Alexandre Estrela and Daragh Reeves
17 November — 11 January
opening Friday, November 16th from 9pm
EN
Particles in a quantum state of entanglement defy distance, sharing information at a faster than light speed. As far as we know it is not a state experienced by humans themselves but to the timeless amazement of tourists and scientists, fluorescent bodies like corals or lightning-bugs seem to communicate this way during their unpredictable yearly mating.
Ever since their first meeting, twenty years ago at the headquarters of the School of Visual Arts in New York, Daragh Reeves and Alexandre Estrela hinted at some mind-bending coincidences among their ideas and works. During the years, over intermittent correspondence and encounters, both would be struck by the fact that one had produced or thought of, at one time or another, similar works without the other knowing. This spooky at-distance-synch became an unspoken bond of enthusiasm, patiently probed in shy cautious attempts, foreboding the whatsoever irreversible effects of opening that can of worms.
This show brings together pieces that are, or could be, mirrored in each other's work unveiling obsessions for: recorded and flying time, electrified shadow pictures, film as a live animal, autonomous screens, negative obsessions, burned offerings, the forger's lifestyle, art as visual hustle, The Tropic of Chances, perception gaps, campus life, triangular food such as nachos, pizza slices, samosas, jesuits and onigiri, old dates and titles.
On display: Bat Photo, PAT8O'clock, Karate at Three O'clock, Los Angeles, Cheer Up Ghost, Toucan Watches, Dracula 1936 VHS, The Bird's Leg, Camera Hole, Sunlight Bulb, Coke Sculptures, Daylight Robbery, The Waiter, The New 5 Minutes, Nick Angeles, The Hollywood 48 Hour Miracle, Battery. Produced in 2018, 1997, 2011, 2001, 2006, 1999, 2002, 2018, 2017, 1999, 2011, 2017, 1999, 2005, 2002, 2001, 1999.
A.B.
Alexandre Estrela (Lisbon, Portugal. 1971)
Studied an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York, from 1997 to 1999, also with Daragh Reeves and Jorge Queiroz.
Alexandre Estrela’s work expands spatially and temporally through different supports. Each piece is a reflection on the “image” as an autonomous entity that cannot be merely reduced to the field of representation.
In his videos and installations Estrela examines the subject’s psychological reactions to images in their interaction with matter. Each piece has several layers to which we are initiated step by step. The works are not just there to be watched, but rather to be unfolded. Each piece convokes synesthetic experiences, visual and sound illusions, aural and chromatic sensations that function as perceptive traps, leading the subject towards conceptual levels. Estrela is constantly problematizing the elements that constitute the act of perceiving, splitting vision into further sensible dimensions towards the unseen and the unheard.
Recent solo exhibitions include Lua Cão (with J.M.Gusmão + P.Paiva), La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Kunstverein München, and Zé Dos Bois, Lisbon, 2017 and 2018; Knife in the Water, 2018, Travesía Cuatro, Madrid; Ouro Mouro, 2017, Quetzal Art Centre, Vidigueira; Baklite, 2017, CAV Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra; Cápsulas de silencio, 2016, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; Roda Lume, 2016, MUHKA, Antwerp; Meio Concreto, 2013, Museu Serralves, Porto; Um homem entre quatro paredes, 2013, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Viagem ao Meio, 2010, Zé dos Bois, Lisbon; among others.
The artist has also participated in numerous group shows such as: L’exposition d’un Rêve, 2017, Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, ACMI Melbourne and TATE Modern; Hallucinations, 2017, Documenta 14, Athens; etc.
Daragh Reeves (Leeds, UK. 1974)
Studied an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York, from 1998 to 2000, also with Alexandre Estrela and Jorge Queiroz.
Daragh Reeves’s work explores the fundamental dilemmas of receptivity, reading functionality and understanding common phenomena by means that reveal the misleading nature of representation. In his practice, a poster can be a film, money can be used to measure time, a chair can be a fountain and a film can work as a wristwatch. The pieces are animated and operate by means of subtle discrepancies between form and function, medium and material, materiality and temporality.
Reeves’s predilection for neologisms and employment of language as an ephemeral device, allows him to conjure up a cast of fictional figures and fragmented stories, often based on references to popular culture, cinema or personal experience.
From the manifold media used in his oeuvre emerges a philosophical unity, grounded in a playful equilibrium between lightness and precision.
Recent solo exhibitions include Opening Hours, 2017, Andriesse Eyck Galerie, Amsterdam; Formulaic Musical, 2017, ltd Los Angeles, Los Angeles; The Guilty Machine, 2014, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin; Daragh Reeves; Marble Movie Screen, 2012, Capacete, Rio De Janeiro; Daragh Reeves, 2011, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam; Rue De La Rue, 2011, 1646, Den Haag; The Fountains of New York, 2007, Oporto, Lisbon; among others.
The artist has also participated in numerous group shows such as: Unexpected Encounter, 2018, Arts Maebashi, in Maebashi; Thirsty Garden, 2016, The Composing Rooms, Berlin;
The People Under the Stairs, 2015, JazzBar, Munich; Eye Film Institute, 2013, Amsterdam; Bourgeois Leftovers, 2013, de Appel, Amsterdam; Shapes, 2011, Sammlung Haubrok, Berlin; Drawing Typologies, 2007, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; etc.
PT
Partículas num estado de entrelaçamento quântico desafiam distâncias ao partilhar informação a uma velocidade superior à da luz. Tanto quanto sabemos, este estado não foi ainda experienciado por humanos mas, para espanto intemporal de turistas e cientistas, corpos fluorescentes como corais ou pirilampos parecem comunicar desta forma durante o seu imprevisível acasalamento anual.
Desde o primeiro encontro há vinte anos, na School of Visual Arts em Nova York, Alexandre Estrela e Daragh Reeves pressentiram coincidências desconcertantes entre as suas ideias e trabalhos. Ao longo dos anos, entre correspondência e encontros intermitentes, ambos constataram ter produzido ou pensado em trabalhos semelhantes, numa ou outra altura, sem que o outro soubesse. Este fantasmagórico sincronismo-à-distância tornou-se um silencioso elo de entusiasmo, pacientemente sondado tímida e cautelosamente pelo presságio de efeitos irreversíveis na abertura desta caixa-de-pandora.
A exposição reúne peças que são, ou poderiam ser, espelhadas no trabalho um do outro revelando obsessões por: tempo gravado, imagens de sombras electrificadas, filme como um animal vivo, ecrãs autónomos, obsessão pelo negativo, oferendas em chamas, o estilo do falsário, o Trópico do Acaso, falhas de percepção, a vida no campus, comida triangular como nachos, fatias de pizza, chamuças, jesuítas e onigiris, datas antigas e títulos.
Em exibição: Bat Photo, PAT8O'clock, Karate at Three O'clock, Los Angeles, Cheer Up Ghost, Toucan Watches, Dracula 1936 VHS, A Pata de um Pássaro, Camera Hole, Sunlight Bulb, Coke Sculptures, Daylight Robbery, The Waiter, the New 5 Minutes, Nick Angeles, The Hollywood 48 Hour Miracle, Battery. Produzidos em 2018, 1997, 2011, 2001, 2006, 1999, 2002, 2018, 2017, 1999, 2011, 2017, 1999, 2005, 2002, 2001, 1999.
A.B.
Alexandre Estrela (Lisboa, Portugal. 1971)
Frequentou um mestrado na School of Visual Arts em Nova Iorque, de 1997 a 1999, com Daragh Reeves e Jorge Queiroz.
O trabalho de Alexandre Estrela expande-se espacial e temporalmente através de diferentes suportes. Cada peça é uma reflexão sobre a “imagem” enquanto entidade autónoma que não pode ser simplesmente reduzida ao campo da representação.
Nos seus vídeos e instalações, Estrela examina as reacções psicológicas do sujeito a imagens na sua interacção com a matéria. Cada peça é composta por várias camadas às quais somos introduzidos passo a passo. As obras não existem apenas para serem observadas, mas antes para serem exploradas. Cada peça convoca experiências sinestésicas, ilusões visuais e sonoras, sensações auditivas e cromáticas que operam enquanto armadilhas perceptivas, conduzindo o sujeito a níveis conceptuais. Estrela problematiza de forma sistemática os elementos que constituem o acto perceptivo, decompondo a visão em novas dimensões do sensível no sentido daquilo que não se vê nem se ouve.
Recentes exposições individuais incluem, entre outras, Lua Cão (com J.M. Gusmão + P. Paiva), La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Kunstverein München e Zé dos Bois, Lisboa, 2017 e 2018; Knife in the Water, 2018, Travesía Cuatro, Madrid; Ouro Mouro, 2017, Quetzal Art Centre, Vidigueira; Baklite, 2017, CAV Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra; Cápsulas de silencio, 2016, Museu Rainha Sofia, Madrid; Roda Lume, 2016, MUHKA, Antuérpia; Meio Concreto, 2013, Museu Serralves, Porto; Um homem entre quatro paredes, 2013, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Viagem ao Meio, 2010, Zé dos Bois, Lisboa.
O artista participou também em diversas exposições colectivas como: L’exposition d’un Rêve, 2017, Fundação Gulbenkian, Paris, ACMI Melbourne e TATE Modern; Hallucinations, 2017, Documenta 14, Atenas; etc.
Daragh Reeves (Leeds, Reino Unido. 1974)
Frequentou um Mestrado na School of Visual Arts em Nova Iorque, de 1998 a 2000, com Alexandre Estrela
e Jorge Queiroz.
A obra de Daragh Reeves explora os dilemas fundamentais da receptividade, da funcionalidade da leitura e da compreensão de fenómenos comuns através de meios que revelam a natureza enganadora da representação. Na sua prática, um póster pode ser um filme, dinheiro pode ser usado para medir tempo, uma cadeira pode ser uma fonte e um filme pode funcionar como um relógio de pulso. As peças são animadas e operam através de subtis discrepâncias entre forma e função, medium e material, materialidade e temporalidade.
A predileção de Reeves por neologismos e pelo uso da linguagem como dispositivo efémero permite-lhe criar um conjunto de figuras ficcionais e histórias fragmentadas, muitas vezes baseadas em referências à cultura popular, ao cinema e à sua experiência pessoal.
Dos diversos media utilizados na sua obra surge uma unidade filosófica, ancorada num equilíbrio divertido entre leveza e precisão.
Recentes exposições individuais incluem, entre outras, Opening Hours, 2017, Andriesse Eyck Galerie, Amesterdão; Formulaic Musical, 2017, ltd Los Angeles, Los Angeles; The Guilty Machine, 2014, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlim; Daragh Reeves; Marble Movie Screen, 2012, Capacete, Rio de Janeiro; Daragh Reeves, 2011, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amesterdão; Rue De La Rue, 2011, 1646, Den Haag; The Fountains of New York, 2007, Oporto, Lisboa.
O artista participou também em diversas exposições colectivas como: Unexpected Encounter, 2018, Arts Maebashi, em Maebashi; Thirsty Garden, 2016, The Composing Rooms, Berlim; The People Under the Stairs, 2015, JazzBar, Munique; Eye Film Institute, 2013, Amesterdão; Bourgeois Leftovers, 2013, de Appel, Amesterdão; Shapes, 2011, Sammlung Haubrok, Berlim; Drawing Typologies, 2007, Stedelijk Museum, Amesterdão; etc.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Alexandre Estrela
Camera Hole
2018
double sided perforated inkjet print on cotton paper
28 × 19,5cm
A view finder for a camera add.
Alexandre Estrela
Camera Hole
2018
double sided perforated inkjet print on cotton paper
28 × 19,5cm
A view finder for a camera add.
Daragh Reeves
Cheer Up Ghost
2006
video, flat screen TV monitor
120 × 68 cm
A slow moving pink shadow reveals the paranormal activity at a drawings’ surface.
Daragh Reeves
Dracula VHS 1931
2002
VHS tape, paper, adhesive tape
255 × 593 cm
The anatomy of Dracula’s film was cut according to the length of each scene.
