Saturday, 28 December 2013
No wander
It is unbelievable when you give 'trolhas' the power to decide. Everything just goes wrong. No wander this country (Portugal) has been going down the drain since the last decades. No wander, that the most intelligent people go and move away from this place never to return.
Wednesday, 25 December 2013
Monday, 16 December 2013
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Review: Telling Tales
Telling Tales
Scream
I will tell you a tale about a girl which is all over the place. But, what does happen when you are all over the place, is that, at the end, you manage to be in no place at all. I don't want to say with this that you can't be all over the place. What I'm expressing here is more related with the way one is all over the place. What you do make present must of the time; what you do disseminate throughout your agency state.
She's an hilarious, hot hearted (Morag Myerscough, hand-painted wood and sandbags, 2013) girl, lost in the meandrous of life. She crossed oceans, down-hill mountains, created symphonies and devoured cities in a frenzy and schizophrenic mode. What is it that drives this girl in life? It is an embracing need to find love and laughter (Chris Bracey, painted aluminium, neon and light bulbs, 2012), friendship and belonging. She looks in to religion, in to music, into pop culture, an organized chaos (Greg Lamarche, hand-cut paper collage, 2013) by means of collages or assemblages (Meg Hitchcock, several works on paper, 2013). Through her, light breaks where no sun shines (Chris Bracey, neon, aluminium and light bulbs, 2013). Like in a marketing bowl the process is a constant seductive illusion position. It is a pretence.
What she wants, she will not get satisfactory until she give up and let lose. Move away from it all. Focus and build on her omniscience. But she stays in a kind of flirtation between the object and the desired object. It is quite a cool situation - like seeing a plastic bag floating around in American Beauty -, but she stills need the distance provided by the camera that captures the quintessential moment. Her participation is due to that distance. Unfortunately, it makes her irrelevant.
You can "see" (read) more about the act of storytelling, both in oral and pictorial form, and artists practice that incorporates words and language, at the exhibition Telling Tales, at Scream.
And that is the tale about a girl living in London, with whom, once upon a time (Chris Bracey, acrylic paint, reclaimed wood, light bulbs and neon, 2013) as a schoolboy, I had a crush (Greg Lamarche, hand-cut paper collage, 2013).
Scream
I will tell you a tale about a girl which is all over the place. But, what does happen when you are all over the place, is that, at the end, you manage to be in no place at all. I don't want to say with this that you can't be all over the place. What I'm expressing here is more related with the way one is all over the place. What you do make present must of the time; what you do disseminate throughout your agency state.
She's an hilarious, hot hearted (Morag Myerscough, hand-painted wood and sandbags, 2013) girl, lost in the meandrous of life. She crossed oceans, down-hill mountains, created symphonies and devoured cities in a frenzy and schizophrenic mode. What is it that drives this girl in life? It is an embracing need to find love and laughter (Chris Bracey, painted aluminium, neon and light bulbs, 2012), friendship and belonging. She looks in to religion, in to music, into pop culture, an organized chaos (Greg Lamarche, hand-cut paper collage, 2013) by means of collages or assemblages (Meg Hitchcock, several works on paper, 2013). Through her, light breaks where no sun shines (Chris Bracey, neon, aluminium and light bulbs, 2013). Like in a marketing bowl the process is a constant seductive illusion position. It is a pretence.
What she wants, she will not get satisfactory until she give up and let lose. Move away from it all. Focus and build on her omniscience. But she stays in a kind of flirtation between the object and the desired object. It is quite a cool situation - like seeing a plastic bag floating around in American Beauty -, but she stills need the distance provided by the camera that captures the quintessential moment. Her participation is due to that distance. Unfortunately, it makes her irrelevant.
You can "see" (read) more about the act of storytelling, both in oral and pictorial form, and artists practice that incorporates words and language, at the exhibition Telling Tales, at Scream.
And that is the tale about a girl living in London, with whom, once upon a time (Chris Bracey, acrylic paint, reclaimed wood, light bulbs and neon, 2013) as a schoolboy, I had a crush (Greg Lamarche, hand-cut paper collage, 2013).
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
A London
Life! surprise me, with what good you have to offer. In particular after two decades of mismatch moments, deceptive illusions, and delay of decisions.
