Sculpture in The City: Joao Onofre's Box sized DIE featuring Unfathomable Ruination

Preview, July 2nd 2014, 20h45
The Gherkin
30 St Mary Axe
London EC3A 8EP

WDWGN! (On the dynamic of being without): interview w/ Adam Chodzko

Adam Chodzko's body of work explores the "ongoing interest in the space between us, remoteness and intimacy, public and private space, through the interweaving of documentary and fiction". On his recent exhibition, at Marlborough Contemporary, he introduced the concept of the image moderator – Laarni – who checked the content for extreme material. This conversation reassess "how we construct an identity for ourselves through" the excess of images in society, which photos are determined by a moderator, and images conceived without a present.

On the space in between us


On the role of the image moderator


On the dynamics of being without


On time interaction and work themes


Interview conducted in English by myself, on June 3rd 2014, to accompany Adam Chodzko's exhibition Too at VASA Project.

A perfect summary of the evening

Happy Anniversary E.

A Sunny Saturday Morning

Gordon Square, in Bloomsbury, on a sunny Saturday morning!

A day at the... tracks

Urs Fisher
Sadie Coles HQ
69 South Audley Street
London W1K 2QZ

Ice Fishing: McArthur Binion, Bill Bollinger, Charles Harlan, Virginia Overton, Michael E. Smith (curated by Darren Flook)
Max Wigram Gallery
106 New Bond Street
London W1S 1DN

Michael E. Smith, Sleep (exhaust pipe, taxidermied chicken), 2013

Elisa Sighicelli
MOTINTERNATIONAL London
72 New Bond St. 1st Fl.
London W1S 1RR

Adriana Varejão:
Carnivorous
Victoria Miro Mayfair
14 St George Street
London W1S 1FE

Richard Jackson
New Paintings
Hauser & Wirth
23 Savile Row
London W1S 2ET

Phyllida Barlow
Fifty Years of Drawings
Hauser & Wirth
23 Saville Row
London W1S 2ET

Eva Nielsen
The Road
Selma Feriani Gallery
23 Maddox Street, Mayfair
London W1S 2QN

Mario Dellavedova
Still Lifes Off
Sprovieri
23 Heddon Street
London W1B 4BQ

Jim Lambie
Answer Machine
Sadie Coles HQ
62 Kingly Street
London W1B 5QN

Obliteration Device: Jakup Auce | Aline Bouvy | David Burrows | John Cussans | Benedict Drew | Ryan Jordan | Simon O'Sullivan | Roberto Peyre | Hannah Sawtell | Tai Shani
IMT Gallery
Unit 2/210 Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 9NQ UK

Marina Abramović: 512 Hours

Marina Abramović
512 Hours
Serpentine Gallery

I went to see Mariana at the Serpentina... and, I went to see Mariana at the Serpentina. 512 Hours by Marina Abramović, at the Serpentina, is a live tableau where the artist uses people instead of oil. A life size canvas in where the artist brings to life and wanders about bare life. A triptych about being! On the left panel we sit; on the central one we stand; while on the panel on the right we walk. (Other possible combinations might occur throughout time). The dynamics provoked by people being reminds me of a painters impression on the ink on the canvas, with it's particular texture, size, movement, pressure and different colours combining and relating with each other on a harmonious way.

No time devices, like watches, are allowed in the tableau. One has to become lost to time. So, definitively, this is not a surrealist painting. Take our own rhythm and slow down do the barest of it all. Just be being there: standing, walking, sitting, laying down, or counting seeds.

The audience participates in a performance about audience participation in the conception of the art work. However, the audience performative participation is, in contrary to previous performances delivered by the Serbian-born artist, more controlled by the artist and her "dwarfs". Although it requires a participation it is more like an authoritative state rather than a democratic one leading our decision on towards the outcome of the dynamics driving the conditions for the opening of possibilities.

Being it what it is, the need to be present as audience so the performance about audience participation occurs is a requirement. A necessity for the artist but not for the audience in itself. One is what one is without the need to have to go to mass concentration places to be what one is. Generalisations are good. But they are just that, generalisations. The particulars are what makes the being be, not the whole. As a part of a whole body - being audience - we, as individuals stop being a singularity, with our own voice, and have to follow the democratisation idea in where the majority has a ruling voice. However, in 512 Hours the ruling voice of the minority is the deciding voice just like in an democratic state... and, I should had gone directly to the closest sorority in town and have a truly audience participation and actively engage in a more penetrative way. I should had gone to a sorority and, instead, went to see Mariana at the Serpentina...

PS. The artist, as the author, is present all throughout the performative performance about audience participation.