Daragh Reeves
Dracula VHS 1931
2002
VHS tape, paper, adhesive tape
255 × 593 cm
The anatomy of Dracula’s film was cut according to the length of each scene.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Alexandre Estrela
Bat Photo
2018
Inkjet print,
100 × 74,5 cm
An upside down bat stands up.
Alexandre Estrela
Battery
1999
sculpture made of glass, lead spheres, copper tube, Coca-cola,
182 × 15 x 15 cm
137 lead spheres in a glass container + 182cm copper tube + 2 liters of coke = battery
Daragh Reeves
Daylight Robbery
2017
two-sided inkjet print
90 × 63 cm
The light moves jewels in.
The night moves them out.
Daragh Reeves
Daylight Robbery
2017
two-sided inkjet print
90 × 63 cm
The light moves jewels in.
The night moves them out.
Daragh Reeves
Daylight Robbery
2017
two-sided inkjet print
90 × 63 cm
The light moves jewels in.
The night moves them out.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Daragh Reeves
The New Five Minutes
2005
china ink on light bulb
120 x 2 x 3 cm
A message in a bulb unleashed by sun glasses.
Alexandre Estrela
The Waiter
1999
video and objects
video: DV-CAM, color, 40’, silent
objects: 1 Hantarex EQ/3 - The Block - 28’’ CRT monitor , DV-CAM player, DV-CAM Tape
and its box
The box of a DV-Cam cassette is waiting for the return of the cassette itself.
link for documentation video
Alexandre Estrela
The Waiter
1999
video and objects
video: DV-CAM, color, 40’, silent
objects: 1 Hantarex EQ/3 - The Block - 28’’ CRT monitor , DV-CAM player, DV-CAM Tape
and its box
The box of a DV-Cam cassette is waiting for the return of the cassette itself.
link for documentation video
Alexandre Estrela
The Waiter
1999
video and objects
video: DV-CAM, color, 40’, silent
objects: 1 Hantarex EQ/3 - The Block - 28’’ CRT monitor , DV-CAM player, DV-CAM Tape
and its box
The box of a DV-Cam cassette is waiting for the return of the cassette itself.
link for documentation video
Alexandre Estrela
Los Angeles
2001
Ink on paper, 36 × 46 cm
The hidden truth in arabic digits.
Daragh Reeves
Karate at Three O’clock
2011
six bedside clocks
06 × 37 × 05 cm
A three o’clock timely revelation of the angular word ‘Karate’.
link for documentation video
Daragh Reeves
Karate at Three O’clock
2011
six bedside clocks
06 × 37 × 05 cm
A three o’clock timely revelation of the angular word ‘Karate’.
link for documentation video
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Alexandre Estrela
PAT8O’clock
1997
video on monitor
SD Video, b/w, silent, 8’
monitor: 1 Hantarex EQ/3 - The Block - 19’’CRT monitor
A minute was the smallest fraction of time. A second is the secondest.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Daragh Reeves
Coke Sculptures
2011
glass vessels and Coca-Cola
90 x 18 cm, 50 x 35 cm, 25 x 25 cm
Dark shadows filled with Coca-Cola.
Daragh Reeves
Sunlight Bulb
1999
video on CRT Monitor, color, loop, mono sound
A tangent ray of sun lights up a bulb. An experiment held at SVA, New York.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Alexandre Estrela
The Hollywood 48 Hour Miracle
2003
Inkjet print, 76,5 × 76,5 cm
A lucky charm for a cache apartment.
Toucan Watch
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Alexandre Estrela
The Bird’s Leg
2018
video projection on prepared wooden screen, sound
video: HD MOV (PAL), colour, loop, mono sound
screen: 18mm plywood, 60 × 80 cm
Tropical birds on a stick, a wooden screen and an invasive rope
link for documentation video
Alexandre Estrela
The Bird’s Leg
2018
video projection on prepared wooden screen, sound
video: HD MOV (PAL), colour, loop, mono sound
screen: 18mm plywood, 60 × 80 cm
Tropical birds on a stick, a wooden screen and an invasive rope
link for documentation video
Daragh Reeves
Toucan Watches
1999
Ink on paper
73 × 56 cm
An arid description of a tropical scene for sale.
Daragh Reeves
Nick Angeles
2002
China ink on light bulb
15 x 15 cm
Another message in a bulb unleashed by sunglasses
Daragh Reeves
Nick Angeles
2002
China ink on light bulb
15 x 15 cm
Another message in a bulb unleashed by sunglasses
********************************
Preview, Milan
Madragoa and Ncontemporary present
Personal Cliches
Josh Faught, Luís Lázaro Matos, Joanna Piotrowska, Cristiano Tassinari
October 23 — November 3
opening October 22nd, from 6.30pm
EN
For the second edition of Preview, Madragoa and Ncontemporary are pleased to present Personal Cliches, a joint exhibition, bringing together the works of Josh Faught, Luís Lázaro Matos, Joanna Piotrowska and Cristiano Tassinari.
By creating two dialogues, parallel and reciprocal, the exhibition compares the works of the four artists who develop their respective narratives using a different vocabulary: for Faught and Piotrowska made of everyday objects, which are merged into a new story; Matos and Tassinari instead start from objects or emblematic images, in which an idea is crystallized, a stereotype that, through its reinterpretation and insertion within a different context, changes its meaning.
The world of mass media, with its cliches and stereotypes, is the subject of the works of Cristiano Tassinari, which draws on the world of communication, signage with materials and bright colors. In the exhibition, the artist presents an installation in which Auspiscious beast (2016), a bronze sculpture of a dragon, a mythical figure traditionally positioned at the entrance of homes in Southeast Asia, is in this case placed in front of Africanella (2016) a colored neon that represents a face that recalls the stereotyping of Africa in the early 1900s, later reused for marketing purposes.
For Luís Lázaro Matos, the cliché is inseparable from the place where it originated, so much so as to constitute its emblem and even shape it. The project Super Gibraltar (2016), consisting of a video animation and a group of shaped drawings that create an installation, stems from a popular belief that England will retain possession of Gibraltar as long as there are monkeys. This superstition is told by the Portuguese author Ferreira de Castro in a text published in the magazine "A volta do Mundo" in 1942. The peoples inhabiting the Rock of Gibraltar, the only wild monkeys in Europe and paradoxically considered "guarantors" of the established order, of the status quo, become in the work of Matos hybrids. They assume human poses and form a holiday community, testimonial of the place.
The tapestries by Josh Faught are the result of an assemblage between different fabrics: fabrics in cotton, wool, hemp, knitted and crocheted weaves, in some unstitched and worn stitches, to which objects from disparate contexts are superimposed. These are objects of affection, of daily use - from buttons, to plastic biscuits, to shreds of newspapers - which, once inserted in the work, are intertwined at the semantic level to the plot that makes them the basis and with which they interact. As if they were shreds of suspended memory, organized and held together by the fabric, these heterogeneous elements seem to be evading every order at the same time.
The photographs by Joanna Piotrowska show a pile of objects taken from their usual order and combined to form temporary buildings. These are small shelters, like those built by children, built inside different homes by their owners, using all sorts of materials, furniture, tools and objects available, and in which they then lay. Each building offers an "involuntary" portrait of one's inhabitant, entrusted to the objects that tell his life more immediately . Sometimes the precariousness and the circumscribed spaces that they define contain just the body of the person portrayed constructing it, thus transforming itself from shelters, for children's play, in cages, a reversal to which the title Frantic (2016) alludes.
Personal Cliches
installation view
Ncontemporary, Milan
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2018
silver gelatin hand print
21,6 x 27,2 cm
edition of 5 + AP
Personal Cliches
installation view
Ncontemporary, Milan
Luís Lázaro Matos
Super Gibraltar
2016
installation view
variable dimensions
********************************
Body / Building
Augusto Alves da Silva, Werner Feiersinger, Steffani Jemison, Ugo La Pietra, Ree Morton.
September 7 – November 3, 2018
opening Friday, September 7 at 9pm
EN
MADRAGOA is delighted to present Body / Building, a group exhibition with works by Augusto Alves da Silva, Werner Feiersinger, Steffani Jemison, Ugo La Pietra and Ree Morton, that will take place in both gallery spaces.
The concept of urban space is not only that of a given space, physically defined; many factors contribute to its configuration, which is always the result of an act of interpretation, the object of a representation. The density of this non-neutral space, which returns a plurality of visions to those who approach it, is the starting point of Body / Building, in which the relationship between the human body and the urban landscape is not only the subject of the works gathered in the exhibition, but is also crucial in determining the artist’s observation point, and acts as a guide for an intimate approach to the environment.
Ugo La Pietra’s Attrezzature urbane per la collettività (Urban furniture for society) is a series of eighty drawings, developed in Milan between 1977 and 1979, aimed at overcoming the barrier between public and private space. The project stems from the exploration of the city, and the identification of urban elements – such as road signs, posts and chains, concrete bases – aesthetically inconsistent, with no other functions than being markers of separation and constriction. Reflecting on the motto “living is being at home everywhere”, these elements are photographed, redesigned and converted in La Pietra’s tables, with irony and visionarity, into pieces of domestic furniture, transforming a “space to use” in a “space to live”, how the artist himself explained. That is how a no waiting sign becomes a comfortable dressing table with mirror, a bollard is turned into an elegant coffee table in the shade of a tree.
Ree Morton’s varied practice, focused on the mutual relationship between inside and outside, is rooted in drawing, a tool she uses to probe and filter the experience of the actual territory, letting signs and fragments emerge, giving shape to an intimate cartography of memory, vaguely reminiscent of the situationist psychogeographical maps in which chunks of the city are connected by lines and arrows. In Untitled (1972) some recognizable elements derived from a landscape – a fenced flowerbed, a path, small arcades – are scattered on the paper, connected by lines and dashes, turning them into abstracted diagrams, vibrant depictions of energetic fields. Untitled (Rudofsky I and II) (1972) is a diptych inspired by vernacular architecture, in particular by some granaries – a typology present in Galicia and in the Portuguese rural area of Lindoso, another one in some African regions – reproduced in Bernard Rudofsky’s book Architecture without Architects (1964). The graphic depictions of the granaries, as well as the quotes from the book that accompany them, emphasize the anthropomorphism of these structures which, equipped with a hat and small columns at their base, seem to be able to move around, even to dance.
At the base of Werner Feiersinger’s practice is a deep relationship with architecture. His sculptures draw inspiration from architectural models, urban furniture, and everyday objects, whose shapes and surfaces are polished and rarefied to the point of maintaining only a loose proximity with the object of origin. Through this process of abstraction, of reduction in order to reveal the essential geometry or structure of specific urban elements, their functionality is reset while the use of bright colours and smooth materials with no imperfections highlights their aesthetic value, critically pointing to the imposition of the the stereotype, of the canon, of the theoretical model on the utility value. Untitled (1992) is composed by two orange steel stakes, each one fixed on a polyester base, that look like a piece of a scaffolding tube structure, almost torn from the road’s surface, while the blue grid of Untitled (2010) forms a simple volume reminiscent of modern architecture, or minimalist sculpture, made ambiguous by the presence of a cylindrical plastic insert.
«The landscape I photograph fascinates me as something where a wide range of signs of a certain society can be read, or as a place in time where people are and how they build or un-build things, leading me into a reflection on how societies think, organise themselves and function»* Augusto Alves da Silva affirmed in an interview. Far from being a work confined to the genre of the landscape, his triptych Paradise City (2017) shows three different views that interplay with each other, revealing the artist’s personal imagery linked to the idea of a city: the photograph of Paris, seen from an unusual perspective, is placed next to a female nude behind which one can see the drawing of a landscape traced on the wall with a golden paint, probably evoking the kitsch decoration of certain hotels, and to what seems to be an aerial view of a desert land, whose dimensions and distance can not be clearly perceived, and which seems to be a human settlement. In the photograph Untitled (2015), thanks to the particular framing and angle, a cruise ship seems to be parked on the asphalt of the parking lot, or be assimilated to a real building while the human presence, attested by a couple right at the center of the composition, becomes almost invisible.
