On July 19, at 6 p.m., will be inaugurated the photo exhibition titled “Bohemia, Life and Death in the Chelsea Hotel”, by Rita Barros, curated by Jorge Calado. This event is integrated in the 8th Art Festival Coimbra and will take place at the Museu Municipal de Coimbra, in Edifício Chiado.
This exhibition will be open from 19th July to 11th September.

The book BOHEMIA – LIFE AND DEATH IN THE CHELSEA HOTEL, conceived by Jorge Calado and issued by IST Press in 2015, reflects and complements the work of the author and will be highlighted in the exhibition.

When it was built, in the early 1880s, the Chelsea Association Building was the tallest and largest building in New York city. Reinvented as a residential hotel in 1905, it soon became the unofficial home to the American arts and a profane Mecca for artists from all over the world. The Portuguese photographer Rita Barros has lived in the Chelsea for over three decades, occupying apartment 1008 where in the 1960s Arthur C. Clarke wrote “2001: A Space Odyssey”. An architectural and cultural landmark since 1966, the Hotel Chelsea was sold in 2011 and Rita Barros is documenting the Chelsea’s downfall. Bohemia can be read as a parable of life and death – a nostalgic and ironic vision of a space of freedom and uninhibited creativity that once flourished in the middle of the modern city.