Monday, 9 December 2013
Where Do We Go Now! (On the dynamic of loss)
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| © Carlos Palma 2012. Work represented and distributed by ReduxPictures. |
A symphony of colours
Carlos Palma is a conductor working within the field of social photodocumentary. He contributes with stories on the present, on human potential, while conducting us through visually symphonies composed by colour, light, sound, and smell. Presently, he is an accompaniment to the Syrian conflict, bringing out stories about million of people that have become dislocated due to war wagering: A Million Children Refugee and Reflections of Displaced Syrians, both from 2012, are just a small depiction of life possibilities in which the Syrian’s refugees have to engage with.
However, with this two series of works, Carlos Palma extends the space beyond what is a condition commonly reported and introduced by the media to those that live out-side of the conflict zone. The photographer’s contribution to the story being told is in providing an opportunity to observe real lives of dislocated people due to war belligerency. To show that reality, if not a unique view consisting of only one view point, exists in the intimacy with the subject and its surroundings. His critical positioning within the field of possibilities takes shape as a double distance from the subject being photographed, having a decisive importance in capturing a changing world, being at the point of transition from one state, of being without, to another, of being at loss. The criticality of photo-storytelling takes shape “through an emphasis on the present, of living out a situation, of understanding culture as a series of effects rather than of causes, of the possibilities of actualising some of its potential rather than revealing its faults.”
However, with this two series of works, Carlos Palma extends the space beyond what is a condition commonly reported and introduced by the media to those that live out-side of the conflict zone. The photographer’s contribution to the story being told is in providing an opportunity to observe real lives of dislocated people due to war belligerency. To show that reality, if not a unique view consisting of only one view point, exists in the intimacy with the subject and its surroundings. His critical positioning within the field of possibilities takes shape as a double distance from the subject being photographed, having a decisive importance in capturing a changing world, being at the point of transition from one state, of being without, to another, of being at loss. The criticality of photo-storytelling takes shape “through an emphasis on the present, of living out a situation, of understanding culture as a series of effects rather than of causes, of the possibilities of actualising some of its potential rather than revealing its faults.”
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| © Carlos Palma 2012. Work represented and distributed by ReduxPictures. |
Visual trickery, a particular perception of the world
Take the following natural occurrence as an actual effect. Although the original source is the same – the Sun – lighting temperature and conditions differ from location to location, wherever you will find yourself in the globe. Near the Poles, it tends to be more orange; whereas, in the middle of tropical rainforest, the white light appears more greenish, while, on the other hand, near the Equator, it tends to be more bluish. A geographical place where shadows are more struck and small when comparing with those on the extremes, which are long and shallow. The perception of the white colour, therefore, varies according to our physical location in the world. In the same way does our perception of images and consequently of culture. They are culturally embodied, as well as our perception of their intrinsic/subjective meaning. Merleau-Ponty’s research on perception establishes that “Reality is not a crucial appearance underlying the rest, it is the framework of relations with which all appearances tally.” A thing has a place and a shape “throughout variations of perspective that are merely apparent.” These appearances do not attribute the object itself, but are “accidental features of our bodily relation with it, and not as being of it.” And, he further adds that as soon as this thing “finds its place in the system, it finds its truth, and perspective distortion is no longer passively endured, but understood.” The appearance is misleading since this relational system is brought together by various conceptual elements, such as cultural identity, religious dogma, family ties, social belonging, political affiliations, economical doctrines, etc. It is what defines objectively and position us as social beings with emotions, feelings, experiences, and acquired habits and behaviours. The question is, how there can the thing to be true, objective or real since perception is polarised towards the thing, and a lot of valid information exists and is lost in between!
