“Interventions: About the Public and the Private” is a project specifically conceived by Antoni Muntadas for the Serralves Villa in 1992. Composed of twenty-one brass elements, each containing the designation of the corresponding space at the Villa when it was inhabited and a photograph of that time (whenever one was found), the project represents one of the artist’s research platforms of choice.

In the catalogue published by the Serralves Foundation in 1992, Muntadas refers to his project as follows:

“The project is centred around observing and reflecting on the ‘private’ and the ‘public’ and their respective functions as well as on how a private place becomes public and vice versa. (…)

I find it easy to understand that the way the space is used and distributed in the ‘public’ sphere often recreates the hierarchical organization of the ‘private’. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ share structures of organization, power and decision-making, which are apparently similar.

The memory of the ‘private’, based on the identification of places or spaces through designation (texts/images) should constitute the starting point for a reflection on the use and consumption of both the ‘private’ and the ‘public’, as seen from a cultural perspective (once the political and social perspectives have been assumed).”

With his EEC Project, 1992, Muntadas sought to focus attention on the relationship between cultural symbols and the economy as well as to question the objectives and economic prowess of the European Community. The cultural future of a united Europe was presented in the form of a 6 by 4 metre carpet that represented the European flag with a depiction of the Member State currency in each of the twelve stars. In 1992, copies of the carpet were exhibited in other public spaces of European cities, such as Brussels, Dublin, London, Madrid, Montpellier, beside Porto. (Serralves Foundation press-release)