International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture

A virtual journey through a diverse set of outdoor sculptures scattered throughout the city of Santo Tirso

International Museum of Contemporary SculptureISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Santo Tirso's International Museum Of Contemporary SculptureISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Santo Tirso International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture

The International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture (MIEC_ST) was created in a joint initiative between the Portuguese sculptor Alberto Carneiro and Santo Tirso's Municipal Council, in 1991, although Alberto Carneiro refers that "it all began in 1987, when Mayor Joaquim Couto asked me to make a sculpture for one of the Santo Tirso squares". A short time later, after being requested for a second piece, Alberto Carneiro suggested to the city Mayor that "an important museum of contemporary sculpture could be created in the town, through ten biennial symposia featuring Portuguese and foreign guest artists along a twenty-year period". Alberto Carneiro's vision was soon implemented, with the first of those symposia being held in 1991. For the third edition, Alberto Carneiro invited Gerard Xuriguera, a French art critic, to be in charge of selecting the foreign sculptors, whereas himself would choose the Portuguese artists. Set up in 1996, MIEC_ST officially opened its symbolic doors in 1997, after the 4th International Sculpture Symposium. After ten symposia and twenty-seven years later, MIEC_ST is now comprised by fifty-four sculptures, represented by fifty-three distinct artists, distributed all across town.

Reinhard Klessinger // "The Nature Of Stone"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The Nature Of Stone 2 (1991) by Reinhard KlessingerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The Nature Of Stone

The sculpture, made by Reinhard Klessinger, in 1991, was constructed for the very first International Sculpture Symposium. The materials used in the creation of this piece consist of granite, iron and glass.

The Nature Of Stone (1991) by Reinhard KlessingerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The sculpture is consistent with Klessinger’s previous work, encouraging the interaction between contrasting materials.

The Nature Of Stone (1991) by Reinhard KlessingerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

These local elements of ancestral resonances establish a complex relationship and generate a particular environment, prone to a symbolic experience of space.

The Nature Of Stone (1991) by Reinhard KlessingerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The sculpture resembles initiation circles of prehistoric cromlechs, where rough menhirs stand upright in circles, for the worship of stars and nature.

The Nature Of Stone (1991) by Reinhard KlessingerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

By opposing the rough brutality of some materials to the weightless delicacy of others, it creates an atmosphere reminiscent of religious rituals and tribal gatherings.

Josep Maria Camí // "Fern"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Fern (1997) by Josep Maria CamíISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Fern

The sculpture, made by Josep Maria Camí, in 1997, was constructed for the fourth International Sculpture Symposium. Granite was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Fern (1997) by Josep Maria CamíISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Josep María Camí’s sculptural discourse is permeated by certain aspects of archetypical primitivism, further underlined by the presence of archaeological and ancestral signs.

Fern (1997) by Josep Maria CamíISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Camí problematises the relationship between the naturalistic references of the figurative world and the abstract world of pure geometry.

The works of Camí, including the presented sculpture, also allow for an organic reading of fierce, unruly rhythms, as well as vestiges or fragments of texturally course, rough objects.

Fern (1997) by Josep Maria CamíISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The sculpture presents itself as a long, slightly curved cone, made up of four sections, that resembles conches and animal and hunting horns, ultimately alluding to archaic sculptural shapes.

Paul Van Hoeydonck // "Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout (1997) by Paul Van HoeydonckISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout

The sculpture, made by Paul Van Hoeydonck, in 1997, was constructed for the fourth International Sculpture Symposium. Granite was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout (1997) by Paul Van HoeydonckISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Author of a multifaceted oeuvre, Hoeydonck has always been concerned with the complex relationship between man and technology, wondering about our capacity for imagining the cities of the future.

Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout (1997) by Paul Van HoeydonckISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The sculpture shows a schematic alien, whose funny features underline the playful nature of the piece.

Le Nom D’un Fou Se Trouve Partout (1997) by Paul Van HoeydonckISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

An astonishing geometric creature makes us think of different life forms which, though natural, may call other age-old cultures to mind, in a play of time and fiction.

Mark Brusse // "The Guardian Of The Sleeping Stone"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The Guardian Of The Sleeping Stone (1999) by Mark BrusseISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The Guardian Of The Sleeping Stone

The sculpture, made by Mark Brusse, in 1999, was constructed for the fifth International Sculpture Symposium. Granite was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

The Guardian Of The Sleeping Stone (1999) by Mark BrusseISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Mark Brusse is constantly looking for sources of inspiration by exploring the distinctive features of cultures and locations. In Brusse’s artworks, meaning is found way beyond the obvious.

With a pair of shallow slits, resembling closed eyelids, and two rudimentary nostrils on the granite surface, the stone has been transformed into a creature who needs to be protected in its sleep.

The Guardian Of The Sleeping Stone (1999) by Mark BrusseISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Regarding the figure of the monkey present in the sculpture, Brusse explains that "I wanted that my stone, who was sleeping, had a guardian, and the guardian is the wise monkey sitting in his house".

This guarding monkey is the central figure, ignoring the bustle in the park, watching us from its vantage point and demanding silence with a gesture filled with irony and humour.

Peter Klasen // "Untitled"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Untitled (2004) by Peter KlasenISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Untitled

The sculpture, made by Peter Klasen, in 2004, was constructed for the eighth International Sculpture Symposium. The materials used in the creation of this piece consist of iron and concrete.

Untitled (2004) by Peter KlasenISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Peter Klasen has developed a personal, flexible discourse throughout his career, reinterpreting and reformulating modern urban and social iconography according to the aesthetic tradition of Pop Art.