Steffani Jemison’s video Escaped Lunatic (2010-11) shows four young men running across the screen and through the streets of Houston as if they were being chased by someone or engaged in a hard training, as they jump, flip and roll on the ground, sometimes to avoid urban furnishings which, rather than defining the route, become obstacles. The frenetic rhythm of their bodies launched in this race, with its unpredictable deviations and sudden turns, is superimposed to the regular flow of traffic, and to the static urban scenario that serves as a background to an action that stages the cliché of the figure of the fugitive, which is still repeated today, as the video suggests by making the point of departure coincide with that of arrival.
*It Is Irrelevant Whether the Matter is Sex or Not. Conversation between Augusto Alves da Silva, João Fernandes and Ricardo Nicolau, in Dead End. An Essay on Optimism, exh. cat. Fundação de Serralves (Porto, 2009) p. 69.
Augusto Alves da Silva (b.1963, Lisbon, Portugal) lives and works in Tremez, Portugal. He studied in London, first at the London College of Printing, and then he obained an MFA in Media Studies at the Slade School of Fine Arts. He started showing his works since the 90s and since then he worked with photography and video. In 1999 he has been a finalist at the Citibank Photography Prize and in 2006 finalist at the BES Photo Prize. His work has been shown internationally and in particular at MAC, Elvas; MUSAC, Léon; Serralves, Porto; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Museo Berardo, Lisbon; Culturgest, Lisbon; Bozar, Brussels; Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Werner Feiersinger (b. 1966 Brixlegg, Austria) lives and works in Wien. After studying at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Jan van Eyck Maastricht Academy, he taught at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon. For more than a decade he has exhibited his sculptures and photographs, and has also been responsible for a number of public sculptural interventions. His works have been show in international institutions such as: Secession, Wien; Galerie Stadtpark, Krems; Kunst Merano Arte, Merano; O&O Depot, Berlin; Gulbenkian Foudation, Lisbon; Antoni Tapiés Foundation, Barcelona; CAC, Vilnius, MuHKA, Antwerp; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville. In October 2018 he will present an extensive sculptural intervention at Belvedere21, Wien.
Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, Berkeley, California) is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and a BA in Comparative Literature from Columbia University (2003). Jemison has completed many artist residencies and fellowships, including the Rauschenberg Residency (2016), the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2015-2016), the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2014-2015), the Studio Museum in Harlem AIR (2012-2013), Denniston Hill (2012), the International Studio and Curatorial Program (2012), Project Row Houses (2010-2011), the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2009-2011), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008). Her work has been presented at Jeu de Paume, CAPC Bordeaux, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Drawing Center, LAXART, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art and others. Her work is in the public collections of the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Kadist Foundation.
Ugo La Pietra (b. 1938 Bussi sul Tirino, Italy) lives and works in Milan where he graduated in Architecture at the Politecnico in 1964. An architect by training, he is an artist, filmmaker, editor, musician, cartoonist and teacher. He has been defininghimself as a researcher in communication systems and in visual arts since 1960, moving simultaneously in the worlds of art and design. A tireless experimenter, he has crossed different currents (from Informalism and Conceptual Art to Narrative Art and artist’s cinema) and used multiple mediums, conducting research that were embodied in the theory of the “Disequilibrating System” – autonomous expression within Radical Design – and in important sociological themes such as “The Telematic Home” (MoMA, New York, 1972 – Fiera di Milano, 1983), “Real Space / Virtual Space” (Triennale di Milano 1979, 1992), “The eclectic Home” (Abitare il Tempo, 1990), “Beach Culture” (Centro Culturale Cattolica, 1985/95). He has transmitted his work through numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and he has curated several exhibitions at the Triennale di Milano, the Venice Biennale, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the FRAC Centre in Orléans, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca, the Fondazione Mudima in Milano and the Museo MA*GA in Gallarate. He has always critically maintained the humanistic, significant and territorial components of design through his works and objects, as well as his work in teaching, theory and publishing
Ree Morton (b. 1936, Ossining, New York) exhibited during her lifetime at Artists Space, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; as well as Bykert and Droll/Kolbert Galleries. Morton died in a car accident in Chicago in 1977. Her works are included in numerous museum collections in the United States and Europe. A posthumous retrospective of her work was organized by the New Museum, New York in 1980 and traveled to several U.S. museums. In 1999, the University of Vermont, Burlington organized an exhibition of her sketchbooks and published a facsimile of selected pages. A survey exhibition and an extensive monograph of Morton’s work was organized by the Generali Foundation, Vienna in 2008 and an exhibition of her drawings and related paintings and sculpture was presented at the Drawing Center, New York in 2009. In 2015, her work was the subject of a survey at the The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. In the Fall of 2016, Alexander and Bonin held a solo exhibition of her work. In September 2018, the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, will hold the first major solo museum exhibition of Ree Morton’s work in the United States in over thirty-five years.
Augusto Alves da Silva (b.1963, Lisbon, Portugal) lives and works in Tremez, Portugal. He studied in London, first at the London College of Printing, and then he obained an MFA in Media Studies at the Slade School of Fine Arts. He started showing his works since the 90s and since then he worked with photography and video. In 1999 he has been a finalist at the Citibank Photography Prize and in 2006 finalist at the BES Photo Prize. His work has been shown internationally and in particular at MAC, Elvas; MUSAC, Léon; Serralves, Porto; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Museo Berardo, Lisbon; Culturgest, Lisbon; Bozar, Brussels; Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Werner Feiersinger (b. 1966 Brixlegg, Austria) lives and works in Wien. After studying at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Jan van Eyck Maastricht Academy, he taught at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon. For more than a decade he has exhibited his sculptures and photographs, and has also been responsible for a number of public sculptural interventions. His works have been show in international institutions such as: Secession, Wien; Galerie Stadtpark, Krems; Kunst Merano Arte, Merano; O&O Depot, Berlin; Gulbenkian Foudation, Lisbon; Antoni Tapiés Foundation, Barcelona; CAC, Vilnius, MuHKA, Antwerp; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville. In October 2018 he will present an extensive sculptural intervention at Belvedere21, Wien.
Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, Berkeley, California) is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and a BA in Comparative Literature from Columbia University (2003). Jemison has completed many artist residencies and fellowships, including the Rauschenberg Residency (2016), the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2015-2016), the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2014-2015), the Studio Museum in Harlem AIR (2012-2013), Denniston Hill (2012), the International Studio and Curatorial Program (2012), Project Row Houses (2010-2011), the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2009-2011), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008). Her work has been presented at Jeu de Paume, CAPC Bordeaux, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Drawing Center, LAXART, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art and others. Her work is in the public collections of the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Kadist Foundation.
Ugo La Pietra (b. 1938 Bussi sul Tirino, Italy) lives and works in Milan where he graduated in Architecture at the Politecnico in 1964. An architect by training, he is an artist, filmmaker, editor, musician, cartoonist and teacher. He has been defininghimself as a researcher in communication systems and in visual arts since 1960, moving simultaneously in the worlds of art and design. A tireless experimenter, he has crossed different currents (from Informalism and Conceptual Art to Narrative Art and artist’s cinema) and used multiple mediums, conducting research that were embodied in the theory of the “Disequilibrating System” – autonomous expression within Radical Design – and in important sociological themes such as “The Telematic Home” (MoMA, New York, 1972 – Fiera di Milano, 1983), “Real Space / Virtual Space” (Triennale di Milano 1979, 1992), “The eclectic Home” (Abitare il Tempo, 1990), “Beach Culture” (Centro Culturale Cattolica, 1985/95). He has transmitted his work through numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and he has curated several exhibitions at the Triennale di Milano, the Venice Biennale, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the FRAC Centre in Orléans, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca, the Fondazione Mudima in Milano and the Museo MA*GA in Gallarate. He has always critically maintained the humanistic, significant and territorial components of design through his works and objects, as well as his work in teaching, theory and publishing
Ree Morton (b. 1936, Ossining, New York) exhibited during her lifetime at Artists Space, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; as well as Bykert and Droll/Kolbert Galleries. Morton died in a car accident in Chicago in 1977. Her works are included in numerous museum collections in the United States and Europe. A posthumous retrospective of her work was organized by the New Museum, New York in 1980 and traveled to several U.S. museums. In 1999, the University of Vermont, Burlington organized an exhibition of her sketchbooks and published a facsimile of selected pages. A survey exhibition and an extensive monograph of Morton’s work was organized by the Generali Foundation, Vienna in 2008 and an exhibition of her drawings and related paintings and sculpture was presented at the Drawing Center, New York in 2009. In 2015, her work was the subject of a survey at the The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. In the Fall of 2016, Alexander and Bonin held a solo exhibition of her work. In September 2018, the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, will hold the first major solo museum exhibition of Ree Morton’s work in the United States in over thirty-five years.
PT
A MADRAGOA tem o prazer de apresentar a exposição colectiva Body / Building, com obras de Augusto Alves da Silva, Werner Feiersinger, Steffani Jemison, Ugo La Pietra e Ree Morton, que ocupará os dois espaços da galeria.
O conceito de espaço urbano não é apenas o de um dado espaço fisicamente definido. Muitos factores contribuem para a sua configuração, que é sempre o resultado de um acto de interpre- tação, o objecto de uma representação. A densidade deste espaço não-neutral, que devolve uma pluralidade de visões àqueles que dele se aproximam, é o ponto de partida de Body / Building, em que a relação entre corpo humano e paisagem urbana não é apenas o tema das obras reunidas na exposição mas assume-se também como crucial na determinação do ponto de observação do artista, funcionando como manual para uma abordagem íntima ao meio envolvente.
Attrezzature urbane per la collettività (Mobiliário urbano para a sociedade), de Ugo La Pietra, é uma série de oitenta desenhos, desenvolvidos em Milão entre 1977 e 1979, com o objectivo de transpor a barreira entre os espaços público e privado. O projecto parte da exploração da cidade e da identificação de elementos urbanos — tais como sinais de trânsito, postes e correntes, bases de betão —, esteticamente inconsistentes, sem qualquer outra função que não a de marcadores de separação e condicionamento. Reflectindo sobre o lema “viver é estar em casa em todo o lado”, estes elementos são fotografados, redesenhados e convertidos nas mesas de La Pietra, com ironia e uma habilidade visionária, peças de mobiliário doméstico, transformando um “espaço para usar” num “espaço para viver”, como o próprio artista explicou. É assim que um sinal de “proibido parar” se torna num confortável toucador com espelho, ou um pilarete transformado numa elegante mesa de centro à sombra de uma árvore.
A prática multifacetada de Ree Morton, focada na relação recíproca entre interior e exterior, baseia-se no desenho, ferramenta que a artista usa para investigar e filtrar a experiência com o próprio território, deixando sinais e fragmentos emergir para dar forma a uma cartografia íntima da memória, fazendo lembrar vagamente os mapas psicogeográficos situacionistas, nos quais partes de cidades são ligadas por linhas e setas. Em Untitled (1972), alguns elementos reconhecíveis de uma paisagem — um canteiro cercado, um caminho, pequenas arcadas — encontram-se dispersos no papel, ligados por linhas e traços, acabando por se tornarem diagramas abstractos, retratos vibrantes de campos energéticos. Untitled (Rudofsky I and II) (1972) é um díptico inspirado na arquitectura vernacular, em particular por alguns espigueiros — tipologia presente na Galiza e na zona rural portuguesa de Lindoso, e nalgumas regiões de África —, reproduzido no livro de Bernard Rudofsky Architecture without Architects (1964). As representações gráficas dos espigueiros, bem como as citações do livro que as acompanham, acentuam o antropomorfismo destas estruturas que, com um chapéu e pequenas colunas na sua base, parecem poder mover- se e até mesmo dançar.
