18 19 Galeria Foco
THE DOG IS VERY CONFUSED Group Show - Curated by Kasia Sobczak 12 JAN 18 - 27 JAN 18
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UNKNOWN STRUCTURES / UNNAMED SPACES Rodrigo Rosa 26 APR 18 - 12 MAY 18
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ALLEGRIA Renzo Marasca 21 JUN 18 - 12 JUL 18
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EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE ? Clara Citron 11 OUT 18 - 25 OUT 18
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HER Paula Guimarães Curated by Zé Ortigão 24 NOV 18 - 01 DEC
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MATER ana+betânia 05 APR 18 - 20 APR 18
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DIS (PLACES) Clara imbert & Divine Southgate-Smith 17 MAY 18 - 15 JUN 18
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O VÍRUS Group Show - Curated by Thomas Mendoça 15 SEP 18 - 22 SEP 18
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TRAÇAS - TRAÇOS Henrique Neves 09 NOV 18 - 22 NOV 18
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THE DOG IS VERY CONFUSED Group Show 04
Diogo Branco / Diogo Pinto / Eduardo Fonseca e Silva / Francisca Valador / Inês Brites Nuno Gonçalves Curated by Kasia Sobczak - Wróblewska
The dog is very confused is a group exhibition of six Portuguese young artists, who decided to work together on a project for FOCO gallery. For a couple of months, they gathered and exchanged ideas about possible ways of interaction. The underlying theme for the exhibition was based on a kind of game, in which one person gives a suggestion to the rest of the players and the others have to respond to it, being the title of the present show its starting point. Using this practice, the artists managed to create links of thoughts to be followed and developed. The main features for this project were conversations, personal relations and a common space for creation - their studio. The confusion, which is present in the title, can be understood in different ways. We invite visitors to be part of the exhibition and create their own meaning of it. Personally, confusion in art is related to the state of being, when one is able to perceive, create and stay open for new experiences. It’s rather a positive attitude, which continues to develop ideas and keeps you active. While entering the gallery, the first work visible is a large-scale installation showing a drawing on a curtain made by Nuno Gonçalves. It refers to animalism and its stereotypes. The simple form of the installation attracts attention because of its size and minimalistic style, and it also divides the space into two stages. Close to Gonçalves’ installation is the first of Diogo Branco’s works; we are able to see the other seven after passing to the other side of the curtain: this sequence allows us to accompany the creative and artistic process of the painter. We get to, somehow, understand the mindset of the painter – confusion, trial and error, everyday life interference in the creative process. Diogo Pinto’s works are natural, detailed and well-prepared experiments of form and material. The use of common objects melted into wax, creates confusion regarding the materiality of things and at the same time it gives us a sense of texture. Continuing our visit, we find works by Inês Brites. Separated in two spaces, her works talk about collective memory and technologization of our lives, nowadays and in the past. The exhibition finishes with artworks by Francisca Valador and Eduardo Fonseca e Silva. Using small formats, the artists show an ephemeral connection between each other, and what characterizes them is their diversity in techniques and exquisite presence. This exhibition can be read as a theatrical play, where each artwork is a complete act, that can be seen separately, but gains more sense when seen in context. Kasia Sobczak-Wróblewska
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THE DOG IS VERY CONFUSED
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Group Show
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THE DOG IS VERY CONFUSED
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Group Show
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LUZLINAR (with the hat of Maria Lino), 2017 by Diogo Pinto Encaustic wax and glass on hat 27 x 23 x 10 cm
THE DOG IS VERY CONFUSED
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ROCKY, THE DOG ASSISTANT, 2018 by Inês Brites Mixed Media Variable dimensions
Group Show
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MATER ana+betânia
If we take a look at the animals and at the raw soil where they step on, at the organic molecules and at the fluid in which they move, at the microscopic insects, and at the matter which produces and envelops them, it is evident that matter is generally divided in living matter and dead matter. But how is it that matter is not all alive or all dead? Is living matter always alive? And is dead matter always dead? Living matter does not die? Dead matter does ever begin to live? Could not living molecules resume life after losing it, to lose it again and so on, to infinity? Denis Diderot Mater, mother, is the place where matter is eternally generated. There is no place on Earth for the eternity except in Mater. Here the life-generating mechanisms revolve in a perpetual centrifugal movement. In this exhibition, ana+betânia present us with a set of sculptures that celebrate life and death, interpreting myths and rituals of the Judeo-Christian imagery related to both. Their works are developed in surreal, surreal, mutant, but leafy and delicate structures. We thus see the rupture with a long course in figurative sculpture through distortion of all references of the natural, crossing vegetal elements with animals, visceral elements with cutaneous coverings, in a struggle for the survival of the most capable one. Perhaps the greatest product of the nearly two-year artistic residency in the Ceramics and Clay Workshops - during which the duo experimented with ancestrally practiced conformation and cooking techniques - is precisely this approximation to a more pristine and rawer ceramic practice, where the ritual of to do is regarded as something mystical that overlaps any brighter aesthetics.