In a digital-democratising age, Carlos Palma’s photo documentation double-deals with the dynamic of loss and with the limitations of photography in terms of narrative capacity. Photography is, by its own nature, a liar, a technical deceiver, an innovating storyteller. The object of the images created and brought to us by Carlos Palma are of everything; however, they are not honest. Those images represent reality. Those are visual lies, not about the subject that they tell us to believe but through its technical storytelling. Whereas, on one level, photography captures a particular framework of a particular moment in life, according to the intentions of the person taken the photograph, to represent what he or she thinks is of value or not, on a different level, most of the photos composed by the photographer imply that we are not viewing the "real" space of the scene, but only a pond – "Reflections of Displaced Syrian." This series of images depict a double-infidelity reproducing life through composed movements brought into existence by the photographer’s eye. “A displaced family at the border area with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh, photographed using the reflection of the rain water that fell on previous days,” “Water distribution for the displaced Syrian at the Syrian border post with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh,” or “Reflection of Syrian displaced children in the rain water, stuck at the Syrian border post with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh” are objectively photos that mix multiple surfaces: dirty soil, waste and water while juxtaposing heterogeneous fields of vision, including reflecting an inversed image of people’s bare life. With these two series - Reflections of Displaced Syrians and A Million Children Refugee – Palma brings photography to its bare technicality and physical autonomy.
Ponds are like mirrors; they reflect on concerns about spectatorship on the dynamics of gaze and on spatial relations. They transform the space by reincorporating the off-frame zone. The ponds in Reflections of Displaced Syrians transform the pictorial space by accommodating unseen perspectives in their reflection, enabling the absent to become present, visible, and exposed. While, with A Million Children Refugee, in living out a particular situation as social photo-documentary, the photographer predicates his own critical condition of observer, of reporting on the human’s potential.
Psychological states (internal output) that had caused other psychological states
The system of imposed rules of values and behaviour takes inputs, manipulates then, and send them as outputs. Then, from where is the meaning coming? Our thoughts are about things. They have meaning. One of our particularities, as human beings, is that we can think about things. Nonetheless, what we have on this imposed structured view of life is a system based on appearance that has no understanding at all. There is no meaning involved, only emptiness of symbols. It just receives inputs and sends outputs. At no point we do have any understanding about the thing thought. For this system of appearances the "correct" output is set by rules for or an analysis of this same data to find the correct arrangement of words and phrases in order to create a well-formed sentence in a particular language, the storytelling. As human beings, what is important for us is the semantic properties in the thing thought. Whereas for the former, syntax is what counts, how things are arranged together. So, when a story is told visually, what stands for us is the semantic properties of the images. We might know, or not, the code for all the combined symbols, positions, gestures, objects portrayed in the photo, etc. and be able to translate it, which is as far as the system is concerned with, but our main concern is in relating all those visual symbols to meaning in a particular culture, i.e. what do they signify for me?
Take the following natural occurrence as an actual effect. Although the original source is the same – the Sun – lighting temperature and conditions differ from location to location, wherever you will find yourself in the globe. Near the Poles, it tends to be more orange; whereas, in the middle of tropical rainforest, the white light appears more greenish, while, on the other hand, near the Equator, it tends to be more bluish. A geographical place where shadows are more struck and small when comparing with those on the extremes, which are long and shallow. The perception of the white colour, therefore, varies according to our physical location in the world. In the same way does our perception of images and consequently of culture. They are culturally embodied, as well as our perception of their intrinsic/subjective meaning. Merleau-Ponty’s research on perception establishes that “Reality is not a crucial appearance underlying the rest, it is the framework of relations with which all appearances tally.” A thing has a place and a shape “throughout variations of perspective that are merely apparent.” These appearances do not attribute the object itself, but are “accidental features of our bodily relation with it, and not as being of it.” And, he further adds that as soon as this thing “finds its place in the system, it finds its truth, and perspective distortion is no longer passively endured, but understood.” The appearance is misleading since this relational system is brought together by various conceptual elements, such as cultural identity, religious dogma, family ties, social belonging, political affiliations, economical doctrines, etc. It is what defines objectively and position us as social beings with emotions, feelings, experiences, and acquired habits and behaviours. The question is, how there can the thing to be true, objective or real since perception is polarised towards the thing, and a lot of valid information exists and is lost in between!