Uma profunda relação com a arquitectura caracteriza a prática de Werner Feiersinger. As suas esculturas inspiram-se em modelos arquitectónicos, mobiliário urbano e objectos do quotidiano, cujas formas e superfícies são polidas e rareadas ao ponto de preservarem apenas uma vaga semelhança com o objecto de origem. Neste processo de abstracção e redução que permite revelar a geometria essencial ou a estrutura de elementos urbanos específicos, a funcionalidade dos objectos é restaurada, enquanto que a utilização de cores vivas e materiais suaves sem imperfeições destaca o seu valor estético, denunciando de forma crítica a imposição do estereótipo, do cânone, do modelo teórico sobre o valor utilitário. Untitled (1992) é composto por duas estacas de aço cor de laranja, cada uma fixa a uma base de poliéster, que parecem uma estrutura de andaime arrancada da estrada, ao passo que a grelha azul de Untitled (2010) cria um volume simples evocativo da arquitectura moderna ou a escultura minimalista, cuja ambiguidade é provocada pela presença de um elemento cilíndrico de plástico.
«A paisagem que fotografo fascina-me como algo onde se podem ler imensos sinais de uma determinada sociedade, ou de um sítio no tempo onde a gente está, da maneira como as pessoas constroem ou desconstroem coisas, levando-me a refletir sobre a forma como as sociedades pensam, se organizam, funcionam»*, afirmou Augusto Alves da Silva numa entrevista. Longe de ser um trabalho confinado ao género da paisagem, o seu tríptico Paradise City (2017) mostra três vistas diferentes que interagem entre si, revelando o imaginário pessoal do artista associado à ideia de uma cidade: a fotografia de Paris, vista a partir de uma perspectiva invulgar, é colocada ao lado de um nu feminino atrás do qual pode ver-se o desenho de uma paisagem desenhada sobre a parede com uma tinta dourada, provavelmente evocando a decoração kitsch de alguns hotéis, e daquilo que parece ser uma vista aérea de uma terra deserta cujas dimensões e distância não são claramente percebidas e que parece tratar-se de uma povoação humana. Na fotografia Untitled (2015), graças a um enquadramento e ângulo especiais, um navio de cruzeiro parece estar estacionado no asfalto de um parque de estacionamento ou confundir-se a um edifício real, enquanto que a presença humana, assinalada por um casal mesmo no centro da composição, se torna quase invisível.
O vídeo de Steffani Jemison, Escaped Lunatic (2010-11), mostra quatro jovens que atravessam o plano, correndo pelas ruas de Houston como se estivessem a ser perseguidos por alguém ou a fazer um treino intenso, enquanto saltam, se atiram e rolam no chão, evitando por vezes mobiliário urbano que, em vez de definir o percurso, se torna um obstáculo. O ritmo frenético dos seus corpos nesta corrida, com os seus desvios imprevisíveis e mudanças súbitas, sobrepõe-se ao fluxo normal do trânsito e ao cenário urbano estático que serve de pano de fundo à acção. O vídeo põe em cena o estereótipo da figura do fugitivo, ainda hoje perpetuado, ao fazer o ponto de partida coincidir com o ponto de chegada.
*Ser Sexo ou Não é Irrelevante. Conversa entre Augusto Alves da Silva, João Fernandes e Ricardo Nicolau, in Sem saída. Ensaio sobre o optimismo, cat. exp. Fundação de Serralves (Porto, 2009), p. 47.
Augusto Alves da Silva (1963, Lisboa, Portugal) vive e trabalha em Tremez, Portugal. Estudou em Londres, primeiro no London College of Printing, e posteriormente realizou um mestrado em Media Studies na Slade School of Fine Arts. Começou a expor na década de 90, e desde então tem trabalhado com fotografia e vídeo. Em 1999 foi finalista do Prémio Citibank de Fotografia e em 2006 finalista do BES Photo. Os seus trabalhos têm sido expostos internacional- mente e em especial no MAC, Elvas; MUSAC, Léon; Serralves, Porto; Chisenhale Gallery, Londres; Museu Berardo, Lisboa; Culturgest, Lisboa; Bozar, Bruxelas; Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Werner Feiersinger (1966, Brixlegg, Áustria) vive e trabalha em Viena. Depois de ter estudado na Universidade de Artes Aplicadas em Viena e na Jan van Eyck Maastricht Academy, ensinou na Universidade de Artes Aplicadas em Viena e na École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon. Feiersinger expôs as suas esculturas e fotografias durante mais de uma década e foi também responsável por uma série de intervenções escultóricas em espaço público. A sua obra foi apresentada em instituições internacionais como: Secession, Viena; Galerie Stadtpark, Krems; Kunst Merano Arte, Merano; O&O Depot, Berlim; Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisboa; Fundação Antoni Tapiés, Barcelona; CAC, Vilnius; MuHKA, Antuérpia; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilha. Em Outubro de 2018 apresentará uma extensa intervenção escultural na Belvedere21, em Viena.
Steffani Jemison (1981, Berkeley, Califórnia) vive e trabalha em Brooklyn, Nova Iorque. É Mestre em Artes Visuais pela School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) e Bacharel em Literatura Comparada pela Columbia University (2003). Jemison realizou várias residências artísticas e fellowships, incluindo Rauschenberg Residency (2016), Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2015-2016), Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2014-2015), Studio Museum in Harlem AIR (2012-2013), Denniston Hill (2012), International Studio and Curatorial Program (2012), Project Row Houses (2010-2011), Core Program no Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2009-2011), e Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculp- ture (2008). Os seus trabalhos foram apresentados no Jeu de Paume, CAPC Bordeaux, Museum of Modern Art, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, entre outros. Tem obras nas colecções públicas do Whitney Museum, Museum of Mo- dern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem e na Kadist Foundation.
Ugo La Pietra (1938, Bussi sul Tirino, Itália) vive e trabalha em Milão, onde se formou em Arquitectura no Politécnico em 1964. Arquitecto de formação, Ugo La Pietra é artista, realizador, editor, músico, cartoonista e professor. Tem-se definido a si mesmo como investigador de sistemas de comunicação e de artes visuais desde 1960, movendo-se simultaneamente pelos mundos da arte e do design. Experimentador incansável, La Pietra atravessou diferentes cor- rentes (do Informalismo à Arte Conceptual, da Arte Narrativa ao cinema de artista) e utilizou múltiplos media, condu- zindo pesquisa que se baseava na teoria do “Sistema Desequilibrante” — expressão autónoma dentro do Design Radical — e em temas sociológicos importantes como “The Telematic Home” (MoMA, Nova Iorque, 1972 — Feira di Milano, 1983), “Real Space / Virtual Space” (Triennale di Milano 1979, 1992), “The eclectic Home” (Abitare il Tempo, 1990), “Beach Culture” (Centro Culturale Cattolica, 1985/95). O seu trabalho foi transmitido em diversas exposições em Itália e no estrangeiro e curou várias exposições na Triennale di Milano, Bienal de Veneza, Musée d’art contempo- rain de Lyon, FRAC Centre em Orléans, Museu Internacional de Cerâmica em Faenza, Fondazione Ragghianti em Lucca, Fondazione Mudima em Milão e o Museo MA*GA em Gallarate. Preservou sempre, de forma crítica, os ele- mentos humanistas, significantes e territoriais do design através das suas obras e objectos, bem como do seu trabalho no ensino, na teoria e na edição.
Ree Morton (1936, Ossining, Nova Iorque) expôs durante a sua vida no Artists Space, em Nova Iorque, no Institute of Contemporary Art, em Filadélfia, no Whitney Museum of American Art, Nova Iorque, bem como nas Bykert and Droll/ Kolbert Galleries. Em 1977, Morton morreu num acidente de viação em Chicago. A sua obra está representada em diversas colecções de museus nos EUA e na Europa. Uma retrospectiva póstuma da sua obra foi organizada pelo New Museum de Nova Iorque em 1980, e viajou por vários museus norte-americanos. Em 1999, a Universidade de Vermont, Burlington, organizou uma exposição dos seus cadernos de desenhos e publicou um facsimile de páginas seleccionadas. Uma exposição antológica e uma monografia extensa do trabalho de Morton foi organizada em 2008 pela Generali Foundation, em Viena, e uma exposição dos seus desenhos e pinturas e esculturas relacionadas foi apresentada no Drawing Center, em Nova Iorque, em 2009. Em 2015, o seu trabalho foi objecto de uma retrospectiva no Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, em Madrid. No Outono de 2016, Alexander and Bonin organizou uma exposição individual do trabalho de Morton. Em Setembro de 2018, o Institute of Contemporary Art, da Universidade de Pensilvânia, terá a maior exposição individual da obra de Ree Morton nos EUA em mais de trinta e cinco anos.
Augusto Alves da Silva (1963, Lisboa, Portugal) vive e trabalha em Tremez, Portugal. Estudou em Londres, primeiro no London College of Printing, e posteriormente realizou um mestrado em Media Studies na Slade School of Fine Arts. Começou a expor na década de 90, e desde então tem trabalhado com fotografia e vídeo. Em 1999 foi finalista do Prémio Citibank de Fotografia e em 2006 finalista do BES Photo. Os seus trabalhos têm sido expostos internacional- mente e em especial no MAC, Elvas; MUSAC, Léon; Serralves, Porto; Chisenhale Gallery, Londres; Museu Berardo, Lisboa; Culturgest, Lisboa; Bozar, Bruxelas; Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Werner Feiersinger (1966, Brixlegg, Áustria) vive e trabalha em Viena. Depois de ter estudado na Universidade de Artes Aplicadas em Viena e na Jan van Eyck Maastricht Academy, ensinou na Universidade de Artes Aplicadas em Viena e na École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon. Feiersinger expôs as suas esculturas e fotografias durante mais de uma década e foi também responsável por uma série de intervenções escultóricas em espaço público. A sua obra foi apresentada em instituições internacionais como: Secession, Viena; Galerie Stadtpark, Krems; Kunst Merano Arte, Merano; O&O Depot, Berlim; Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisboa; Fundação Antoni Tapiés, Barcelona; CAC, Vilnius; MuHKA, Antuérpia; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilha. Em Outubro de 2018 apresentará uma extensa intervenção escultural na Belvedere21, em Viena.
Steffani Jemison (1981, Berkeley, Califórnia) vive e trabalha em Brooklyn, Nova Iorque. É Mestre em Artes Visuais pela School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) e Bacharel em Literatura Comparada pela Columbia University (2003). Jemison realizou várias residências artísticas e fellowships, incluindo Rauschenberg Residency (2016), Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2015-2016), Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2014-2015), Studio Museum in Harlem AIR (2012-2013), Denniston Hill (2012), International Studio and Curatorial Program (2012), Project Row Houses (2010-2011), Core Program no Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2009-2011), e Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculp- ture (2008). Os seus trabalhos foram apresentados no Jeu de Paume, CAPC Bordeaux, Museum of Modern Art, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, entre outros. Tem obras nas colecções públicas do Whitney Museum, Museum of Mo- dern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem e na Kadist Foundation.
Ugo La Pietra (1938, Bussi sul Tirino, Itália) vive e trabalha em Milão, onde se formou em Arquitectura no Politécnico em 1964. Arquitecto de formação, Ugo La Pietra é artista, realizador, editor, músico, cartoonista e professor. Tem-se definido a si mesmo como investigador de sistemas de comunicação e de artes visuais desde 1960, movendo-se simultaneamente pelos mundos da arte e do design. Experimentador incansável, La Pietra atravessou diferentes cor- rentes (do Informalismo à Arte Conceptual, da Arte Narrativa ao cinema de artista) e utilizou múltiplos media, condu- zindo pesquisa que se baseava na teoria do “Sistema Desequilibrante” — expressão autónoma dentro do Design Radical — e em temas sociológicos importantes como “The Telematic Home” (MoMA, Nova Iorque, 1972 — Feira di Milano, 1983), “Real Space / Virtual Space” (Triennale di Milano 1979, 1992), “The eclectic Home” (Abitare il Tempo, 1990), “Beach Culture” (Centro Culturale Cattolica, 1985/95). O seu trabalho foi transmitido em diversas exposições em Itália e no estrangeiro e curou várias exposições na Triennale di Milano, Bienal de Veneza, Musée d’art contempo- rain de Lyon, FRAC Centre em Orléans, Museu Internacional de Cerâmica em Faenza, Fondazione Ragghianti em Lucca, Fondazione Mudima em Milão e o Museo MA*GA em Gallarate. Preservou sempre, de forma crítica, os ele- mentos humanistas, significantes e territoriais do design através das suas obras e objectos, bem como do seu trabalho no ensino, na teoria e na edição.
