Pico do Refugio
Art Residencies
Thurston Moore | February - March 2016
Bio
​
Thurston Moore, Florida, 1958. In the 1980s, the founder of the Sonic Youth was one of the great radicals of indie rock guitar music. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranks him as the 99th Greatest Guitarist of All Time. In the last years, Thurston Moore (now acting solo) has been a regular guest at Zé dos Bois, in Lisbon. This has been a privilege that has allowed many of us to accompany, intimately and in real
time, the many facets of his most recent work.
Project
​
The artist was in the Azores between February 26 and May 6, in an artistic residence curated by Sérgio Hydalgo, programmer at ZDB, in the context of the 2016 Walk & Talk festival and in a collaboration with Pico do Refúgio. A paradise he finished a poetry book and composed new songs for his twelve-string acoustic guitar, besides working in a new book for his publishing company, focused on transgender culture, music and poetry.
The songs he wrote in the Azores were published in his 2017 LP Rock N Roll Consciousness, and the lyrics were made into a book, in English and in Portuguese, by the Azorean printing company Tipografia Micaelence. From this same album, the music video Aphrodite was made with many images filmed by Thurston and Eva Prinz during their period in São Miguel.
During his residence, Thurston wrote four poems about the island, with the titles Lira (an homage to Luísa Constantina), Rabo de Peixe, Furnas, and Salto do Prego. At the request of the curator, Miguel Von Hafe Perez, the artist recorded a reading of these poems as a sound piece, which were part of the show The Divergent Gaze at Archipélago, Centro de Artes Contemporâneas.