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MATER
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ana+bĂŞtania
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MATER
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CARNIVORE, 2018 Clay, Stains, Golden Luster 57x40x29 cm
ana+bĂŞtania
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MATER
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ana+bĂŞtania
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DOGWOMAN, 2018 Black Stoneware, Underglaze 32x23x25 cm
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UNKNOWN STRUCTURES / UNNAMED SPACES Rodrigo Rosa
Unknown Structues / Unnames Spaces dá-nos a conhecer uma série de esculturas, acompanhadas por desenhos realizados a partir das mesmas. O casamento entre a escultura e o desenho levanta questões que não querem ser respondidas no imediato, mas pensadas de forma indefinida, nomeadamente sobre a íntima relação do artista com a cidade, a urbe, e a maneira como emprega essa relação, onde por vezes a usa como forma de questionar o seu gesto e consequente representação pictórica. “Tenho uma perspetiva muito específica da cidade, detesto-a tão intensamente que me deixa em êxtase, e assim acabo invariavelmente por a apreciar de alguma forma”, afirma Rodrigo Rosa, e continua “é contraditório, um caso assumidíssimo de Síndrome de Estocolmo, aquilo que me faz sentir preso também acaba por ser aquilo me tranquiliza – como se existisse uma “ordem universal”, ou exatamente o oposto. Sucintamente, faz-me sentir vivo, vivificado”. Seja como for acaba por ser uma visão um tanto melancólica, um pouco infeliz, mas que acaba por deixar o artista sentir-se confortável no meio de todo o caos que é o processo artístico. É, sem dúvida, uma sensação especial, a experiencia de deambular sem rumo pelas ruas em modo automático, diria automatismo psíquico -, onde cada detalhe, cada racha no chão ou tijolo fora de sítio tem a sua história, a sua identidade e a sua ordem – “Eu assumo esta relação, duma forma bastante intrínseca, e quero que o observador participe nela e tenha a sua própria experiência”. Objetos recolhidos pelo artista, com toda a sua história própria e marcas individuais – quase pessoais – são re-contextualizados para construir aquilo que Rodrigo Rosa designa por Unknown Structures. Estas esculturas (Tower, Tower II, Tower III, Tower IV e Tower V) são definidas pela maneira como a identidade própria dos seus elementos se abrem, ou melhor se disponibilizam para o observador, oferecendo desse modo um leque muito específico de possíveis significados – sustentados sobretudo em alusões ao meio urbano e à sua arquitetura. Estas esculturas entram em confronto com os desenhos da série Unnamed Spaces. A associação entre o desenho e a escultura assume um papel central nesta exposição, atribuindo um papel de destaque ao observador na procura e atribuição de significados. «A intenção é, sobretudo, deixar o observador criar o próprio contexto e a própria história destes objetos, da mesma maneira que se formulam os nossos próprios universos pessoais e privados a partir das nossas redondezas, alcançando uma aproximação privada entre o objeto artístico e o próprio observador. E quem sabe, no final, se as possibilidades que essa relação entre a escultura e o desenho podem, em termos de significo, oferecer ao mundo? Este embate entre interpretações e percepções levanta grandes questões, mas será que essas questões querem ser respondidas? Ou indefinidamente pensadas? Esse é talvez o papel do observador.»