Ree Morton (1936, Ossining, Nova Iorque) expôs durante a sua vida no Artists Space, em Nova Iorque, no Institute of Contemporary Art, em Filadélfia, no Whitney Museum of American Art, Nova Iorque, bem como nas Bykert and Droll/ Kolbert Galleries. Em 1977, Morton morreu num acidente de viação em Chicago. A sua obra está representada em diversas colecções de museus nos EUA e na Europa. Uma retrospectiva póstuma da sua obra foi organizada pelo New Museum de Nova Iorque em 1980, e viajou por vários museus norte-americanos. Em 1999, a Universidade de Vermont, Burlington, organizou uma exposição dos seus cadernos de desenhos e publicou um facsimile de páginas seleccionadas. Uma exposição antológica e uma monografia extensa do trabalho de Morton foi organizada em 2008 pela Generali Foundation, em Viena, e uma exposição dos seus desenhos e pinturas e esculturas relacionadas foi apresentada no Drawing Center, em Nova Iorque, em 2009. Em 2015, o seu trabalho foi objecto de uma retrospectiva no Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, em Madrid. No Outono de 2016, Alexander and Bonin organizou uma exposição individual do trabalho de Morton. Em Setembro de 2018, o Institute of Contemporary Art, da Universidade de Pensilvânia, terá a maior exposição individual da obra de Ree Morton nos EUA em mais de trinta e cinco anos.
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Werner Feiersinger
Untitled
1992
polyester, steel, primer
65 x 40 x 35 cm, each
Augusto Alves da Silva
Paradise City
2017
pigment print
three parts, 56,3 x 74,5 cm, unframed; 75,5 x 94 cm, framed, each
edition of 3
Augusto Alves da Silva
Paradise City
2017
pigment print
three parts, 56,3 x 74,5 cm, unframed; 75,5 x 94 cm, framed, each
edition of 3
Augusto Alves da Silva
Paradise City
2017
pigment print
three parts, 56,3 x 74,5 cm, unframed; 75,5 x 94 cm, framed, each
edition of 3
Augusto Alves da Silva
Paradise City
2017
pigment print
three parts, 56,3 x 74,5 cm, unframed; 75,5 x 94 cm, framed, each
edition of 3
Ugo La Pietra
Attrezzature urbane per la collettività (Abitare è essere ovunque a casa propria)
1977-1979
mixed media on paper
43 x 33 cm, framed
unique
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Ree Morton
Untitled (Rudofsky I and II)
1972
watercolor and graphite on paper
two parts, 46 x 64,5 cm, framed, each
unique
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Steffani Jemison
Escaped Lunatic
2010-11
HDV video, color, sound 08:57
edition of 3 + 2AP
Steffani Jemison
Escaped Lunatic
2010-11
HDV video, color, sound 08:57
edition of 3 + 2AP
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Werner Feiersinger
Untitled
2010
steel, varnish, plastic
70 x 80 x 60 cm
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Augusto Alves da Silva
Untitled
2016
pigment print
56,3 x 74,5 cm, unframed; 75,5 x 94 cm, framed
edition of 5
Body / Building
2018
installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon
Ree Morton
Untitled
1972
pencil on paper
65 x 80 cm, framed
unique
Ugo La Pietra
Attrezzature urbane per la collettività (Abitare è essere ovunque a casa propria)
1977-1979
mixed media on paper
43 x 33 cm, framed
unique
********************************
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
Madragoa at CONDO New York
hosted by Alexander and Bonin
29 June – 27 July, 2018
EN
For its participation at Condo New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin, Madragoa is delighted to present Draw a Line to Make a Landscape, a group exhibition with works by Adrián Balseca, Sara Chang Yan, and Renato Leotta.
In the cartographic practice, the act of drawing a line marks the passage from the inhabited world to the represented space: it is the beginning of a coexistence between the abstract element and the real landscape, a sort of obligatory equilibrium on which each map is based and the landscape squeezed between a geometric lattice and the necessary reference to the actual world.
How to depict a landscape without losing the possibility of inhabiting it, or without losing the load of meanings that exceeds its manifestation? Through essential signs and gestures, Adrián Balseca, Sara Chang Yan, and Renato Leotta explore and recreate the experience of natural environment.
Through the practice of drawing, Sara Chang Yan charts energies, sensitive and mental elements conveyed by the landscape, translating them into minimal signs that settle on the sheet of paper: dots, lines, geometrical shapes, traced by pencil, ink or watercolour, interact with holes, cuts, and removal of thin layers of paper. In the series An infinite flux of graces I (2017), the support is considered as a field that actively responds to the artist’s interventions and gestures. Hanging from the ceiling, floating in the room, the drawings inhabit the gallery and their presence reshapes the space, acting as dynamic, vibrant entities that can be looked at from both sides and, as the viewer moves or the light changes, they reveal unnoticed details and suggest different perspectives.
Renato Leotta recreates in the exhibition space a rarefied marine landscape using elements that come from the seascape itself. A strip of crystallized sea salt on a blue canvas, obtained by the partial immersion of the fabric in the sea water, traces the line of the horizon. The upper part of the two terracotta sculptures reveal the soft shape of beach dunes, reproducing a portion of shore that functioned as a cast for them. Fragments of shells, sand grains and glass particles, melted during the firing process, still shine on their coarse surfaces. These sculptures are conceived as lids, each one for a different container also made of terracotta in the shape of a vase or a box that encloses a portable landscape. They are equipped with a hole from which you can hear the sound of the sea.
In Adrian Balseca’s black and white film, the line is drawn directly in the landscape, in a rubber plantation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In the forest, the workers pierce the bark of the trees, from which the white resin slowly drips, conveying the impression of a wounded landscape, while the latex collecting vessels have taken the shape of a hand, resembling a glove. The Skin of Labour (2016) focuses on the values that underlie human exploitation of nature, and reflects upon the impact of the technification of labour.
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin
Adrián Balseca
The Skin of Labour
2016
digital print of Ilford paper 27 × 36 cm (framed)
edition of 5 + 1PA
Renato Leotta
Aventura (Kas)
2016
terracotta, sand
70 × 30 × 30 cm
unique
Renato Leotta
Multiverso (continente)
2017
cotton, saltwater
170 x 150 cm
unique
Adrián Balseca
The Skin of Labour
2016
16mm black&white lm 9’00”
edition of 5 + 1PA
Adrián Balseca
The Skin of Labour
2016
16mm black&white lm 9’00”
edition of 5 + 1PA
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin
Renato Leotta
Aventura (Pisa)
2016
terracotta, sand
40 × 30 × 30 cm
unique
Renato Leotta
Multiverso
2016
cotton, saltwater
200 × 90 cm
unique
Adrián Balseca
The Skin of Labour
2016
digital print of Ilford paper
27 × 36 cm (framed)
edition of 5 + 1PA
Draw a Line to Make a Landscape
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO New York 2018, hosted by Alexander and Bonin
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #8 (front)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
52,5 x 38 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #8 (back)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
52,5 x 38 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #6 (front)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
55,5 x 38 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #6 (back)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
55,5 x 38 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #13 (front)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
56,5 x 39,5 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #13 (back)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
56,5 x 39,5 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #11 (front)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
58,5 x 41,5 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
An infinite flux of graces I #11 (back)
2017
gouache and cutter on paper
58,5 x 41,5 cm
unique
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LUÍS LÁZARO MATOS
Tomber Dans Le Lac
16 May – 21 July, 2018 – extended until 25 August, 2018
opening Tuesday, 15 May from 9pm
EN
MADRAGOA is delighted to present Tomber Dans Le Lac, the second solo exhibition by Luís Lázaro Matos at the gallery.
In the melancholy of the chroma Blue of Prussia, we see immersed the after death of King Louis II of Bavaria, in “Tomber Dans Le Lac”. To fall into the lake, an expression that in French means to fall into a world of illusions, is the diving board of Lázaro Matos to perform a tragicomic acrobatics on the perils of dazzle. Ironically, it was on the Lake Starnberger that the defunct body of Louis II of Bavaria was found, three days after being deposed. This State figure, known for contracting debts and withdrawing from matters of the State, is the driving force of various follies, opulent buildings built on dreams and musings. Lázaro Matos presents these works as narcissus-castles, accentuating an architectural view as an extension of the self. One of the undertakings of this delusional and megalomaniac legacy, the Neuschwanstein Castle, is the inspiring model of the Disney Castle, this American stronghold where so many unattainable romantic stories are written, especially when we talk about queer lives. "(...) searching for romantic love, but always abandoning my book too soon (...)". Atop a transparent blue, we see a moray reciting the outbursts of the scorned sovereign which metamorphize into an astonishing confessional manifesto. The aesthetic exaggerations of privilege cover the solitude of the bottom of an unknown lake.
Rodrigo Vaiapraia
May 9th, 2018, Lisbon
Tomber Dans Le Lac
I fell exceptionally in every wonder of the water,
Blue was the liquid dream in my heart and on my mind.
I imagined myself as a moray living in a beautiful palace,
Searching for romantic love but always abandoning my book too soon.
I remember watching shamefully quiet from the windows of my tower
The bottom sands of London, San Francisco and Berlin burning,
The wars between shoals escaped from nets and fishing rods,
The slaps, the losses, the violence between fighting fins.
I built castles and fortresses of reef around me
To unwillingly write my fantastic end.
I saw the supposed subjects of my empire pulling my strings
And I saw all my lovers dragged away by grand currents.
The algae entangling me had the texture of my skin,
Simple and elegant forms I had drawn in paper.
I took myself for the owner and hero of times and oceans
And disguised all my evil with euphemisms for years, and years, and years...
My mom sang me the lullaby of music, art and history
Until the loneliness of days hit me in the face.
I even bossed the fish around: to the left! to the right!
Thinking I was the most perfect moray behind the liquid screen.
But I never liked these teeth fish of mine and so I hid –
The cave of privilege offered me great comfort with its aesthetics.
From there I giggled at every object or memory disappearing:
“Come see all my sea life reverie!”
They accused me of being irresponsible, a prince of childish dreams.
What did you want of me? A married fish? Laying out eggs in pairs?
They always told me: “do not complain, you’ve had more than many ever did”
And yet I drowned in that sea water – all made of the sadness and blunder of the fish.
I was both the king and the fool – entertaining everyone with my fall...
Disguised as a clown fish so as not to be left alone laughing.
I fell in this world not really knowing how, and was called a fag and a lunatic
So may my way out be this dive so very gracefully acrobatic.
Luís Lázaro Matos (Évora, Portugal, 1987) lives and works in Lisbon. He studied Painting at Faculdade de Belas-Artes, Universidade de Lisboa from 2006 to 2010 and received a BA in Art Practice at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2011. His solo exhibitions include: SMILE YOU ARE IN SPAIN STUDIO PART I, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; Super Gibraltar, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, 2015; Models for Solitude, Old School, Lisbon, 2014; Houses On Punta Massulo, Neoteorismoi Toumazou, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2013; One, Two, Three! Position!, Hinterconti, Hamburg, 2013; Into the Blue/Out of the Blue, Goldsmiths College, London, 2010. Selected group exhibitions include: Artists’ Film International, MAAT, Lisbon, and Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2017; 10000 anos depois entre Vénus e Marte, Galeria Municipal do Porto, Oporto, 2017; Debaixo do Seu Nariz, Gare Marítima da Rocha Conde de Óbidos, Lisbon, 2017; Jade Bi, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; Prémio EDP Novos Artistas, Galeria Fundação EDP, Oporto, 2013; Via Paraguay Ballet, Villa Design Group, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 2013; Villa I, This House is Triadic Fascist and Made of Industry Glass, George and Dragon Cabaret Bar, London, 2012.
PT
A MADRAGOA tem o prazer de apresentar Tomber Dans Le Lac, a segunda exposição individual da artista Luís Lázaro Matos na galeria.
