Lisbon Gates 1997

Curator: Well, these austere colored planes sure stir up a strange cocktail of emotions. Pedro Cabrita Reis’ site-specific installation, "Lisbon Gates," was created in 1997. What's your first reaction? Editor: It's strangely unsettling. These chromatic rectangles feel like doors, but leading where? Or maybe they're screens? The palette is so direct—almost primal, like encountering basic emotional registers. Red, then something bone white, and ending in the stark finality of pure black. I feel a kind of existential drama playing out. Curator: Reis is often considered a modernist and minimalist, playing with abstraction and architectural elements. The symbolism of these "gates," to me, feels incredibly loaded, considering Portugal’s history as a portal to the world during its age of exploration. There's this echoing absence and possibility within those simple geometric forms. Editor: "Gate" implies passage, but they also block your path, so you become more attuned to your position within that very moment. These gates, or rather their colored surfaces, bring us back to thinking on our sensory apparatus. I wonder, what does it really mean to 'see' these blocks of pure chromatic information, or better said, information deprived of 'realistic' contextual data? Curator: Precisely! And Reis sets these liminal thresholds within a space devoid of ornamentation, heightening the visual impact. Each colored plane feels almost iconic. He almost certainly evokes not just gates, but by extension, also the color-coded nature of Byzantine religious symbolism, the color spectrum in Renaissance painting, even the simplified planes from a Barnett Newman's color field painting. Editor: They're quite evocative! It makes me question what happens when we abstract spaces, strip away context and just offer these essential forms and color blocks. There’s also a bit of humour, perhaps inadvertent, with those very visible glass sheets floating at the top of each structure. This juxtaposition reveals the materiality of art-making at its bare bones. Curator: Yes, that self-referential quality definitely exists within modernism. Reis seems to be encouraging an introspective viewing experience where we ponder architecture, memory, and meaning. It becomes about feeling as much as thinking. Editor: Indeed. This journey to nowhere—these painted doors—lead somewhere deeply internal, a silent corridor through the landscape of self. A rather intriguing stroll into that realm, I might say! Curator: Very much agreed. "Lisbon Gates" becomes an unforgettable portal for self-exploration!