* Merry Christmas

The Room Number 6 wishes you a Merry Christmas.

Let this special night be filled with gifts, happy meals but most of all, with love!

Enjoy your Christmas Holidays with the ones that love you most!

* Madrid’s “OCULTOS”

Madrid offers a wide range of exhibitions, most of them revealing the new angles of photographic art. “Ocultos” is a good example of that: a photography exhibition dedicated to the back part of our body.
The “Fundación Canal” opens its doors from the 3rd October to the 6th January, with no admission fee, to any curious eye who wants to see the work of 67 celebrated photographers, exploring human bottoms in all shapes and sizes. The idea, as organisers say, is to show “the multiple artistic possibilities of the human body seen from behind". The photographers have portrayed in their works the part of the body that isn’t so common to be seen in the artistic field. We can appreciate through four small rooms various appealing pictures that proof that capturing a face isn’t everything in photography. The collection includes important names in the photographic world, such as Cartier-Bresson, Mapplethorpe, Man Ray, Lucien Clergue and the spaniards Joan Colom, Rafael Navarro, Ramón Masats, Isabel Muñoz, among others.
The name of the exhibition was inspired by the legendary private studies where art collectors secretly stored their “hottest” works.
A suggestion for those who enjoy appreciating different art works from the beginning of the XXth century until today, in a cosy gallery in the centre of Madrid.

* Centre Pompidou collection in Lisbon

The exhibition „Centre Pompidou novos Media” in Lisbon will be on exhibition until January in the “Museu do Chiado”. You will find 23 pieces from 19 artists from all over the world. It is a display about the story of television and it is split into four themes: “For an imaginary television”, “Search for identity”, “From monitor to installation” and “After-cinema”. You should expect a big exhibition because of all the international artists like Stan Douglas, Valie Export, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman or Pierre Huyghe but it will be over in 45 minutes. It is a small exhibition but a very entertaining and interesting one.
However, it is a precondition for everyone to inform themselves before visiting this exhibition, so that it will be quite easier to interpret every single piece. Indeed it is really worth seeing because of all the curious pieces and techniques like the figures from Tony Oursler, which have real faces beamed onto them and so look not only amazing but also real. The project “The third Memory” form Pièrre Huyghe, where he combines live TV footage of the original robbery with excerpts from the film „A dog day afternoon“ is also a wonderful example.
It is a great exhibition in general but particularly for those who study the science of media.

* A rainy day

I had been looking at our photograph for hours. It reminded me how happy we were together. I looked outside, through my window, and realised it had been a long time since the day I first saw you...

It was raining.

The rain kept me thinking about that day, that moment in the photograph. It was a day just like today. We had been sitting at the beach, with the rain pouring on our faces, feeling the cold breeze that was coming from the sea.

I really missed you.I had been trying to figure out how to let you go but I didn't seem able to do it. I held the photograph close to me and I held it tightly, like I was holding you in my arms.

The rain started to fall violently and, as I reached my window to close it, a sudden wind left it open. So, without a warning, our photograph, which I held so carefully, flew away with the wind.

We were gone.

Written by Vanessa Oliveira

* The kiss

I was looking at a blank canvas.

My inspiration had vanished! I had too much going on my mind.

How was I going to help my mother with her criminal charge?

This thought had been hunting me for weeks.

Today was the day.

I put my brushes aside and dressed myself. At 9:30 o'clock I was at 'The Poet' expecting Michael, the lawyer my friend Laura had recommended. Finally, at 10:00 o'clock, when I was thinking about leaving, he showed up.

"You're late" - I said.

There were no excuses or appologies.

He started talking about my mother's case and what the worst scenario could be, but his dark blue eyes kept observing me, distracting me.

Then we started talking about ourselves, putting my mother's charge aside, and seduced ourselves.

We were numbed!

I said I had to go. He said that he had found me and now he wouldn't let me go. I argued thar we had met eachother only for a few hours. He said it didn't matter.

"How long does it take to be in love?" he asked me.

I was speachless.

Then, without a warning, he grabbed my arm and kissed me.

It was raining and I left 'The Poet'.

"It had been love since the first moment". I had finally realised it.

And that answer dissolved with the rain.

Written by Vanessa Oliveira

* Odalisc

There I was, lost in that strange country, trying to run from the nightmare of the loss of my mother and all the bills to pay.
Back in France I had no inspiration, no money, no love... And here, in India, I started beeing protected by a monk, living in his palace, using all hisfortune and slaves; I was having the time of my life, he appreciated my work.
On one of those amazing nights I noticed one of the odaliscs was staring at me and the night after that and the next...
The next day I decided to call her and ask her name. “I don’t have a name” she said “I’m a slave”. Her eyes captured my attention from the first moment, and after this time I was still amazed by them. “I will call you Akino”, I said, she smiled at me and kissed me. We went to my room and she said: “ paint me” and started taking her clothes off. I felt more inspired than ever. She was laying on my bed looking at me over her shoulder.
I started painting her, all that green background and her skin tone...Perfect!
A few hours later it was done, I felt that that was my masterpiece, she looked at the painting and without saying a word left the room, that was the last time I saw her.

Written by Mariana Almeida

* My Life (so far) in a Mural

If one of these days I become a very important person, world wide respectedand admired I would like to have a mural to honour me instead of a statue.
In that mural there would be photos of my friends and I, my family and my dog, because they mean the world to me, my favourite artistic photos, paintings from “neo-classic”, “romantic”, “surrealism”, “hiper-realism” … painters, lyrics from my favourite songs, my favourite poems, and graffiti from the Portugal best writer ‘Odeith’ and my friends.
All together we can say that all my passions would be represented in that mural, but there are some that are missing like travelling, sports, cinema and theatre but that can not be represented in a mural…
Telling the story of my life is not interesting because only a few years ago have I discovered these passions that have coloured my life, this passion for ART, and knowing my passions you understand my life because I like to be alive and enjoy every minute. This idea grows stronger in my mind every day “a vida é umas ferias que a morte nos dá”.

Written by Mariana Almeida

* A Arte e Cultura no Império Russo nas colecções do Hermitage – de Pedro, o grande a Nicolau II

- The Decadence of the Romanov Dinasty at the Palácio da Ajuda

Around 600 pieces of the Hermitage Museum are presented in this unique exhibition in Lisbon. Walking into the Galeria D. Luís I of Palácio da Ajuda, we enter the luxurious era of the Russian czars. All the paintings, sculptures, costumes, jewellery and furniture are arranged in chronological order, with a colour for each period of reign.

The exhibition is unnecessarily divided in two, since the first part consists only of a banquet-set table filled with golden decorations and with the finest china – a scenario which shows the shocking reality of that time, when the decadent lifestyle of the emperors would contrast with the Russian people’s pitiable conditions (poverty, famine,…) – while the other one contains the great majority of the pieces exhibited.
Here, in the second part, the paintings in focus show us more about the Romanov emperors. The other objects, such as costumes, jewellery or furniture, allow us to picture the daily routine of the royal family in a more realistic way, which is not possible by merely admiring photographs or paintings.

The items that captivate our attention the most are, possibly, the sofa on which the family was photographed for the last time and the two sleighs: a little one used by the children and a bigger one used in formal ceremonies. These are the final items to be seen in the exhibition and leave the visitor with a strange impression of having visited a far back gone fairy tale.

Rated 4/5