@ Galeria de Arte Ambulante

GALERIA de ARTE AMBULANTE – The Car Cultural Centre

Cerca do Convento do Espírito Santo, Loulé
Fri 12 NOV 19h00 / Sat 13 NOV 11h00

FREE ADMISSION 
Performance / M6
30% Visual Arts / 30% Mobility / 20% Job Insecurity / 20% Performance

Centro Cultural do Carro / CCC (Car Cultural Centre / CCC) is an artistic project which is both a performance and a visual arts exhibition.
Works of art are exhibited in an old beige Mercedes-Benz, distributed across the smallest interior spaces and the exterior of this outdated status symbol automobile.
It displays little known pieces by renowned artists side by side with works from local artists from the Algarve, which will be the basis of a poetic reflection on the insecurity of the art sector in the current context.

This performance establishes an in loco dialogue between the displayed art objects and the CCC visitors. In the precarity this vehicle carries we will be exploring concepts such as value, sensitivity and work of art. This traveling art event starts out as an opportunity to contextualize forgotten, homemade or halfbaked works, but it can turn out to be an auction, or a carboot sale, depending on how you value them.


Artistic direction, curatorship and performance: Galeria de Arte Ambulante
Works by guest artists: Andrea Brandão, Ana Teresa Vicente, Tiago Fróis, Hugo Canoilas, João Ferro Martins, Sara & André, Isabel Simões, Ana Rita António, Francisco Vidal, João Bento, Joana Escoval, Tiago Baptista, Fernando Ribeiro, Patrícia Almeida and local artists.
Stage assistant: Andresa Soares
Technical support: David Leitão
Exhibition assembly: Galeria de Arte Ambulante
Production: Cotão – Associação Cultural
Financed by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direcção-Geral das Artes
Institutional Partnership: Programa Garantir Cultura – Entidades Artísticas, República Portuguesa / Ministério da Cultura
Support: Oficinas do Convento, Alma d’Arame


Galeria de Arte Ambulante (GAA) is the brainchild of Tiago Gandra and Daniel V. Melim and its purpose is to re-signify objects from our material culture and place them critically in performative dialogue with the present time.
It premiered officially at the Flea Market, during the economical crisis of 2011. In the following years it was in several locations and independent publisher markets in Lisbon. Among their works we highlight: FMI and Pintura Bio, artistic interventions in previously used canvases discarded by art students; Biblioteca Popular (Popular Library), where books were dipped in paint and then exhibited as sculptures with new hand-painted covers and made up titles; Feitiços Políticos (Political Spells), flyers handed out at the subway exits containing magical spells from The Book of St. Cyprian adapted to the political situation; A Descalça (The Barefooted), where Portuguese street cobblestones were painted as alternative souvenirs of Lisbon, each stone representing a building in the city that stands between chronic abandonment and real estate speculation.

Daniel V. Melim (b. 1982, Coimbra) was a finalist for the EDP New Artists Award 2007, won the Fidelidade Mundial Young Painters Award (2011) and shortlister of the 100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson, 2014). He worked for several years with the Educational Service of CAMJAP (now Colecção Moderna). He graduated in Fine Arts  – Painting from FBAUL (2006) and has a MA in Applied Anthropology and Community and Youth Work from Goldsmiths College, London (2016), under a Gulbenkian grant. With works in public and private collections, he has worked both in Portugal and abroad. His recent projects include: sete estrelo (solo exhibition – Monitor, Lisbon, 2020), Creative (un)makings: disruptions in art / archaeology (Museu Internacional de Escultura Contemporânea, Stº. Tirso, 2020), opening performance Puxada/Gambiarra, solo exhibition and residency (Anozero’19 – Bienal de Coimbra) performance nós desta árvore (Museu de Arte Sacra do Funchal, 2019), chão de orações (MUDAS – Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Madeira, 2016), só cabeças (Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil 2016), da boa morte (Luiz Fernando Landeiro Gallery, Salvador, 2015).

Tiago Gandra (b. Lisbon, 1979) graduated in Fine Arts from ESAD.CR (2003) and a MA in Printmaking from Camberwell College of Arts, with which we won the Birgit Skiold Award (2005). In Lisbon he won the award Artes Plásticas Jovens Criadores (2006). During and after his academic training he had workshops and training with choreographers and directors such as Christiane Jatahy, Federico Leon, Idoia Zabaleta, Vera Mantero, João Fiadeiro, Cláudia Dias, Miguel Moreira. He works regularly in Ana Borralho & João Galante productions as artistic and rehearsal assistant, and also as performer, touring at home and abroad with productions that work specifically with local communities such as Atlas (2012-21), Gatilho da Felicidade (2017-20) and Romance Familiar (2019-20). As a performer he was in Último Slow by Rui Catalão, the film C’est Ça L’Amour by Claire Burger (2018) and the play Daniel Faria by Pablo Fidalgo Lareo (2017). His artistic practice also extends to set design, light design, and installation. Most notable among these are Reindeer Age#1 by Bernardo Chatillon (2021), Por um lado… (2021), Criarei Apenas… by Carlos M. Oliveira (2019), and Cocoon by Matthieu Ehrlacher (2017-21). He is a member of Apnea Colectiva.