© pedro portugal

2 MATCH FOR PPORTUGAL: Boxing Match -— Combustion — Indifference — Tattoo

 

Plato defined art as imitation of imitation. Pliny called it the shadow of a dream.

The city, according to Gordon Childe, presupposes metallurgy, but not metallurgy in the service of "rational" goals, "mastery over nature" or even warlike ends but rather metallurgy in the service of conspicuous (and sacred) consumption.

The monuments of each city are handed down from generation to generation as tributes to their forebears’ achievements. But they are not "a free gift from history". They are a debt that must be repaid through the erection of more monuments.

New cities - planned or conjured up by architects, reflect the aggressive masculine psychology of revolt against feminine principles of dependence and nature. Like Solness in Ibsen’s "Master Builder", the architect-artist sacrifices himself in order to deify his building — obliged by politics, erection and immortality.

After the Portuguese war in Africa (1962-1974) land mine crippled soldiers, who smoked too much, built hundreds of famous buildings made out of the matches used to light their cigarettes.

This maquette of Portugal's Pavilion (Expo’98, Lisbon) is a metaphor and a totem to maternal and overseas Portuguese colonialist adventure.