Shadows

 Over the years I've stumbled across some odd art exhibits (I always default to permanent catacombs above Budapest), and I did it again on last month's trip to Portugal. One my last full day in Coimbra I checked out a couple monasteries on the other side of the river, both of which I'll get around to discussing down the road. The second one I visited, which is the "new" monastery, was the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova. The Portuguese are not strong on signage under the best of circumstances, and so, typically, I wandered into the wrong door when I visited the new monastery. The door was shielded with some black cloth, which left the inside very dark, which seemed like a very unusual - or maybe not so unusual - monastery. As it turns out it was an extra space which was occasionally given over to exhibits, and in this case it was a series of artists which dealt with shadows. Once I figured out what the hell was going on, I decided to stay and enjoyed myself quite a bit. 

This particular one was very disturbing and oddly beautiful. At the end of the hallway a screen was set up, and on a loop there a video of a housing burning down. That was the entire performance.

I sat and watched this one for quite a bit. On the mismatched screens there were two hands flapping, and hanging down was a lightbulb that swung back and forth.  I felt the artist was channeling David Lynch.