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UNKNOWN STRUCTURES / UNNAMES SPACES
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Rodrigo Rosa
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UNKNOWN STRUCTURES / UNNAMES SPACES
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Rodrigo Rosa
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UNTITLED (Overlay #4), 2018 Enamel paint on canvas 160x120 cm TOWER III, 2018 Cement and gravel 15x15x150 cm
UNKNOWN STRUCTURES / UNNAMES SPACES
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TOWER, 2018 Cement and gravel 15x15x30 cm
Rodrigo Rosa
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DIS (PLACES) Clara Imbert & Divine Southgate-Smith
Dis (Places) an exhibition by Divine Southgate-Smith and Clara Imbert features an entirely new body of work that the two members of ( ) PARENTHESIS STUDIO created within the last year. The exhibition displays some of the duo’s first collaborative investigations concerning their shared interests in the temporal, semiotic and optical properties of space. Adopting a metaphorical and physical approach based on deconstructing and reassembling the geometries of the gallery space, the duo aims to present to the spectator an environment that permits a sensorial exploration. Highlighting the possible intersections that exist between language (literal form and implicated content) and space (temporal and abstract), they present a juxtaposition of instances where the objects in the space become ethereal vessels constantly shifting in time. As a result, a simultaneous sense of instability and order is implied, encompassed by the acoustical, visual and spatial objects. Hence, what may seem at first glance to be still, is in fact in constant movement, resonating in the frame of the gallery walls. Symmetry / asymmetry, dissonance / consonance, proximity / distance, fragment the space acting almost as symbols that surface with no defined order. The objects become a sequence, working as perceptible and imagined dimensions, perpetually at the cusp of displacement. Entering the site-specific space, one could observe fleeting gestures such as the surface of a mirror or the distorting perspective of a form. The pace of a durational apparatus and a moving image is balanced then unbalanced, while projected lights create escapes, illusionary landscapes appear. In the progressive change of a horizon, the viewer notices slight changes in the compositions. While navigating, the space reveals sculptural reliefs made of materials such as metal, glass and wood alongside drawings, prints and texts. Screens and projections prompt a conversation between other indicative elements of time such as water, sand and stones. The elements will be used in common or separately working as the relics of the temporal formation of a space. At the limit of virtual and material representation of the pieces are studied, crossexamined till the point where colours become lights and lines become form, shaping a method to their understanding and in a symbiosis creating their own spatial language. “In the end not only is space seen as linguistic but language is seen as spatial” ‘Thinking Space’ Mike Crang and Nigel Thrift.
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DIS(PLACES)
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Clara Imbert & Divine Southgate-Smith
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DIS(PLACES)
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Clara Imbert & Divine Southgate-Smith
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ECHO, 2018 by Divine Southgate-Smith Mixed media Variable Dimensions
DIS(PLACES)
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DEEP, 2018 by Clara Imbert Metal, Magnifying glass Variable Dimension
Clara Imbert & Divine Southgate-Smith
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ALLEGRIA Renzo Marasca
Letter to Giuseppe Ungaretti Allegria I am writing this letter to you because Allegria, inspired by your collection of poems of 1936, is the title I wanted to give to this series of works, where the track has the value of a thought. Recorded on canvas and on paper in syntax of consciousness, it has to do with the memory and the being as “flow of innumerable contrasts of grafts�, as you wrote in the verses dedicated to Italy (October 1st, 1916). With the experience of war and without yielding to the easy idea of the hero, you felt the urgency of getting closer to mankind, the need to enter into the abyss to find, where the physical place fades, that charged word which coincides with the complexity of the verse. You tapered the word until founding the beauty in the misery and on the black darkness of June, the dawn. So I scraped the black too, I removed the material and patiently waited for the image to take shape. I made a mark on fine paper, feeling its fragility, while the hand, moving into the painted space, brought with itself all the memory of a gesture. You tied up your being in the world to poetry and used it as a universal value, you made me understand that it is always the confrontation between memory and sign that explains things, so I let my hand follow that impulse that is in me and out. Allegria, then. That exultation of a moment that invades the space to left the memory indelible. Yes, it’s true; long time runs between these words of mine and your work. But precisely in virtue of this, I would like to write to you, because the memory coincided with the intention and destiny with intuition. So you saw in the other the brother, like you, ready to challenge the destiny in the name of something better. Perhaps all this has been lost, but the memory remains in me and the signs, though fragile and worn out, have left a trace in these images, which do not describe, that are born as a sediment of experiences and that the hand registers. Now from this city, looking more at the sea than at the land, I feel to write to you those words. I feel embarrassed and awed, because your figure has passed through life to reach the value of ideals. I stole this from you, I borrowed it as a pledge to the memory, trying to give body to something that consciousness leads me to do, that my hands has traced and my eye has seen. Renzo Marasca, Lisbon 21 st of June 2018
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ALLEGRIA
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Renzo Marasca
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ALLEGRIA
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Renzo Marasca
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GUIGNO (detail), 2018 Gouache, Felt Tip Pen and Silk Thread on Juta Canvas 180x140 cm
O VÍRUS Group Show 42
Christophe dos Santos, Cláudia Sofia, Diego Machargo, Fernanda Feher, João Gabriel, João Viegas, Marta Pombo, Mauro Ventura, Rui Palma, and Thomas Mendonça Curated by Thomas Mendonça
Because of its ongoing persistence and because its social, cultural and political relevance is still very alive, Queer Lisboa – International Queer Film Festival will dedicate a special focus on one of the subjects that haunted the 1980’s and the 1990’s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Running alongside a film program and a book release on HIV/AIDS, Queer Lisboa 22 will host The virus – a group exhibition curated by Thomas Mendonça, taking place at Galeria FOCO. Ten artists - born and raised after the epidemic’s largest outbreak ever registered – will approach the HIV/AIDS theme, seeking inspiration in the films that are part of The viruscinema: queer cinema and HIV/AIDS program, offering a new look upon these films. A fresh, contemporary, and sometimes distant look, although always haunted by the resonance of the collective memory of what the epidemic meant in the 1980’s and the 1900’s.
