Paulo Reis

Curator, co-director of DARDO magazine, and a promoter of culture, Pablo Reis died on April 23, 2011 at the Egas Moniz Hospital in Lisbon. Born on November 9, 1960, Reis resided in Lisbon where he directed the CARPE DIEM-Arte e Pesquisa art space, an institution dedicated to the production of exhibitions. Paulo Reis studied Social Communication and Art History and was an art theory and aesthetics professor at several universities. He was also co-founder of DARDO magazine, where he promoted exhibitions, books, conferences, and other initiatives geared toward building bridges between Brazil, Portugal, and Spain. But above all, Reis stood out for his ability to develop and present the human aspect in all of his projects, as he was a curator much loved and admired by all who ever worked with him. He approached knowledge like a Renaissance man, as he was able to add and combine several disciplines he learned throughout his life as result of his inquisitive nature. Paulo Reis stayed away from any technical aspects or the narrow approaches inherent to any specialization in order to embrace all philosophical, artistic, and scientific manifestations. Thus his desire to embrace the idea of the existence of artist in every person that Beuys proposed. Equally important to Reis was his unwavering desire to build bridges between cultures no matter how big the ocean that separated them; between Brazil, his place of birth, and Europe, the place he loved and where he worked. One of his initiatives was Parangolé, Fragments from the 90s in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, an exhibition I had the honor of curating with him. It was produced by the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid and included the participation of 150 artists, some of whom presented their works in the actual exhibition space, while some others participated with images of their works in the three publications created for the occasion. These publications became the main record in Europe of a comparative look at recent Brazilian and European art. Before that, in 2000, Reis produced another exhibition that approached these contexts. He was invited by Antonio Pinto Ribeiro to organize the show at the Centro Cultural Culturgest. The exhibition was entitled An Entire Ocean to Swim and to this day is still remembered with much affection by many. In recent years Paulo Reis was responsible for many exhibitions in Europe and Latin America. Among these, he organized the most recent edition of the great gathering of Brazilian galleries, Paralela 2010 in São Paulo; Fiat Flux at the Museo Unión Fenosa-Gas Natural in A Coruña (2009); Reason and Sensitivity (2005), in São Paulo; The Word and the Image, at the Fundación Luis Seoane in A Coruña; as well as a large number of personal exhibitions by contemporary artists. Paulo Reis was also artistic director at Casa d¿Os Dias da Água, associated curator at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. He was deputy editor at the RioArtes periodical, critic at the art magazine Machete, and reporter for the Jornal de Brasil and Folha de São Paulo. But above all the things he accomplished throughout his life, the persons that knew him will forever remember his ability to converse with life and with artists.