In a digital-democratising age, Carlos Palma’s photo documentation double-deals with the dynamic of loss and with the limitations of photography in terms of narrative capacity. Photography is, by its own nature, a liar, a technical deceiver, an innovating storyteller. The object of the images created and brought to us by Carlos Palma are of everything; however, they are not honest. Those images represent reality. Those are visual lies, not about the subject that they tell us to believe but through its technical storytelling. Whereas, on one level, photography captures a particular framework of a particular moment in life, according to the intentions of the person taken the photograph, to represent what he or she thinks is of value or not, on a different level, most of the photos composed by the photographer imply that we are not viewing the "real" space of the scene, but only a pond – "Reflections of Displaced Syrian." This series of images depict a double-infidelity reproducing life through composed movements brought into existence by the photographer’s eye. “A displaced family at the border area with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh, photographed using the reflection of the rain water that fell on previous days,” “Water distribution for the displaced Syrian at the Syrian border post with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh,” or “Reflection of Syrian displaced children in the rain water, stuck at the Syrian border post with Turkey, of Bab Al Salameh” are objectively photos that mix multiple surfaces: dirty soil, waste and water while juxtaposing heterogeneous fields of vision, including reflecting an inversed image of people’s bare life. With these two series - Reflections of Displaced Syrians and A Million Children Refugee – Palma brings photography to its bare technicality and physical autonomy.
Ponds are like mirrors; they reflect on concerns about spectatorship on the dynamics of gaze and on spatial relations. They transform the space by reincorporating the off-frame zone. The ponds in Reflections of Displaced Syrians transform the pictorial space by accommodating unseen perspectives in their reflection, enabling the absent to become present, visible, and exposed. While, with A Million Children Refugee, in living out a particular situation as social photo-documentary, the photographer predicates his own critical condition of observer, of reporting on the human’s potential.
Psychological states (internal output) that had caused other psychological states
The system of imposed rules of values and behaviour takes inputs, manipulates then, and send them as outputs. Then, from where is the meaning coming? Our thoughts are about things. They have meaning. One of our particularities, as human beings, is that we can think about things. Nonetheless, what we have on this imposed structured view of life is a system based on appearance that has no understanding at all. There is no meaning involved, only emptiness of symbols. It just receives inputs and sends outputs. At no point we do have any understanding about the thing thought. For this system of appearances the "correct" output is set by rules for or an analysis of this same data to find the correct arrangement of words and phrases in order to create a well-formed sentence in a particular language, the storytelling. As human beings, what is important for us is the semantic properties in the thing thought. Whereas for the former, syntax is what counts, how things are arranged together. So, when a story is told visually, what stands for us is the semantic properties of the images. We might know, or not, the code for all the combined symbols, positions, gestures, objects portrayed in the photo, etc. and be able to translate it, which is as far as the system is concerned with, but our main concern is in relating all those visual symbols to meaning in a particular culture, i.e. what do they signify for me?
© Carlos Palma 2012. Work represented and distributed by ReduxPictures.
In Babylon (2012), a movie documentary directed by Ala Eddine Slim, Ishmaël and Youssef Chebbi, a tent city is build on the main border crossing separating Tunisia and Libya, the Ras Jedir check-point, to accommodate more than a million refugees of various nationalities that fled from the escalating Libyan war conflict, as well as from other neighbouring countries. The documental observation taken by the directors’ “records the temporary camp’s construction, alongside intimate encounters with its diverse population,” which included Africans and Bangladeshis, “as tensions rise in” an “uncompromising environment, mediated by humanitarian aid workers and media agencies.”
The most striking documentation brought by the film, however, is the vacuity, the emptiness, and the removal of all and any content that might refer to a cultural background or geographical identity, except for the language spoken by each individual group between them. It is just like a white canvas waiting to be worked upon! In this puzzled state of deprivation where any referential that could help in the making of relations between objects and predications, signifiers and significations are absent, the subject is reduced to the minimum, resulting in loss. How can we believe, then, other people’s testimony about what are our common values and knowledge? To have a better human understanding about the things that surrounds us? On account of, as Hume claims, people having a natural tendency to sincerely assert falsehoods about what they want to refer to, due to the self-interest in what they affirm, to take advantages of other people, or because human beings generally find the feelings of surprise and wonder agreeable. Nothing is more twisted than the truth.
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| © Carlos Palma 2012. Work represented and distributed by ReduxPictures. |
All those living in a completely empty space, like a refugee camp, are unable to find one’s way, not knowing one’s whereabouts, since they are all deprived of what can give them a comparative value in relation to the other. The result is a place showing evidence of social decline, where those living in feel an unjust infliction of life’s hardships and constrains. Refugee camps have become the new Babel, but a lying, social degenerative, or oppressive Bablyon, causing a doctorial depression combined with harsh discomfort.
