Alexandre Estrela

Alexandre Estrela was born in Lisbon in 1971. He holds a degree in Painting from the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon and has a Master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he completed an artistic residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Projects between 2002 and 2003. In 2016 he completed a PHD specialising in Audiovisuals at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon, presenting the thesis Viagem ao meio: meio concreto. Since the 1990s he has worked on the formal and conceptual questions of video, exploring the mechanical and digital phenomena of sound and image perception. He founded the Hi8 video festival, introducing a new generation of artists in the area of multimedia.

He exhibits regularly in Portugal and abroad, including solo exhibitions such as Stargate, Contemporary Art National Museum, Lisbon (2006); Meio Concreto, Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal (2013); Um Mês Acordado, Indipendenza, Rome (2019); Volta Grande, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil (2019); All and Everything, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2020); and, more recently, A Third Reason, Rialto6, Lisbon (2021-2022). Some of his more notable group exhibitions include L’exposition d’un Rêve, Fondation Gulbenkian, Paris; ACMI, Melbourne, Australia; TATE Modern, London (2017); Anozero – Coimbra Contemporary Art Biennial, Portugal (2017); Points de Rencontres, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); and Matéria Luminal, Berardo Collection Museum, Lisbon (2021-22). In 2024 he presented his work for the first time at the MoMa in New York with the Flat Bells exhibition. Also in 2024, he inaugurated the exhibition A Natureza Aborrece o Monstro at Culturgest. Estrela's work is represented in various public and private collections.

Carolina Quintela