Abecedário — AR.CO — Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual

Drawing

Understood as the central mode of artistic exercise and training (and for that reason, the place of visual thinking par excellence), Drawing is not just another area of practice, but the central subject in Ar.Co’s programs. Occasionally or systematically, all the departments will make use of this complement of complements. The training activity in Drawing begins immediately in 1973 with an “Introduction do Drawing” (Lima de Freitas and Francisco Lopes Aquino). Simultaneously, Manuel Costa Cabral and Eduardo Trigo de Sousa, respectively, lead the practical and theoretical parts of “2 Dimensions”, integrated in Ar.Co’s Basic Training Course in Design. Manuel Costa Cabral will become the face of Drawing in the following years, including when in 1976/77, with João Hogan (Painting) and Eduardo Nery (Colour Theory), this area integrates the Fine Arts program (that also includes workshop sessions in wood, plaster and clay, as well as theory sessions). Graça Costa Cabral, José Mouga, Rogério Ribeiro, Rui Aço, Ana Leonor and Rui Sanches will join the pedagogical team, along with special guests. In 1983/84 Ana Leonor directs the department, maintaining the collaboration of Rui Aço and Rui Sanches and adding Luís França and Vasco Eloy. Rui Aço is the new Head in 1984/85 and adds Inês Amado to the group of collaborators. In the two following academic years (1986/87 and 1987/88) Ana Leonor becomes once more Head of Drawing, having in her list of collaborators Verónica Nel, Luís Ançã, Pedro Calapez, Pedro Saraiva and Miguel Gaspar. The responsibility for the Drawing department in 1988/89 belongs to Pedro Calapez, who expands and diversifies the curriculum, introducing Drawing for Illustration, Figure Drawing, the Open Live Model Drawing Studio and the Open Drawing Studio. Some of the former teachers remain, including Pedro Calapez himself. Cristina Basto, António Cerveira Pinto and a new generation of teachers, trained in the Escola de Belas-Artes (Lisbon Fine Arts School) and who are primarily practitioners, are invited (António Marques, Miguel Branco, Patrícia Garrido, Maria João Salema and Gil Heitor Cortesão). In the following years names such as Rosa Almeida, António Correia, João Queiroz, Manuel Botelho, Marta Wengorovius and Rui Sanches are added to the teaching body. The work undertaken in Level I between 1990 and 1993 (with the team João Queiroz/Miguel Branco) becomes important for shaping the department’s future pedagogical guidelines: lessons are composed of drawing exercises followed by a more “theoretical” guidance and student projects in areas as diverse as video, photography, installation, performing arts or painting are accompanied by the teachers. Drawing is considered in its conceptual and project-based dimension, its experimental vocation, following to a certain extent the school’s initial tradition. On the school’s 20th anniversary, in 1993, the Drawing program already includes, besides the Introduction, Levels I and II, as well as the possibility of a fourth year in the Advanced Course of Visual Arts or Individual Project. In 1993/94 (and until 2008/09) Miguel Branco is the new Head of Drawing (sharing that responsibility with Pedro Calapez between 1998 and 2000, at the same time that the fusion between the Drawing and the Painting departments begins). The management of the department is based on the understanding of the subject as a “broad field” by nature, which touches all the other artistic areas. That dimension influences the character of all the department’s courses. The department does not promote a specific aesthetic or ideological guidance but rather tries to encourage a multiplicity of genres, typologies and different historical approaches. Specific courses of a technical nature are created, while others develop specific ways of drawing. Among these, the Intensive Drawing Course, created in 1994 and active for the four following years, stands out. Initially centred in the practice of outline drawing, it is structured around exercises with a growing level of difficulty In time, groups and typologies of exercises drawn from this experience will be adapted to various other course subjects and levels in the department. A few of the previous collaborations are maintained and new ones are progressively added (Carlos