Pedro Cabral Santo - NY Arts MagazineNY Arts Magazine

There is no all-embracing and global way of understanding art. I favor the logic of work, inquiry, and the kind of experimentation that rejects the idea of the illuminated artist, and the “bad” romantic sense of art.

Pedro Cabral Santo is a multi-media artist based in Lisbon.

Pedro Cabral Santo, The Hit of Courbet, 2006. Installation view, Sculpt Your Mind, VCF-Plataforma Revolver, Lisboa, 2006. Courtesy of the artist.

There is no all-embracing and global way of understanding art. I favor the logic of work, inquiry, and the kind of experimentation that rejects the idea of the illuminated artist, and the “bad” romantic sense of art. As for me, the artist is very close to the scientist, someone who lives for the phenomenon with an intuition for discovery, technique, and the aesthetics of purpose. This does not mean sailing in a sea of uncertainties or directing an image through an endless ocean. I take a pragmatic approach to the world of art; in other words, I am interested in questioning objects, art, and its purposes.

I am not interested in the noble sense of what art could bear by means of its materials and its institutions. Instead, I prefer to look after the dimension of the world and the contact established between persons and phenomena. Yet, this does not mean, that a regular person couldn’t appreciate my work in a common way. The essence of my work is about communication and its fluidity.