Untitled (2004) by Peter KlasenISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

In this piece, Klasen adopted some Pop Art strategies: oversized daily objects are taken out of their contexts, and new relations of scale turn them into veritable icons.

Untitled (2004) by Peter KlasenISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Although some details of the sculpture resemble mechanical objects or parts of an electronic device, we are confronted with an artefact whose strange spatial design is both alluring and electrifying.

Untitled (2004) by Peter KlasenISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Two parts, one heavy and earthbound, the other ethereal, colourful and delicate, trace an arc looking like an example of childish architecture or a gigantic toy construction block.

Leopoldo Maler // "Diagonally Correct"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Diagonally Correct (2004) by Leopoldo MalerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Diagonally Correct

The sculpture, made by Leopoldo Maler, in 2004, was constructed for the eighth International Sculpture Symposium. Concrete was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Diagonally Correct (2004) by Leopoldo MalerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

"Diagonally Correct" develops from a partially buried rectangular figure, divided into two sections by a winding slit. It is Maler’s first non figurative, monumental sculpture.

Diagonally Correct (2004) by Leopoldo MalerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The weight of the sculpture is counterbalanced not only by its graceful shapes, but by the vivacious combination of colours livening up the environment.

Diagonally Correct (2004) by Leopoldo MalerISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Maler revealed that, after he had done the sculpture, he discovered that "the work is cut into two parts and one of the parts has the shape of an "S", which may be a symbol of Santo Tirso".

Jacques Villeglé // "Cube"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Cube (2012) by Jacques VillegléISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Cube

The sculpture, made by Jacques Villeglé, in 2012, was constructed for the ninth International Sculpture Symposium. The materials used in the creation of this piece consist of tile and concrete.

Cube (2012) by Jacques VillegléISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

A keen observer of graphic and typographic signs, Villeglé started to create, in 1969, a “socio-political alphabet”.

Cube (2012) by Jacques VillegléISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Cube (2012) by Jacques VillegléISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The alphabet, represented in the sculpture, is made up of political, religious and currency symbols instead of letters, which he has turned into the subject matter of his paintings and sculptures.

Cube (2012) by Jacques VillegléISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Philippe Perrin // "Razorblade"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Razorblade (2012) by Philippe PerrinISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Razorblade

The sculpture, made by Philippe Perrin, in 2012, was constructed for the ninth International Sculpture Symposium. Stainless steel was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Razorblade (2012) by Philippe PerrinISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Philippe Perrin’s selection of subject matter follows a very particular criteria. The objects chosen by the artist usually include instruments connoted with violence and vandalism, as well as religion.

Razorblade (2012) by Philippe PerrinISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Perrin is particularly well-known for his objects of gigantic proportions — mostly guns, but also pocket knives, razorblades, rosaries, rings and barbed-wire crowns.

Razorblade (2012) by Philippe PerrinISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

"Razorblade" echoes some of Pop sculpture’s aesthetic options in the 1960's, in which trivial household objects are monumentalised through scale enlargement, in order to become oddly seductive icons.

Denis Monfleur // "Le Porteur De Vide"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Le Porteur De Vide (2015) by Denis MonfleurISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Le Porteur De Vide

The sculpture, made by Denis Monfleur, in 2015, was constructed for the tenth (and last) International Sculpture Symposium. Granite was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Le Porteur De Vide (2015) by Denis MonfleurISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Denis Monfleur is one of the few artists who has kept alive the ancestral practice of subtractive sculpting, i.e., direct carving to remove unwanted material.

Le Porteur De Vide (2015) by Denis MonfleurISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Monfleur prefers hard materials like granite and basalt to produce either monumental or smaller sculptures. He has managed to build up a distinctive identity through the way in which he roughs out, chisels and models his materials.

Le Porteur De Vide (2015) by Denis MonfleurISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

The plastic qualities of the unfinished form and the suggested gesture stress the need for the viewer’s active participation in constructing the piece´s meaning and value.

Pierre Marie Lejeune // "Piège À Ciel"ISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Piège À Ciel (2015) by Pierre Marie LejeuneISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Piège À Ciel

The sculpture, made by Pierre Marie Lejeune, in 2015, was constructed for the tenth (and last) International Sculpture Symposium. Stainless steel was the sole material used in the creation of this piece.

Piège À Ciel (2015) by Pierre Marie LejeuneISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Defining himself as a sculptor-draughtsman, Pierre Marie Lejeune has developed a repertoire of forms which resemble the characters of an imaginary alphabet in permanent progress.

Piège À Ciel (2015) by Pierre Marie LejeuneISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

Lejeune media of choice include metal (steel, stainless steel and brass), glass, mirror, water and light, which he prefers to use in their natural states, refraining from drastic intervention.

Piège À Ciel (2015) by Pierre Marie LejeuneISCAP - Porto Accounting and Business School

"Piège À Ciel" is a rigorous and refined piece which develops an intimate relationship with its environment through its reflections in the mirror-finish surfaces.

Credits: Story

This project was developed by both students and professors of the MA in Intercultural Studies for Business at ISCAP (Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto) and CEI (Centro de Estudos Interculturais) in association with MIEC_ST (Museu Internacional de Escultura Contemporânea de Santo Tirso) and Santo Tirso Municipal Council.

Project coordinator: Sara Pascoal

Teachers: Laura Tallone, Marco Furtado, Sandra Ribeiro

Students: Hugo Costa (project developer), Alexandra Mechsheryakova, Ana Filipa Lopes, Diana Fernandes, Diana Kruma, Goreti Araújo, José Pereira, Luísa Silva, Sara Barros, Tiago Gonçalves e Vera Vieira

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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