Refugee camps as places of displacement
More recently, under the advent of the Arab Spring, and according to the world humanitarian organisation assisting children – UNICEF – in the winter of 2012, the number of children looking for refuge in Syria’s neighbouring countries had reached a million. Part of those dislocated children got stuck at the Syrian border post with Turkey, at Bab Al Salameh, in the Azazz province. They (the children) are painting a new world on a white canvas, which are the refugee camps. The children are painting with the ink they have at their disposal, in their hands – a child's hand is still not a "masculine hand" or a "feminine hand"; he/she faces emptiness waiting to be filled up. A true and powerful expressive set of colours: bloody red, lost green, grieving blue, survival black, etc. The children that are “traumatised, depressed and in search of a reason to wait,” as expressed by the High Commission of the UN for Refugee, the Portuguese Antonio Guterres – and let’s be real about this – are having the childhood that we all once dreamt about while we were kids, playing war games with friends on our own backyards, constructions sites, or other places that allowed our imagination to flow. Nonetheless, in this particular case, they are living it! In one of the pictures of A Million Children Refugee series, for instance, a Syrian child runs for cover while playing “at war” with his friends in a destroyed civilian building. At the same place where, a few days earlier, had occurred real fighting had occurred between the Free Syrian Army and Governmental forces. Whereas, in another photo of the same series, a seven year old child proudly shows his toy gun “Made in China.” If those that are more near, closer, are the daily references to those children, why should they believe someone that they never met that war is not a solution and that, instead, they should be in school? Children have a natural disposition to confide in the veracity of others and to believe what is told to them, in particular, by those who are the closest, who belong to the same group, blood, culture. Children are naïve and inexperienced in the ways of the world.
Like in the film Babylon – deliberately free of subtitles and referents that might have helped in the process of relating situation and stories within the narrative – the children and us, as observers of the Syrian conflict as it is captured by the lens of Carlos Palma camera, have become submerged by an extraordinary experience that places us both in the shoes of the tent city’s temporary inhabitants. Displaced from the normal arrangement or position of things, while something else takes its place. To turn to the next state in life, we must break with habits and other culturally imposed values and iconographies, "cross the great water," and open up our new-found emptiness to new experiences and inspirations. One has to become lost in order to find oneself again!
Bibliography:
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge Classics.
Rogoff, Irit (2006) ‘Irit Rogoff: What is a Theorist?’, in Kein.org. Accessed February 26th, 2013.
Film:
Babylon (2012), by Ala Eddine Slim, Ishmaël and Youssef Chebbi. Tunisia, 121’. Institute of Contemporary Arts: Film: Cinema on the Steps: Curated by Abdellah Karroum, August 20th 2013.
Published at VASA Project: Where Do We Go Now! Part II - Carlos Palma.
Refugee camps as places of displacement
More recently, under the advent of the Arab Spring, and according to the world humanitarian organisation assisting children – UNICEF – in the winter of 2012, the number of children looking for refuge in Syria’s neighbouring countries had reached a million. Part of those dislocated children got stuck at the Syrian border post with Turkey, at Bab Al Salameh, in the Azazz province. They (the children) are painting a new world on a white canvas, which are the refugee camps. The children are painting with the ink they have at their disposal, in their hands – a child's hand is still not a "masculine hand" or a "feminine hand"; he/she faces emptiness waiting to be filled up. A true and powerful expressive set of colours: bloody red, lost green, grieving blue, survival black, etc. The children that are “traumatised, depressed and in search of a reason to wait,” as expressed by the High Commission of the UN for Refugee, the Portuguese Antonio Guterres – and let’s be real about this – are having the childhood that we all once dreamt about while we were kids, playing war games with friends on our own backyards, constructions sites, or other places that allowed our imagination to flow. Nonetheless, in this particular case, they are living it! In one of the pictures of A Million Children Refugee series, for instance, a Syrian child runs for cover while playing “at war” with his friends in a destroyed civilian building. At the same place where, a few days earlier, had occurred real fighting had occurred between the Free Syrian Army and Governmental forces. Whereas, in another photo of the same series, a seven year old child proudly shows his toy gun “Made in China.” If those that are more near, closer, are the daily references to those children, why should they believe someone that they never met that war is not a solution and that, instead, they should be in school? Children have a natural disposition to confide in the veracity of others and to believe what is told to them, in particular, by those who are the closest, who belong to the same group, blood, culture. Children are naïve and inexperienced in the ways of the world.
