manuel Rodrigues Almeida, Juan Domingues and Giorgios Kapsalakis (From the South, July); Alexandre Rola (Look Back, Go Ahead, September) and Rafa López (Nocturnos de la Ventana, November). Our exhibitions were all followed by beautiful catalogs, of which we are very proud. In the end, books are always the friends who never disappoint us and gives us free journeys to happy moments.
We supported, curatorially and commercially, exhibitions that shairart’ artists have organized at other spaces: Nuno Raminhos at the Vale do Ave’s Textile Museum (Ode aos Super-Heróis, February) and Ricardo de Campos at Cerveira’s Cultural Forum (Apropriação, Acumulação e Anulação, November). We covered the Filipe Rodrigues’s exhibition at Gondomar’s Municipal Auditorium (Emotional Memories, June) and Ana Pais Oliveira at Espinho’s Municipal Museum (Ar Livre, October). We supported Teresa Rego in her participation at the 57th Venice Art Biennial and coordinated, with Raúl Ferreira, IB-S and ILCH, by the dst group, the Arts, Humanities and Engineering project, a sculpture honoring Prof. Vítor Aguiar e Silva that we may always visit the at the Gualtar Pole of our University of Minho since October 20. In the UMinho Exec lounge we organized exhibitions by two artists: Luís Canário Rocha (As Cidades, July) and Raúl Ferreira (On the Wall, October) and we also took José Augusto Castro, R. Gritto and Filipe Rodrigues to the 2017 edition of Concreta (November).
There were Artist’s talks here and there and also at Braga’s Book Fair with Gustavo Fernandes, Ana Monteiro and Juan Domingues and 28 produced artist’s videos, the famous “shairart’ist”: Miguel Neves Oliveira, Florisa Novo Rodrigues, Paulo Moreira, Diogo Goes, Filipe Rodrigues, Teresa Rego, Cristina Troufa, Raquel Felgueiras, Luís Canário Rocha, Úrsula Blancas, Gil Maia, Giorgos Kapsalakis, Gustavo Fernandes, Juan Domingues, Ana Almeida Pinto, Alexandra de Pinho, Fátima Santos, Manuel Rodrigues Almeida, Ana Monteiro, Alexandre Rola, Pedro Figueiredo, Acácio Carvalho, Ana Pais Oliveira, R. Gritto, Ricardo de Campos, Rafa López, Zé Teibão and Joana Palha. We are not locked in geographies, nor languages, since shairart is global, of everyone and for everyone. RUA magazine was also shairart with eight outstanding talents: Manuel Rodrigues Almeida, Florisa Novo Rodrigues, Luís Canário Rocha, Miguel Neves Oliveira, Ana Monteiro, Henrique Lázaro, Zé Teibão, Ricardo de Campos.
