Carlos Noronha Feio

Sopro – Projecto de Arte Contemporânea (Lisboa)
A A and Away

The relations between art, artworks, artists and the institutional power have been defining biopolitical reorganization and the imposition of new aesthetic regimes. Carlos Noronha Feio has chosen this sphere as the subject matter to the exhibition at Sopro Projecto de Arte Contemporânea. Contemporary artists work globally on subjects that are relevant to a globalising society, while they conceive creative forms that are related to way of doing and making specific to each territory.

The exhibition is a combination of video and video performances, painting, handcrafted rugs. The artist plays with the human situation and the circumstances of life in all their bareness. Carlos Noronha Feio registered this in video and video performances, such as A of Afghanistan (2008), and Simple Movements for a meaning – Campos Neolíticos nos arredores de Arraiolos (2008): we see the artist running around looking and marking out places, like an animal defining his territory with urine; or as in Simple Movements for a meaning – Castelo de Arraiolos I (2008): like pirates hiding lost treasures he digs and marks the place with a cross.

In one of the rooms, five hand-made Arraiolos’ rugs refer to the transcultural condition. The Afghan condition is imbedded in the Portuguese surface: Rockets up and down down and up (Good news) or Satellite (Good news – birth and fertility – fate, wheels of fortune), both from 2008, become the assimilation of the otherness by a national product.

These artworks are an analysis on the irresolvable internal contradiction or the logical external disjunction that derive from culture. The exhibition is marked by internal boundaries and power relationship, where the artworks have subjective assumptions in the communication of realities, while being abstractions of what identity is.

Published at Lapiz, Revista Internacional de Arte. Año XXVIII, Núm. 250_1 (186), Febrero_Marzo 2009 España © Carlos Noronha Feio, "Satellite (Good news - Birth and Fertility - Fate, Wheels of Fortune)", 2008, tapiz de lane siguiendo la técnica artesanal de Arraiolos, 216x122cm.