Augusto Ribeiro, Teresa Carrington, Philip Cabau, João Catarino, Berta Ehrlich, Rosário Rebello de Andrade, António Poppe, Armanda Duarte, Ângelo Encarnação, Jorge Nesbitt, Frederica Duarte, Paulo Brighenti, Rui Moreira, Gabriela Albergaria, Thierry Simões, André Almeida e Sousa, João Miguéis and Marcelo Costa). Furthermore, a new strategy is developed for the integration of drawing in the curricula of all departments, with the creation of specific programs for some of them, such as Ceramics and Jewellery. A great variety of forms of Drawing/Painting practice are introduced, exploring the dimensions of training, preparation, concentration, experimentation, and performance inherent to these two disciplines/subjects. At the same time, workshops are organised from 2006/2007 using the authorship experience of guests and the testimony of their personal approach to the practice of Drawing (“Creators’ Drawing”, with Gaëtan, Francisco Tropa, João Queiroz, Jorge Martins, Pedro Proença, Pedro Sousa Vieira and Rui Sanches; Ângelo de Sousa, Rui Chafes, Rui Vasconcelos, Bruno Pacheco, Gustavo Sumpta, João Fiadeiro, Pedro Paixão, Francisca Carvalho, Miguel Ângelo Rocha, Pedro Tropa and Luísa Cunha will join later on). Training units are developed based specifically and in a specialized way in techniques and/or themes traditionally associated to Drawing/Painting (printing, gouache, watercolour, “Surrounding the Portrait”, “The measurements of the Body”, “Painting Skin Colour”). The Drawing/Painting department programs not only its own regular courses, Night courses and Saturdays, but also the various training modes that take the form of studios, courses or workshops, for young people or adults, inside and outside the school, independently or in collaboration with other Ar.Co departments. In 2008/09 the departments of Drawing and Painting separate once more, with Paulo Brighenti as Head of Drawing and Miguel Branco as Head of Painting. The specific programming for partnerships and external collaborations progresses and grows, requiring extra additions to the pedagogical team: some of the most prominent collaboration programs include the Associação Viver a Ciência (Living Science Foundation, developed at IPO – Instituto Português de Oncologia by Angelo Encarnação), Culturgest and the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência. In 2012/13 Drawing and Painting become once more one department (under the responsibility of Marcelo Costa and Paulo Brighenti). In 2014, Miguel Branco and Marcelo Costa will share the responsability of the new double department and in February 2019 Marcelo Costa will become the sole responsible for Drawing/Painting. With the move to the new Xabregas headquarters, attention is focused on the nature and rhythms proper to both the Full Programme units and Continuing Education programs. Levels 1 and 2 of the Full Programme and Evening Courses tend to benefit with the higher level of interaction among departments and the development of topical programs organized with outside entities. In Level 3, already previously located in Almada, training will further emphasize questions of content, as the year is regarded both as the closing of a cycle and, simultaneously, a preparatory stage for students wishing to further develop their studies in the Advanced Courses or Individual Projects.

Drawing workshop, Introduction level, with Manuel Costa Cabral, Ar.Co, Lisbon, 1978-79.
Drawing by Jorge Queiroz at the exhibition "Scholarship students 89-90", Bilbioteca Nacional, Lisbon. 1990.
Drawing class with Rui Moreira, 2007.
Drawing class with João Catarino, 2006.
Drawing class with António Poppe, Ar.Co, Lisbon, 2008.
Artist's Drawing Workshop with Rui Chafes, 2008.
Drawing workshop "In transit (opportnistic drawing)", with João Miguéis, Ar.Co, Lisbon, 2011.
Workshop-performance with Ana Jotta, Marcelo Costa and students. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, 2013
Live model class (Giants) with António Marques, Ar.Co, Lisbon, 2014.
"Drawing in Space" Workshop. Miguel Branco's class. 2014.
Drawing/Painting Lab - Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, Lisbon, 2014.
Live drawing model class with Filipe Faísca (and bodywear specially conceived for the occasion). Model: Rita Costa. Ar.Co Lisbon, 2015.
Exercise for Level 2 of Drawing/Painting, with Marcelo Costa. Ar.Co Xabregas, Jun 2019.