Na melancolia do croma Azul da Prússia, vemos banhado o pós-morte do Rei Luís II da Baviera em “Tomber Dans Le Lac”. Cair no lago, expressão que na língua francesa significa cair num mundo de ilusões, é a prancha de mergulho de Lázaro Matos para realizar uma acrobacia tragicómica sobre os perigos do deslumbramento. Ironicamente, foi no Lago Starnberger que encontraram o corpo defunto de Luís II da Baviera, três dias depois de ser deposto. Esta figura de estado, conhecida por contrair dívidas e alhear-se de assuntos de Estado, é o impulsionador de vários “follies”, edifícios opulentos alicerçados em sonhos e devaneios. Lázaro Matos expõe estas obras como narcisos-castelo, sublinhando uma noção de arquitectura como extensão do pessoal. Uma das empreitadas deste legado de sonho e megalomania, o Castelo de Neuschwanstein, é o modelo inspirador do Castelo da Disney, esse forte americano onde se tecem tantas narrativas românticas inatingíveis, especialmente quando falamos em vidas queer. “(...) procurei o amor romântico, mas o livro acabou sempre no prefácio(...)”. Num azul transparente, vemos uma moreia recitar desabafos do soberano ridicularizado que se transformam num assombroso manifesto confessional. Os exageros estéticos do privilégio cobrem a solidão do fundo de um lago desconhecido.
Rodrigo Vaiapraia
9 Maio 2018, Lisboa
Tomber Dans Le Lac
Caí em todos os deslumbramentos da água excepcionalmente,
O azul era o sonho líquido que ocupou o meu coração e a minha mente,
Imaginava-me uma moreia a habitar um belo palácio,
Procurei o amor romântico mas o livro acabou sempre no prefácio.
Lembro-me, vergonhosamente quieto, de da janela da minha torre ver:
As areias do fundo de Londres, São Francisco, e Berlim a arder.
As guerras entre cardumes ainda escapados às redes e às canas,
Os estalos, as perdas e a violência entre seres de barbatanas.
Construí castelos e fortalezas de coral em torno de mim
Para sem querer e fantasticamente arquitectar o meu fim.
Vi todos os que pensava súbditos manipularem-me como um fantoche.
Vi todos os meus amantes nadarem para longe num belo coche.
As algas onde me enleei tinham a textura da minha pele.
Simples e elegantes formas que desenhei em papel,
Pensava ser o dono e herói do meu tempo e dos oceanos.
Vesti todo o meu mal de eufemismos, anos, e anos e anos...
A minha mãe cantou-me a história, a musica e a arte,
Até a solidão dos dias bater na minha cara com uma tarte!
Dava ordens aos peixes: para a esquerda! para a direita!
Pensando ser eu, do outro lado do aquoso ecrã , a moreia mais perfeita!
Nunca gostei dos meus dentes de peixe e por isso me escondia
No esteticismo confortável que a gruta do privilégio me oferecia.
Lá, cobria o desaparecimento das memórias e dos objectos com risinhos,
“Venham ver estes completos devaneios animais marinhos!”
Acusaram-me de ser irresponsável, “príncipe de sonhos infantis”.
Queriam-me como? Casado? A desovar na água em Bis?
Diziam-me sempre: “tiveste muito mais do que muitos... não te queixes”,
Ainda assim, matei-me na água do mar – feita de toda a desilusão e tristeza dos peixes.
Fui rei e bobo simultaneamente - entretive todos no meu declínio...
Disfarçava-me de peixe palhaço para tentar não acabar a rir sozinho
Caí neste mundo não sei como e fui chamado de bicha e lunático
Que a minha saída dele seja um belo mergulho acrobático.
Luís Lázaro Matos (Évora, Portugal, 1987) Estudou Pintura na Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa entre 2006 e 2010, recebeu o BA em Art Practice na Goldsmiths College, University of London em 2011. Exposições individuais incluem: SMILE YOU ARE IN SPAIN STUDIO PART I, Madragoa, Lisboa, 2017; Super Gibraltar, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisboa, 2015; Models for Solitude, Old School, Lisboa, 2014; Houses On Punta Massulo, Neoteorismoi Toumazou, Nicosia, Chipre, 2013; One, Two, Three! Position!, Hinterconti, Hamburgo, 2013; Into the Blue/Out of the Blue, Goldsmiths College, Londres, 2010. O seu trabalho foi incluido nas exposições colectivas: Artists’ Film International, MAAT, Lisboa, e Whitechapel Gallery, Londres, 2017; 10000 anos depois entre Vénus e Marte, Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto, 2017; Debaixo do Seu Nariz, Gare Marítima da Rocha Conde de Óbidos, Lisboa, 2017; Jade Bi, Madragoa, Lisboa, 2017; Prémio EDP Novos Artistas, Galeria Fundação EDP, Porto, 2013; Via Paraguay Ballet, Villa Design Group, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 2013; Villa I, This House is Triadic Fascist and Made of Industry Glass, George and Dragon Cabaret Bar, Londres, 2012.
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
2015
pastel on paper in artist frame
217 x 155 cm, each, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
2018
acrilic on canvas 55” monitor
HD video 2’41”, loop
canvas: 180 x 280 cm
unique ( video edition 1 of 3 + 2AP )
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
2018
HD video 2’41”, loop
edition of 3 + 2AP
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac (detail)
2018
acrilic on canvas 55” monitor
HD video 2’41”, loop
canvas: 180 x 280 cm
unique ( video edition 1 of 3 + 2AP )
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac #1
marker on digital print in artist frame
101 x 72 x 3,5 cm, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac #2
marker on digital print in artist frame 101 x 72 x 3,5 cm, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac #3
marker on digital print in artist frame
101 x 72 x 3,5 cm, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac #4
marker on digital print in artist frame
101 x 72 x 3,5 cm, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac #5
marker on digital print in artist frame
101 x 72 x 3,5 cm, framed
unique
Luís Lázaro Matos
Tomber Dans Le Lac
installation view
********************************
Joanna Piotrowska
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
14 April — 12 May, 2018
EN
For their participation at Condo Mexico City 2018, hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, Madragoa and Dawid Radziszewski are delighted to present a solo exhibition by Joanna Piotrowska (Warsaw, 1985) as a conversation between different bodies of works created in the past few years by the artist.
Joanna Piotrowska’s practice is rooted in performance and is focused on the investigation on human body, which is the protagonist of all the exhibited works. Her photographs, as well as films, are based on an exploration of body language that does not express univocal, clear meanings, but constantly shifts to convey ambiguous perceptions, feelings of discomfort, of subtle violence, due to the tense poses and gestures that the portrayed people assume.
In Self-defence, the artist captures a number of young women re-enacting poses from self-defence manuals. Caught in an aggressive or defensive attitude towards an invisible enemy, the young women in their wisely disarticulated poses show more than anything else their fragility.
The same poetics is at the base of the film Untitled (2016), in which a young girl standing in front of the camera is pointing with her finger to distinct parts of her body. This simple choreography is a corporal enactment of diagrams targeting the “week spots” of the human body, drawn from self-defence manuals, that illustrate how victims can defend themselves by striking at those spots. The premise of violence is sublimated by the calm gesture of the performer who, while exposing her own fragility, questions the roles of victim and aggressor. Untitled (2016) shows the close up of a left arm and hand continuously caressed by the opposite right hand. Self-touch gestures, considered by psychologists as a therapy to combat anxiety and loneliness, are repeated over time in the video, manifesting the strangeness of the body as an object. The photographs from Frantic (2016-17) investigate the relationship between bodies and the space they inhabit. They document a series of temporary shelters built inside different houses, using all sort of materials found in the same houses. The shootings of the exhibited photographs took place in Lisbon, London, Rio de Janeiro and Warsaw, where the artist involved local people to erect inside their own apartments or gardens a shelter they could inhabit, using furnitures for the structure and selecting personal objects they would live with. The result is a series of different environmental assemblages that look like their authors: some are solid and minimal, some are complicated and fragile, giving the impression they can collapse at any time. The presence inside the shelters of their creators, the bodies that barely fit in, reveal them to be traps rather than comfortable places.
Joanna Piotrowska (Warsaw, Poland, 1985), lives and works in London. She received a BA in Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow, in 2009 and a MA in Photography, at the Royal College of Art, London in 2013. In 2015 she was awarded with the Photoworks & Jerwood Award. Solo exhibitions include: Frantic, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2016; Joanna Piotrowska, Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Warsaw, 2016; Hester, Southard Reid, London, 2015; How Are You?, Księgarnia | Wystawa, Cracow, 2015; FROWST, Ethnographic Museum, Cracow, 2015; s.w.a.l.k, Project Space, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, 2014. Group exhibitions include: Being: New Photography, MoMA, New York, 2018; Room, Sadie Coles, London, 2017; Something halfway between the typical atmosphere I breathe and the tip of my reality , La Tabacalera, Madrid, 2017; O Céu dos Obliquos, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; Such are promises, Darren Bader, Sadie Coles, London, 2016; Give Me Yesterday, Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, Milan, 2016; Raster Gallery, Warsaw, 2016; Jerwood/Photoworks Awards 2015, Jerwood Space, London, 2015; What love has to do with it, Project Space, Hayward Gallery, London, 2014; Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2013. Upcoming shows include: Tetley Museum, Leeds, 2018, Berlin Biennale 2018, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2019.
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2017
silver gelatin hand print
120 x 95 cm
edition of 3 + AP
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2016
16mm film, 3’05” (loop)
edition of 5 + PA
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2017
silver gelatin hand print
61,9 x 50,4 cm
edition of 5 + AP
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2017
silver gelatin hand print
95 x 120 cm
edition of 3 + AP
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2017
silver gelatin hand print
61,9 x 50,4 cm
edition of 5 + AP
Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled
2017
silver gelatin hand print
21,6 x 27,2 cm
edition of 5 + AP
Joanna Piotrowska
installation view
Madragoa at CONDO Mexico City 2018
hosted by Arredondo Arozarena, with Dawid Radziszewski
********************************
SARA CHANG YAN
Um plano tangível e infinito
March 24 – 5 May, 2018
opening Friday, March 23 from 9pm
EN
MADRAGOA is delighted to present Um plano tangível e infinito, the second solo exhibition by Sara Chang Yan at the gallery.
The two adjectives used in the title of the exhibition to describe “the plane” – “tangible and infinite” – seem to express a certain contrast, a slight contradiction. If tangible is something that can be touched, physically perceived but also conceptually understood, infinite is rather elusive, always transcends rigid definitions, and cannot be reached nor grasped in its extent. These two dimensions coexist in Sara Chang Yan’s drawings, in which the plane is not just the background on which lines, shapes, colours and signs settle, but it acts as a magnetic field that responds and actively participates in the composition. There are no hierarchies in the drawings: states of mind, gestures, movements, signs and support are equivalent and interact at the same level. In the negotiation between these elements, the surface of the paper sheet does not only represent a delimited portion of space where the drawing appears, where the composition becomes tangible, but preserves the poetic quality of the blank page, the symbolic space of waiting, of still unexpressed possibilities, of infinite potentials.
In the new series of drawings Alinhamentos this approach, that is common to all Sara Chang Yan’s practice, is emphasized. The starting point of each work on paper is the shape of the sheet, that is not rectangular but irregular in order to free the drawings from their obedience to a single point of observation: the frame, that follows their capricious contours, allows viewers to actually interact with them, to grab the drawings in their hands, to rotate and see them from different orientations, and on both sides. The observer can also move these object-drawings in the gallery space, they can simply be hanging on the wall or leaning on the floor against the wall, investigating the relationship between the works and the exhibition space, how they react in response to different environmental conditions.
The relationship between image and movement, in this case intended as a sequence of planes, is further explored in Quando o céu, o mar e os corpos se tornam transparentes. The video of two people floating in the sea is projected on a drawing that acts as screen as well as a filter, and interplays with the footage. The dots, the holes and the cuts on the paper provide the projection with an unusual physicality; this superimposition creates a layered, dense image, that recalls the materiality of an old film on which the presence of scratches and stains immediately reveals its fictitious nature.
