Evora, Portugal, June 19, 2021 -- The city of Évora in Portugal these days is the center of contemporary surrealist art, a wonderful UNESCO heritage location, which houses the paintings of Santiago Ribeiro and hundreds of other artists he has gathered around him. The event marks its first presence in this Alentejo metropolis this month, following the pandemic.

An international event
The initiative is from the company MatosCar, an automotive group present in the Portuguese cities of Guarda, Fundão, Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Évora and Beja, official representatives of 24 brands.


This time the exhibition will be permanent (until 11 July) because the entrepreneurial group has decided to buy the works that are about a dozen will be exhibited in the new facilities in Évora and will be able to be seen by many thousands of people.
A video that shows the surprising implications of Ribeiro's surrealism
The exhibition is accompanied by images from a video promoting Ribeiro's surrealist art made by the Sicilian poet A.S.A.S prize Vincenzo Calì, the journalist and curator art of Campania Annalina Grasso and the Roman actor Maurizio Bianucci. The video promotes the exhibition of the Portuguese artist, founder of the New Surrealism Now Movement, of global reach.

The video, which currently has more than 100,000 thousand views on instagram thanks to the persuasive and mysterious voice of the Italian actor Maurizio Bianucci who took part in important and successful series such as Suburra, in numerous theatrical representations and RAI fictions and who declaims the poem in the Italian version entitled "Profluvi" by Vincenzo Calì, while the English version "Flows" is played by Annalina Grasso, creator together with Calì of this cultural initiative which is enjoying success also abroad.

The video in fact frames the works of the international artist, through restless and alienating words, showing how people probably would be if they totally freed their unconscious and impulses: naked and blind, not really free, but lost; euphoric, not happy.

This initiative, which combines art, poetry and acting, questions people on the value of free will, on the will and on the true meaning of the word freedom.

Unconscious and will
Santiago's art was, is and could still be a vision of the minds of each one, especially in this historical moment, made up of lockdown, distance learning, physical (non-social) distancing that generate anxiety and stress in people. fear for the future, anguish.


What could be inside everyone's minds exhausted by restrictions and at the same time by the fear of contagion? A desire to get rid of the clothes of the decent citizen, of the civil, Christian, rational man, snubbing free will, and following only one's instinct, the dark side of oneself; confide.

Living in a society as the Marquis De Sade imagined and hoped for, where there can be no punishments or trials for evil deeds, as man follows what Nature creates and destroys.

However, the video implements what is called heterogenesis of puposes, that is, through "the vision of what could be if", it leads people to aspire to something else and to make them increasingly aware of the contradiction between necessity and good and, rediscovering the true foundation of the dignity and worth of us human beings, to be neither blind nor naked and wander in perennial uncertainty, but by appealing to the impersonal that is present in each person to overcome and overcome their anxieties and fears.
The sense of Ribeiro’s art
Art with the support of technology helps people to do it, even at a distance, showing them how similar they can be in this complicated moment and how the human mind is not actually reducible to a mere mechanism with algorithmic functioning on the basis of which they act without conscience. and discernment and them are reflected in the protagonists whether they are hominids or figures, in the brightly colored canvases by Ribeiro.

The hypothesis that the important choices depend on a person's conscious awareness, whether it is a neuronal process, not yet well specified, or something else, cannot be falsified, this is the basic message of the video dedicated to surrealism by Santaigo Ribeiro.

About Santiago Ribeiro
The Portuguese artist, born and living in Coimbra, has shown his artworks with great regularity in Portugal and in many other countries. Santiago, the mentor, and promoter of the largest exhibition of surrealism in the 21st century in the world, the International Surrealism Now, already has numerous presences around the planet. He is the driving force and the promoter of the international project "Surrealism Now", which started in 2010, organized by the Bissaya Barreto Foundation. Santiago Ribeiro has publicized and promoted his work on the internet, through social networks and blogs, thereby having received numerous invitations to exhibit his art in various parts of the globe."