Like in the film Babylon – deliberately free of subtitles and referents that might have helped in the process of relating situation and stories within the narrative – the children and us, as observers of the Syrian conflict as it is captured by the lens of Carlos Palma camera, have become submerged by an extraordinary experience that places us both in the shoes of the tent city’s temporary inhabitants. Displaced from the normal arrangement or position of things, while something else takes its place. To turn to the next state in life, we must break with habits and other culturally imposed values and iconographies, "cross the great water," and open up our new-found emptiness to new experiences and inspirations. One has to become lost in order to find oneself again!
Bibliography:
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge Classics.
Rogoff, Irit (2006) ‘Irit Rogoff: What is a Theorist?’, in Kein.org. Accessed February 26th, 2013.
Film:
Babylon (2012), by Ala Eddine Slim, Ishmaël and Youssef Chebbi. Tunisia, 121’. Institute of Contemporary Arts: Film: Cinema on the Steps: Curated by Abdellah Karroum, August 20th 2013.
Published at VASA Project: Where Do We Go Now! Part II - Carlos Palma.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Come and See
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
Come and See
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
Jake (b. 1966, Cheltenham) and Dinos (b. 1962, London) Chapman were nominated for The Turner Prize in 2003 and have exhibited their work extensively since the 1990s, including recent solo exhibitions at SongEun ArtSpace Museum, Seoul, and PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, (both 2013); The Hermitage, St Petersburg (2012); and Tate Liverpool (2006).
Friday, 6 December 2013
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Review: Katy Moran
Katy Moran
Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres)
Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres)
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| Katy Moran, Joe's in Town (55.3 x 87.6 cm, acrílico, papel, couro e colagem sobre madeira), 2013. Cortesia Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres). |
O que me agrada numa cidade é a ideia de poder vaguear imaginativamente sem restrições e limitações pelas ruas, praças e parques. Em particular, o que me atrai é o constante movimento inquieto da cidade. Assemelha-se a um safari urbano enquanto procuramos encontrar a ‘caça’ nos distintos espaços: os bairros que se parecem com aldeias, distribuídas pelas sete colinas de Lisboa; as extensas colônias da Cidade do México, cada qual com a sua idiossincrasia particular; ou a multiculturalidade de Londres, onde diferentes comunidades coexistem lado a lado. De um espaço para o outro existe uma indeterminada possibilidade de ir ao encontro de momentos, situações e formas de estar, viver e ser completamente distintas entre si e com os padrões de condições que definem o ser incorporado num determinado estado sociocultural.
Cada uma dos espaços apresenta e reflecte elementos distintos que são incorporados por quem lá vive e, inicialmente, percebidos por quem os visita. Em Alfama, por exemplo, o imaginário sonoro originado do Fado que irradia das tascas e tabernas. É óbvio que pessoalmente nós identificamos com determinados espaços. Muitos deles não ultrapassam os 20 metros quadrados. Cada um de nós tem, individualmente, a sua tasca ou taberna de eleição que é ocupada por um determinado conjunto de sons e luz, reflexos, faces e pessoas. É neste momento que as obras de Katy Moran (em exposição na galeria Stuart Shave/Modern Art, em Londres, até 20 de Dezembro) fazem sentido. O conjunto de onze pinturas apela a esse desdobrar de relações existente em cada um nos lugares: pessoas, paisagens e arquitecturas, o ambiente composto de sons e silêncio, pela noite e pelo luar, luz e sombras, bem como os testemunhos da presença animal, como o cheiro, os movimentos de gatos ou de faces.