A night at the cinema

A 3D cinema just for me... what could I ask more! Some popcorns, though!? An actress, instead?! or, a film in the sacristy about those sacred vessels under the mount protected by Venus?!

Bridget Riley: The Stripe Paintings 1961-2014

Bridget Riley
The Stripe Paintings 1961-2014
David Zwirner

Bridget Riley, Prairie (acrylic on linen, two panels, 196.9 x 786.2 cm), 2003/1971

Occasionally, I spent my night with the computer or the iPod at my side. With the headphones over my head. Laying down in silence listening to music. It could be an opera from a classic composer, or a set of albums by a particular band, or, even, have the shuffle bottom on and let the music came to me randomly and surprisingly. Which is my favourite way: a classic followed by industrial followed by pop followed by world music or a ranchera followed by dark-metal...

All throughout the night I have the deep pleasure of revising places and experiences begone. Answers to questions asked. A particular song, the singer's voice, a sentence trigger a set of stimulus. Create rhizomorph connections and relational structures. The beat, the silences, the melody spring like poems after a wine drinking evening in the company of close and intense companions, new and old friends around a dinning table until dark turn light. 

This comes about Bridget Riley's Stripe paintings on show at David Zwirner gallery in Mayfair. Variations, patterns, compositions and modulations, explorations on movement, perception emerging from each painted line. Sound escapes from each different panel and flows constantly through each room, submerging in a given time our presence.

Bridget Riley,  Après Midi (oil on linen, 231 x 197.5 cm), 1981

Bridget Riley,  Après Midi, 1981 [detail]

«David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition by British artist Bridget Riley organized in collaboration with Karsten Schubert. Featuring paintings and studies selected from all periods of her career, from 1961 to 2014, the show will be installed throughout the three floors of the gallery, making it the artist’s first major survey in London since her 2003 retrospective at Tate Britain.» [...MORE...]

Bridget Riley,  Horizontal Vibration (emulsion on board, 44.5 x 141 cm), 1961

Bridget Riley,  Tocatta (Green) (oil on linen, 150 x 258.2 cm), 2014-2013 [detail]

Bridget Riley,  Lilac Painting 5 (oil on linen, 171.5 x 140.3 cm), 2008/1983

Bridget Riley,  Red Modulation (Yellow and Orange)
(oil on linen, two panels 154.7 x 266.3 cm [L] and 154.8 x 266.2 cm [R]),
2014-2013 [detail]

«Riley’s dedication to the interaction of form and colour has led to a continued exploration of perception. From the early 1960s, she has used elementary shapes such as lines, circles, curves, and squares to create visual experiences that actively engage the viewer, at times triggering optical sensations of vibration and movement.» [...]

Bridget Riley,  Elysium (acrylic on linen, 261 x 236 cm), 2003/1973

 

London taverns

There are two types if taverns: those that are frigid and those that are aphrodisiac. When I was a young boy, everyday my parents gave money to go and eat out for lunch while at school time. When living in the north of Portugal I used to go to the restaurant that my family used to be everyday, after work, with friends. When we moved to the centre of Portugal, I was by myself and went exploring what the town had to offer in terms of tavern's quality: 'João da Quinta', 'Renaca', Gualdina', 'Castelão', 'Joaquim Morais', 'Perna de Pau', 'Augusto Pinto', 'Victor', etc. Each one with it's own speciality. The food that was serve was normally greasy but tasty, full of fat but promoted a vigorous body, and the metal or clay plate in where it was served was thriving of it! Did not had a favourite. Like them all! The exhilarating idea surrounding an one hour visit was intoxicating. Blacked and fresh places where grown up people use to get together, talked and discussed about the most important topics of life, like football, work, the cattle and the horses, or fishing and the river, delight remarks on women and family, on politics and religion. A indeterminate sea of sources of pleasure. Nowadays, my taverns are, in London, those places where one goes and appreciate the reality about the illusion, art projects, galleries, historical houses, museums, collections or any other artistic destination and cultural destination. Because, if I want to eat in a delightful and enjoyable way I eat at home or go to a Michelin star restaurant accompanied by three gorgeous and amusing women and a savoury wine.

Jacqueline Humphries

Jacqueline Humphries
Stuart Shave / Modern Art

I would really love to have one of these pocket squares created by Jacqueline Humphries and are been shown at Stuart Shave / Modern Art new place, in Old Street.

All oil on linen are 'Untitled' (254 x 282cm), from 2014.

A Boxer Ride

A Boxer ride on a Saturday to the station. Woman and Cars! What a pleasurable way to travel in!