In the gallery at the ground floor, viewers are enveloped by sounds coming from different sources, by the warmth and the smell of the barren earth that covers the entire floor of the space, altering their movements and softening their footsteps. The immersive installation Andar subtil sinal has been conceived as a drawing that is expanded to the whole space, and whose composition is based on a non-visual, but auditory vocabulary. Signs have been replaced by sounds, short recordings of plucked guitar strings or fingers snapping, musical notes but also daily noises that, untied from the gestures or from the original context in which they have been produced, become strangely unfamiliar: they form a mysterious choreography, a constellation that punctuates the space and make it vibrate.
Sara Chang Yan (Lisbon, 1982) lives and works in Lisbon. Recent exhibitions include: Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions, The Drawing Center, New York, 2017; Hibernation Plan, The Drawing Center, 2016; Escuto o Silêncio, Fala Inteiro e Com Precisão; Madragoa, Lisbon, 2016; Álibi, EspaçoAZ, Lisbon, 2015; Getting Lost, Fundación Botín, Villa Iris, Santander, 2015. In 2015 she was awarded with the Prémio Artes Visuais para Jovens Criadores, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
PT
A MADRAGOA tem o prazer de apresentar Um plano tangível e infinito, a segunda exposição individual da artista Sara Chang Yan na galeria.
Os dois adjetivos utilizados no título da exposição para descrever “o plano” — tangível e infinito — parecem expressar um certo contraste, uma ligeira contradição. Se tangível é algo que pode ser tocado, fisicamente percepcionado, mas também conceptualmente compreendido, infinito é bastante elusivo, que transcende sempre definições rígidas, e que não pode ser alcançado nem apreendido na sua extensão. Estas duas dimensões coexistem nos desenhos da artista Sara Chang Yan, onde o plano não é apenas o fundo onde linhas, formas, cores e sinais se assentam, mas que age como um campo magnético que responde e participa ativamente na composição. Não há hierarquias nos desenhos: estados de espírito, gestos, movimentos, sinais e suporte são equivalentes e interagem no mesmo nível. Na negociação entre estes elementos, a superfície da folha de papel não representa apenas a parte delimitada de espaço onde o desenho aparece, onde a composição se torna tangível, mas preserva a qualidade poética da página em branco, do espaço simbólico da espera, das possibilidades ainda não expressadas, dos potenciais infinitos.
Na série de desenhos Alinhamentos esta abordagem, que é comum a toda a prática da artista, é enfatizada. O ponto de partida de cada trabalho em papel é a forma da folha, que não é retangular, mas irregular, a fim de libertar os desenhos da sua obediência a um único ponto de observação: a moldura, que acompanha os contornos excêntricos, permite que os espectadores realmente interajam com os desenhos, que os segurem nas mãos, que os movam e que os vejam de em diferentes orientações e de ambos os lados. O observador também pode mover estes objetos- desenhos no espaço da galeria, estes podem simplesmente ser pendurados na parede ou encostados no chão contra a parede, investigando a relação entre as obras e o espaço expositivo, e a sua reação em resposta a ambientes diferentes.
A relação entre imagem e movimento, neste caso intencionada como uma sequência de planos, é explorada em Quando o céu, o mar e os corpos se tornam transparentes. O vídeo, no qual duas pessoas que flutuam no mar, é projetado sobre um desenho que funciona não só como tela, mas também como filtro, que interage com a filmagem. Os pontos, os buracos e os cortes no papel conferem à projeção uma fisicalidade incomum; essa sobreposição cria uma imagem densa, em camadas, que lembra a materialidade de um filme antigo, no qual a presença de riscos e manchas revela imediatamente a sua natureza fictícia.
No piso térreo da galeria, os espectadores são envolvidos por sons vindos de diferentes pontos do solo, pelo calor e pelo cheiro da terra que cobre todo o espaço, alterando os seus movimentos e suavizando os seus passos. A imersiva instalação Andar subtil sinal foi concebida como um desenho que é expandido para todo o espaço e cuja composição é baseada num vocabulário não-visual, mas auditivo. Os sinais foram substituídos por sons, curtas gravações do tocar de uma corda de guitarra ou de estalar de dedos, notas musicais e ruídos diários que, desvinculados dos gestos ou do contexto original em que foram produzidos, formando uma misteriosa coreografia, uma constelação que pontua e faz vibrar o espaço.
Sara Chang Yan (Lisboa, 1982) vive e trabalha em Lisboa. As suas exposições mas recentes incluem: Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions, The Drawing Center, Nova Iorque, 2017; Hibernation Plan, The Drawing Center, Nova Iorque, 2016; Escuto o Silêncio, Fala Inteiro e Com Precisão; Madragoa, Lisboa, 2016; Álibi, EspaçoAZ, Lisboa, 2015; Getting Lost, Fundación Botín, Villa Iris, Santander, 2015. Em 2015 foi-lhe atribuído o Prémio Artes Visuais para Jovens Criadores, da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Sara Chang Yan
Andar subtil sinal
2018
sound installation, earth, pencil, gouache and cutter on paper
variable dimensions
unique
link for documentation video
Sara Chang Yan
Andar subtil sinal
2018
sound installation, earth, pencil, gouache and cutter on paper
variable dimensions
unique
link for documentation video
Sara Chang Yan
Um plano tangível e infinito
installation view
Sara Chang Yan
Um plano tangível e infinito
installation view
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #4
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
90 × 125 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #4
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
90 × 125 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #4
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
90 × 125 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #2
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
114 × 83 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #2
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
114 × 83 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #2
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
114 × 83 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Um plano tangível e infinito
installation view
Sara Chang Yan
Um plano tangível e infinito
installation view
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #1
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
141 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #1
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
141 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #1
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
141 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #3
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
105 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #3
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
105 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Alinhamentos #3
2018
pencil, gouache and cutter on paper, artist frame
105 × 90 cm
unique
Sara Chang Yan
Quando o céu, o mar e os corpos se tornam transparentes
2018
video projection, pencil, gouache and cutter on paper
variable dimensions
unique
link for documentation video
Sara Chang Yan
Quando o céu, o mar e os corpos se tornam transparentes
2018
video projection, pencil, gouache and cutter on paper
variable dimensions
unique
link for documentation video
********************************
The Hired Grievers
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Anna Betbeze, Elena Narbutaite, Penny Slinger, Freek Wambacq, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt. Curated by Jason Dodge.
January 27 – March 10, 2018
opening Friday, January 26 at 9pm
EN
MADRAGOA is delighted to present The Hired Grievers, a group exhibition curated by Jason Dodge that will take place in both gallery spaces, Madragoa and Madragoa Encima.
Many cultures hire mourners to participate in funerals. They are a chorus, they are decoration, they are guides to the underworld and guides to the range of feelings that come with grieving. In Matthew Dickman’s poem Grief, grief comes as a purple gorilla. He writes: “We sit for an hour / while she tells me how unreasonable I’ve been, / crying in the checkout line, / refusing to eat, refusing to shower, / all the smoking and all the drinking. / Eventually she puts one of her heavy / purple arms around me, leans / her head against mine, / and all of a sudden things are feeling romantic. / So I tell her, / things are feeling romantic. / She pulls another name, this time / from the dead, / [...]”.
In Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven frieze grief also comes as a gorilla, with scales and fins and reflective eyes, but this exhibition is not about grief, it is about reflective eyes, and the shimmering gems and decoration that are the witnesses to mourning, the incense, the frankincense, the gilded and shining.
In this exhibition, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt types drawings of time. Anna Betbeze changes carpets to portholes, Freek Wambacq visualises things where sound is supposed to be, magnetic tape is rustling grass, potato starch is footsteps in the snow. Elena Narbutaite shining and staring lamps are blinding empsthetic strangers that speak in toungues. Penny Slinger’s collages are maps of an inner life, they can be read both as a representing and mapping a “dance of death”, or “repentance” while Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili’s photographs recreate time of day / time of life with in the capsule of the dark room, one exposure is the morning, one exposure the dead of night, it is not the negative that has the time of day in it, it is her hand, like a magician, telling you: not that, this, over here, I have invented a new hour.
Grief is not an idea, that is the weight of it. Grief is the way that life interferes with life — the breath on the window, an outgrown shoe. The hired grievers are the barrier between grief and the idea of grief. Strangers that guide the family and loved ones who are suffering the loss of one of their own, and are the hired grievers the strangers that usher the dead into death. The juxtaposition between being the focus of mourning to the anonymous body that is being mourned.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia, 1979) lives and works in Berlin. She received her BFA in Photography from Bard College, Annandale, New York in 2003. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin; Kaufman Repetto, Milan; Ancient & Modern, London; and Eighth Veil, Los Angeles. Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at the New Museum Triennial 2015, FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen; Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover; Casey Kaplan, New York; MaryMary, Glasgow; Kunstverein Bielefeld, Bielefeld; and Karma International, Zurich.
Anna Betbeze (Columbus, US, 1980) lives and works in New York. She received a B.F.A. from the University of Georgia in 2003 and an M.F.A. in painting/printmaking from Yale in 2006. She has held solo exhibitions at Kate Werble Gallery, New York; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Lüttenmeijer, Berlin; and François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; MoMA PS1; Galerie Perrotin, Paris; Luxembourg & Dayan, New York; Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; and Ramiken Crucible, New York. She was the recipient of a Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize in 2013–14.
Elena Narbutaite (Vilnius, Lithuania, 1984) lives and works in Vilnius. She has participated in exhibitions internationally, including the Liverpool Biennial in 2016 and the joint Lithuanian and Cyprus pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Other recent group exhibitions include venues such as CACP Bordeaux, France, 2016, Escola De Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2015); Marco Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Vigo, Spain (2015); Art Department Di Tella University, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2014). She has contributed to the periodicals The Federal, Nero, Bill and CAC Interview.
Penny Slinger (London, UK, 1947) lives and works in California. She has been working in the creative field since the 1970s, producing art in various mediums, from collage and painting to photography and film, and her work has been exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Blum and Poe Gallery in Tokyo (2015) and Los Angeles (2014), Broadway 1602 Gallery in New York (2012) and Riflemaker Gallery in London (2012). Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; Sadie Coles, London; Hayward Gallery, London; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels.
Freek Wambacq (Brussels, Belgium, 1978) lives and works in Amsterdam. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2013); Museum M, Leuven (2011); Galerie Elisa Platteau, Brussels (2009); KIOSK, Ghent (2008); S.M.A.K., Ghent (2005); Établissement d’en face, Brussels (2004). His work has been included in group exhibitions at Rozenstraat-a rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam (2017); Kunstverein München, Munich (2017); CAC – Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2016); De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2016); Flat Time House, London (2016); Wiels, Brussels (2015); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2014); Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels (2012); Spazio A, Pistoia (2011); Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2011); Queen’s Nails Projects, San Francisco (2009).
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (Wurzen, Germany, 1932) lives and works in Berlin. At the beginning of the 1970s, she started to develop her trademark typewriter graphics (Typewritings) and participated in the Mail Art projects. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Signs Fiction, Chert Berlin (2015); Ruth Wolf- Rehfeldt–Original Graphic Works 1972-1989, Weserburg Study Centre / Museum of Modern Art Bremen (2012). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga (2017); Museum Barberini, Potsdam (2017); Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2017); documenta 14, Kassel (2017); Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2016).
PT
A MADRAGOA tem o prazer de apresentar The Hired Grievers, uma exposição de grupo com curadoria de Jason Dodge que acontecerá em ambos os espaços da galeria, Madragoa e Madragoa Encima.
Muitas culturas contratam pessoas para participarem do luto em funerais. Eles são um coro, eles são decoração, são guias para o submundo e para a variedade de sentimentos que surgem com o lamento. No poema de Matthew Dickman, Grief, o sofrimento aparece como um gorila roxo. Ele escreve: "Nós sentamo-nos por uma hora / enquanto ela me diz o quão irracional eu fui, / chorando na linha de checkout, / recusando-me a comer, recusando-me a tomar banho, / todo o fumo e a bebida. / Eventualmente ela coloca um dos seus braços pesados / roxos ao meu redor, inclina / a sua cabeça contra a minha, / e, de repente, as coisas são românticas. / Então eu digo- lhe, / as coisas estão a ficar românticas. / Ela tira outro nome, desta vez / vindo dos mortos, / [...] ".