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| Katy Moran, The Judges (40 x 48.4 cm, acrílico e colagem sobre madeira), 2013. Cortesia Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres). |
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| Katy Moran, I Love You and I Like You (74.5 x 55.5 cm, acrílico, tecido e colagem sobre madeira), 2013. Cortesia Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres). |
Há um fascínio pela exuberância da vida na cidade. Contudo, existem tascas e tabernas (lugares) com os quais não temos qualquer afinidade. Que mais se assemelham a uma contraditória reunião de animais, um entretenimento falso. Mas, no fim, não é essa a verdadeira realidade? Onde o ambiente tem a capacidade de criar algo que é auto-transcendente, que existe para além da ilusão teimosamente persistente! Por isso é que a semelhança com um safari ou com a visita a um Zoo é bastante premente – uma contraditória reunião de animais.
Joe’s in Town, Two Faced Cat, Face, Zoo (todas de 2013) são algumas das pinturas elaboras pela artista, nascida em Manchester, em 1975, que expressam essa exuberância. Katy Moran pinta temas que representam o movimento inquieto do espaço urbano contemporâneo. O corpo de trabalho desenvolvido durante os últimos dois anos faz-nos recordar esse contexto espacial num estilo abstracto. Este motivo é complementado por um interesse por colagens, como técnica expressiva. Desta forma, a artista, explora e emprega padrões irregulares nas suas pinturas, compostos por camadas de fragmentos de imagens e material encontrado no quotidiano de forma a criar novas composições. De certo modo, o trabalho de Katy Moran faz lembrar obras como Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-1943), de Piet Mondrian, ou Broadway by Light (1958), de William Klein. A cacofonia dos materiais equipara-se ao abstrato jogo cromático de avenidas, ruas e salões de dança e música capturados por Mondrian, ou os aspectos fascinantes e obscuros, captados por Klein, que surgem em simultâneo, na grande parede de luz que é Nova Iorque.
Vista da exposição. Cortesia Stuart Shave/Modern Art
As onze telas presentes na exposição, apresentam-nos dissonâncias de materiais – acrílico sobre papel e tecidos encontrados, colados sobre tela ou madeira – que compõem de forma desordenada cenas que nos reportam para diversos lugares, momentos e encontros ao acaso que compõem e constroem as diferentes partes e histórias da vida numa cidade.
Published at Molduras: as artes plásticas na Antena 2: Katy Moran, Stuart Shave/Modern Art (Londres), até 20 de Dezembro de 2013.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
LAURE PROUVOST | TURNER PRIZE WINNER 2013
Laure Prouvost as the winner of this years Turner Prize.
Prouvost was nominated for her recent exhibitions Wantee, commissioned as part of Schwitters in Britain, Tate Britain and Farfromwords, Whitechapel Gallery, London. At the Turner Prize 2013 she exhibited an expanded version of the film installation work Wantee (2013) which explores the lasting legacy of artist Kurt Schwitters through her fictional grandfather, and the new companion film Grandma's Dream.
Prouvost creates installations which break out of the frames of her filmic works. Drawings, domestic objects and sounds invoke loose narratives based on a single event. Humorous, complex and whimsical her work plays with issues of language, translation and authority.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Paul Klee: Making Visible
Mira Schendel
Mira Schendel at Tate Modern. These kind of works, ‘Graphic Objects’ (1968), ‘Still Waves of Probability’ (1969) and ‘Variants’ (1977), as well as some works by Hélio Oiticica or Damián Ortega, consider “how we exist in the world (‘Umwelt’ or environment), with the world (‘Mitwelt’ or social world) and within ourselves (‘Eigenwelt’ or inner world)”, as observers of the art object and as active participants of the being of the art work. However, because it is “in a museum” we can’t actively engage with them.
Friedrich Kunath: I'm Running Out Of World
Friedrich Kunath
I'm Running Out Of World
White Cube Mason's Yard
I'm Running Out Of World
White Cube Mason's Yard
Friedrich Kunath was born in Chemnitz, Germany in 1974 and lives and works in Los Angeles. He has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at Aspen Art Museum (2008), Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2009), Kunstverein Hannover (2009), the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010) and Modern Art Oxford (2013). Group exhibitions include 'Human Nature', Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2011), 'Life on Mars: the 55th Carnegie International', Pittsburgh (2008), '11th Triennale für Kleinplastik', Fellbach, Germany (2010) and 'The World is Yours', Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2011).
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