30 YEARS IN DECORATION

A house is build with walls and roof. However, its used depends upon the inner void.
Tao Te Qing

If clothing is apparently the first of human needs, there is no doubt that shelter was, in the relationship with the elements, the necessary protection.

Since its inception, the human being shall carry within himself, in a unending cycle of repetition, the vague forgotten memory of life in the womb.

This protective comfort evolves in a succession of projection through the ages of Man - from cave dwelling - which remains still a womb-like generosity of Nature - to the deliberate construction whereupon man's will comes through the assumption of his technology.

The evolving of this technological process - of knowledge and signs that will accompany man along his evolution - operates a radical transformation of the utilitary into the meaningfull, in other words, an emblematic charge is added to necessity that denotes the culture in presence.

Since the times of Marco Polo's narrative of the innumerable wonders and treasures of the Capital of the Empire of the Middle - then called Khanbalik - velvet and silk crossed the dangerous gorges and arid deserts bringing Europe lavish fabrics produced by an advanced civilization. Silk, brocade, velvet were treasures much disputed by the powerful.

But the necessary knowledge and understanding of void does not come to all in that filling it doesn't always come out in the most pleasant or, again, comforting manner.

If medieval austerity find in the Renaissance a powerful wave of renewal - extending its influence to all fields of the arts - in the intelligently balanced faust of Michelangelo Buonarroti's marble work, the Baroque period is already an explosion of Louis XIV's centralist power, a projection and a reflection of a morally corrupt court where the childish walks in hand with the venomous grace and men done the wigs that crown the futility of the French court's opulent life style.

The whole history of Art is no more than the history of man and is taste and options along the road of History.

But let us, after this somehow long introduction, come to our own time to one of the moments of Post-Modernity and the multitude of investment trends and cladding of habitations, offices and corporations that belong to the affluent with signs of power and the inherent comfort that derives therefrom.

It seems rather strange to produce an interior design exhibition in Macau if it weren't for its pedagogic value when considering that the author, Pedro Guimarães arrives this year at his 30th year of profession, being not only one of the greater exponents of his métier in Portugal but also a man that is fascinated by Chinese art being himself a collector and frequent visitor of Beijing and other Chinese cities.

Pedro Guimarães is a person, as with all great authors, of great simplicity, accessibility, generosity and extreme politeness. All these are mere acknowledgements of someone who, like myself, has the privilege of his acquaintance for more than a decade and a half.

Author and bearer the full trust of his innumerable clients who empower him with the freedom to conceive their residences, Pedro Guimarães has often blended in his work a multi-cultural component with a particular emphasis on Chinese art works that are harmoniously integrated amidst the aesthetics of the Orient and the Occident.

Similarly to Marco Polo and the orientalists, Pedro Guimarães in his work in the Occident some of his vast experience and love of China in the habitat of each client.

In these multi-cultural ambiances Pedro Guimarães has been accomplishing an act of fusion of cultures without resorting to what is easy but rather blending a sophisticated taste - both inherited and developed - to create atmospheres where the spirit finds a shelter and a caress of comfort that is a synonym - more than of luxury - of a state of well being that should one day reach the whole of mankind.

While that aim of progress and well being is still an aspiration and a dream it is worth to underline that Pedro Guimarães has chosen Macau to celebrate, through this exhibition-installation, 30 years of his work.

The catalogue, to which this text is but a modest foreword, is a journey throughout some of the vast work developed by Pedro Guimarães and which, for sheer impossibility of a complete reproduction, collects some significant examples.

Macau, June 2000

António Conceição Júnior