Teixeira de Freitas Collection

Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas, Lisbon from collectorspace on Vimeo.

Julião Sarmento’s Alientos [Breaths] (2012) is a collection of fifty “empty” jars of different shapes and sizes, placed side-by side in an open cabinet. Each sealed jar is supposed to contain the breath of a contemporary artist, and carries the respective name-tag. The fifty names are selected from a group of artists included in a private art collection, and the work is gifted by the artist to the collector on the occasion of his 50th birthday. Alientos plays with the immateriality and ephemeral nature of its own medium, and questions a value system of artworks that is based on physical qualities and their permanence. The artist, who is also an art collector in his own right, highlights the difference between collecting names versus accumulating artworks versus “breathing the same air as the artist,” i.e. gaining direct access to the source of the ideas for the artworks.

The collector who is the inspiration for and the recipient of this artwork is Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas. Lisbon-based Teixeira de Freitas collaborated with curator Adriano Pedrosa for ten years when he started building a contemporary art collection that was focused on architecture as a main theme. Since concluding this phase, he has diverted his attention onto literature, acquiring artists’ books as well as text-based ephemera and archival documents. Related to his collecting activities, having been involved in public-private partnerships within the art context, Teixeira de Freitas has been a vocal activist on issues concerning the lack of regulation in the art market and the conflicts of interest in and around art institutions.

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Julião Sarmento (b. 1948, Lisbon) studied painting and architecture at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. Throughout his career, Sarmento has worked in a wide range of media: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, film, video, performance, sound and installation. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the world over the past four decades. Sarmento represented Portugal at the 46th Venice Biennale (1997), and was included in Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 (1987), the Venice Biennale (1980 and 2001), and the São Paulo Biennale (2002). The artist lives and works in Estoril.

Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas is a contemporary art collector and a lawyer based in Lisbon. Coleção Teixeira de Freitas is a contemporary art collection that focuses on works from the previous two decades and on emerging artists. The collection also includes a number of historical works from the 1960s and 1970s, which provide a historical background to the different themes and concepts covered by the collection. Teixeira de Freitas also built a drawing collection, which is currently deposited at the Museu Serralves, a public-private partnership in Porto.

Luiza Teixeira de Freitas is an independent curator based in Lisbon. Recent exhibitions include “El que camina al lado” (Travesia Cuatro, Madrid, 2016); “Without Knowing When the Dawn Will Come” (Galeria Silvia Cintra, Rio de Janeiro, 2016); “An Infinite Conversation” (Museu Berardo, Lisbon 2014); “Apestraction” by Damián Ortega (Freud Museum, London, 2013); “In Lines and Realignments” (Simon Lee Gallery, London, 2013); “The Exact Weight of Lightness” (Travesia Quatro, Madrid, 2012); “Like Tears in Rain” (Palácio das Artes, Porto, 2010); and “The Moon is an Arrant Thief” (David Roberts Art Foundation, London, 2010).

Image courtesy of the artist and Teixeira de Freitas Collection.