No friso de Beethoven de Gustav Klimt, o sofrimento também aparece como um gorila, com escamas e barbatanas e olhos reflexivos, mas esta exposição não é sobre sofrimento, é sobre olhos reflexivos e as gemas brilhantes e decoração que são testemunhas do luto, o incenso, o dourado e o brilhante.
Nesta exposição, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt faz desenhos de tempo. Anna Betbeze transforma tapetes em janelas, Freek Wambacq visualiza coisas onde o som deveria ser, a fita magnética é o movimento do capim, o amido de batata é um passo na neve. As lâmpadas brilhantes e apontadas Elena Narbutaite, cegam estranhos empolgados que falam em idiomas. As colagens de Penny Slinger são mapas de uma vida interior, eles podem ser lidos tanto representando como mapeando uma "dança da morte", ou "arrependimento", enquanto as fotografias de Ketuta Alexi- Meskhishvili recriam a hora do dia / a hora da vida com a cápsula de um quarto escuro, uma exposição é a manhã, uma exposição é a escuridão da noite, não é o negativo que tem a hora do dia, é a sua mão, como um mágico, dizendo: não é isso, aqui, inventei uma nova hora.
O desgosto não é uma ideia, isto é, o peso dele. O sofrimento é a forma como a vida interfere com a vida - a respiração na janela, um sapato que já não serve. As carpideiras são a barreira entre o sofrimento e a ideia do sofrimento. Estranhos que orientam a família e os entes queridos que estão a sofrer a perda de um deles, e as carpideiras são os estranhos que levam os mortos à morte. A justaposição entre ser o foco de luto para o corpo anónimo que está a ser deposto.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili (Tbilisi, Geórgia, 1979) vive e trabalha em Berlim. Ela completou o BFA em Fotografia da Bard College, Annandale, Nova York em 2003. Exposições individuais do seu trabalho foram realizadas no Kölnischer Kunstverein, Colônia, Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlim; Kaufman Repetto, Milão; Ancient & Modern, London; e Eighth Veil, Los Angeles. Seu trabalho foi incluído em exposições coletivas recentemente no New York Museum Triennial 2015, FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen; Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover; Casey Kaplan, Nova Iorque; MaryMary, Glasgow; Kunstverein Bielefeld, Bielefeld; e Karma International, Zurique.
Anna Betbeze (Columbus, EUA, 1980) vive e trabalha em Nova York. Ela completou o B.F.A. da Universidade da Geórgia em 2003 e o M.F.A. em pintura / gravura de Yale em 2006. Realizou exposições individuais na Kate Werble Gallery, Nova York; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Massachusetts, North Adams; Lüttenmeijer, Berlim; e Galeria François Ghebaly, Los Angeles. Seu trabalho foi incluído em exposições de grupo no Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; MoMA PS1; Galerie Perrotin, Paris; Luxemburgo e Dayan, Nova Iorque; Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Nova Iorque; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nova Iorque; e Ramiken Crucible, Nova Iorque. Ela recebeu o Prêmio Museu Metropolitano de Arte de Roma em 2013-14.
Elena Narbutaite (Vilnius, Lituânia, 1984) vive e trabalha em Vilnius. Ela participou em exposições internacionais, incluindo a Bienal de Liverpool em 2016 e o pavilhão conjunto da Lituânia e Chipre na Bienal de Veneza em 2013. Outras exposições coletivas recentes incluem locais como o CACP Bordeaux, França, 2016, a Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2015); Marco Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Vigo, Espanha (2015); Departamento de Arte Universidade Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2014). Ela contribuiu para os jornais The Federal, Nero, Bill e CAC Entrevista.
Penny Slinger (Londres, Reino Unido, 1947) vive e trabalha na Califórnia. Ela trabalha na área criativa desde a década de 1970, produzindo arte em vários meios, desde colagem e pintura até fotografia e filme, e o seu trabalho foi exibido internacionalmente. As exposições individuais recentes foram realizadas na Blum and Poe Gallery em Tóquio (2015) e Los Angeles (2014), Broadway 1602 Gallery em Nova Iorque (2012) e Riflemaker Gallery em Londres (2012). Seu trabalho foi incluído em exposições coletivas recentes no Museu de Arte Moderna de Varsóvia; Sadie Coles, Londres; Hayward Gallery, Londres; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburgo; Bozar Center for Fine Arts, Bruxelas.
Freek Wambacq (Bruxelas, Bélgica, 1978) vive e trabalha em Amsterdão. Exposições individuais do seu trabalho foram realizadas em Objectif, Antuérpia (2013); Museu Leuven, Louvain, Bélgica (2011), Galerie Elisa Platteau, Bruxelas (2009); KIOSK, Ghent (2008); STUK, Leuven (2007); S.M.A.K., Ghent (2005). Ele apresentou recentemente uma intervenção no show Warming Up, Michel Cardena, em Rozenstraat - uma rosa é uma rosa é uma rosa, Amsterdão (2017). O seu trabalho foi incluído em exposições colectivas em Kunstverein München, Munique (2017); KIT, Dusseldorf (2011); Stedelijk Museum, Aalst (Bélgica, 2010); Centro de arte contemporânea, Château-Gontier (2009); Queens 'Nails Projects, São Francisco (EUA, 2009); Künstlerhaus, Dortmund (2009).
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (Wurzen, Alemanha, 1932) vive e trabalha em Berlim. No início da década de 1970, ela começou a desenvolver os seus gráficos de máquinas de escrever de marca registrada (Typewritings) e participou dos projetos da Mail Art. A suas recentes exposições individuais incluem: Signs Fiction, Chert Berlin (2015); Ruth Wolf- Rehfeldt - obras gráficas originais 1972-1989, Weserburg Study Centre / Museum of Modern Art Bremen (2012). O seu trabalho foi incluído em exposições colectivas no Centro de Arte Contemporânea da Letónia, Riga (2017); Museu Barberini, Potsdam (2017); Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2017); documenta 14, Kassel (2017); Martin Gropius Bau, Berlim (2016).
The Hired Grievers
installation view
The Hired Grievers
installation view
The Hired Grievers
installation view
The Hired Grievers
installation view
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Figurations collagiert
1980s
collage on zyncography
31,5 × 23 cm
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Figurations collagiert
1980s
collage on zyncography
31,5 × 23 cm
Penny Slinger
Repentance
1970-1977
photo collage on card
32,4 × 48,3 cm
The Hired Grievers
installation view
Anna Betbeze
Heatwave
2014
wool, acid dyes, ash 212 × 162 cm
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili
Dark palm
2013
archival pigment print
67,2 × 55,2 cm (framed)
edition of 2 + 2AP
The Hired Grievers
installation view
Freek Wambacq
Untitled (after Muybridge)
2018
halved coconut shells, brass and green polyethylene stick variable dimensions
Freek Wambacq
Untitled (after Muybridge)
2018
halved coconut shells, brass and green polyethylene stick variable dimensions
The Hired Grievers
installation view
Anna Betbeze
untitled
2016
wool, acid dyes, ash, india ink 250 × 180 cm
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Figurationen
Zyncography
28 × 22 cm
edition of 50
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Figurationen
Zyncography
29,5 × 21 cm
edition of 50
Penny Slinger
Dance of Death
1970-1977
photo collage on card
38,4 × 47,6 cm
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili
Isa Flower
2013 - 2018
archival pigment print edition of 2 + 2AP
Freek Wambacq
Torso I
2018
red cabbage
The Hired Grievers
installation view
The Hired Grievers
installation view
Freek Wambacq
Torso II
2018
telephone books - yellow pages
21,3 x 30 x 2,3 cm
The Hired grievers
installation view
Anna Betbeze
Moon 2
2012
wool, ash, acid dyes
240 × 170 cm
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili
Braids (Dark)
2016
archival pigment print
39,1 × 31,9 × 2,5 cm (framed)
edition of 2 + 2AP
Elena Narbutaitė
Brother
2016
led lamp with electronic program edition of 3
********************************
Approx.
Madragoa at CONDO London
hosted by Sadie Coles HQ, The Shop
January 13 – February 10, 2018
EN
For its participation at Condo 2018, hosted by Sadie Coles HQ at The Shop, Madragoa is delighted to present Approx., an exhibition that brings together works by Rodrigo Hernández, Renato Leotta, Gonçalo Preto, Buhlebezwe Siwani, and Belén Uriel.
The project reflects on the mutual relationship between subject and matter, revealing an imme- diate proximity in which the body, or its gesture, settles on the surface of the artwork. Traces of this attempt at recording human features, lands- capes, objects or actions are impressed on the matter itself that, like a thin skin, adheres to the object of representation and immediately trans- lates it into a new shape. These practices lead to a convergence of subject and media, even to an inversion, in which the material itself and the process of making become the actual subject of the work, otherwise invisible.
It is the case of Renato Leotta’s TEMPO (Luna del ghiaccio) (2017), that captures in a photogram in silver gelatin print the image of the surface of the sea by immersing the photographic paper directly in the sea water during a night of a full moon. The photogram has been obtained without the use of any photographical instrument, but by means of transforming a whole specific landscape into a “camera obscura” and fixing an image, frozen in time, of the ephemeral vision that we would see if we opened our eyes underwater. The artist’s research is about testing reality without having a pre-existent answer and in a way allowing the natural landscape – time, water, paper, salt, light and gravity – to represent itself without ad- ditional structures.
In Buhlebezwe Siwani’s installation, amaKhobokha (2016), protagonist is a particular kind of green soap that in South Africa is used for many purposes: to cleanse one’s clothes but also one’s body and the digestive system. The bowls in which traces and residues of soap are accumulated are multi-functional objects, used only by young women to bathe, wash clothing, store food. The soap has solidified in the bowls look like a stain, an encrustation, that evokes by contrast the act of washing and purifying the body.
The glass sculpture Untitled (braço) (2017) by Belén Uriel comes from the recent project Descanso, in which the artist focussed on some constituent elements of furniture shaped to accommodate the human body and that, through their forms and curves, maintain a strong relationship with the body. The actual armrest served as a cast for the glass sculpture, that faithfully reproduces the object’s shape, including the traces of its use, and imperfections due to wear and consumption. An isolated element, detached from its usual context and function of physical support to the body, the armrest is converted into a fragile, transparent item which in turn needs a support.
The same lightness and transparency characterize Maxcanú (2015) by Rodrigo Hernández, a bas-relief work installed on the wall, halfway between sculpture and painting. Made of a thin milky white, modelled layer of crystal-clear polyurethane, the bust of Maxcanú discreetly protrudes in the space, where it is almost invisi- ble. Inspired by traditional masks, in particular by death masks, typically obtained by a wax or plaster cast of a person’s face, the features of this bust are synthetic, almost geometric, and abstract, transforming it into the man’s proto- type often present in the artist’s imagery.
Gonçalo Preto’s background in traditional pain- ting techniques led him to experiment through interventions on the support – paper, board or canvas – by applying various layers of gesso and glue, or scraping the surface in order to ob- tain verisimilitude effects with the real subject. In the painting Peek-a-boo (2018) showing the image of a head in a glass jar dipped in formalin, several types of visual effects coexist, like a su- perimposition of layers or filters. Every different material represented – the wall in the backgrou- nd, the translucent and curved surface of the jar, the light reflected on the glass, the density of the fluid, the mirrored image of the room – become a device for a more vivid and comprehensive view of reality.
Madragoa at CONDO London 2018
installation view
Renato Leotta
TEMPO (Luna del ghiaccio)
2017
silver gelatin print
120 × 110 cm
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique
Madragoa at CONDO London 2018
installation view
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique
Rodrigo Hernández
Maxcanú
2015
crystal-clear polyurethane
46,5 × 24,5 cm
Rodrigo Hernández
Maxcanú
2015
crystal-clear polyurethane
46,5 × 24,5 cm
Gonçalo Preto
Peek-a-boo
2018
oil on wood panel
26 × 54 cm
Madragoa at CONDO London 2018
installation view
Belén Uriel
Untitled (braço)
2017
cast bullseye glass
46 × 12 × 7 cm
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique
Buhlebezwe Siwani
amaKhobokha
2016
steel, enamel bowls, soap and holy ash
unique