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O VĂ?RUS
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O MENINO AZUL, 2018 by Rui Palma Inkjet printing on photographic paper glued on dibong 75x 50 cm
Group Show
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O VÍRUS
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Group Show
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UNTITLED, 2018 by Joao Gabriel Acrylic on paper 65x50 cm
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EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE ? Clara Citron
Where to go? What to become? No who. Do we have to ght ? For what? Beware of the closing doors. Can I take two? I want five. Maybe more. Excuse me, Can you tell me how to get out of here ? I am ready to be used. Eruptive drawings, raw words for tender meat. The work of Clara Citron does not pretend to sublimate the relation of the intimate, is exerted by the instinct. By non-verbal or simple facts of life, she presents a story, perhaps without protagonists, which thus undergoes the most intimate interrogations. Without connivance or militancy, she looks at what she will face and wonders how to face it. Her pieces retranscribe what hides in us, lurking in the shadow of good thought. The simplicity of the materials used, the accumulation of information, collages and overlaps apply to deconstruct the a priori, giving shape to the ironic paradoxes that constitute us. « Excuse me, can you tell me how to get out of here ? » maliciously dissects the diferent traditional figures of daughter, wife and mother. Can we aspire to other destinies? The narration is punctuated by various representations, whether it’s a map of a dreamed sky, a stained shroud or isolated icons. If her work is obviously inspired by her daily life, she dreams in her drawings of a world in which the fury of an uterus would make humanity laugh.
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EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE ?
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Clara Citron
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EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE ?
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Clara Citron
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SHROUD (Installation), 2018 Acrylic, Tape, Chalk, Papers on Fabric 300x400 cm
EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE ?
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I MAKE MY MOM SAD WITH MY CHOICES, 2018 Acrylic, Tape on Plexiglass and Paper 24x18 cm
Clara Citron
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TRAÇAS - TRAÇOS Henrique Neves
Tracings (Traças e Traços) is conceived from a number of artefacts and investigates memory, the archive, power relationships, spaces, patterns, and personal narrative. Two years ago, I took possession of ozalid copies of the architectural plans of my primary school, which had belonged to my grandfather who was responsible for its construction. More recently, I was given templates/patterns of shirt-cuffs and collars used by his mother, who worked as a seamstress. These plans and patterns became motifs with which to trace ideologies and relationships regarding gender and power in the practices of architecture and sewing. These gender dynamics have also been apparent in my own family history; traditionally, the men worked in construction and architecture, while the women were seamstresses or decorators. More recently, this has been subverted/complicated by the architectural work of my late sister and the use of textiles in my own art practice. The tracing of these artefacts transforms them into playful objects that act as material explorations of my relations with the past, my personal/family histories, to the objects’ forms, and to their ghosts that, moth-like, eat away at them, giving birth to something new.* The pieces presented are metal objects generated from the architectural plans combined with the seamstresses’ templates, a skeletal brise-soleil, a textual brise-soleil on a memory of my emotional awakening at primary school, and mobile screens constructed from curvilinear forms that separate spaces and reference both decoration and architecture. As in most of my work, the materials are ordinary and accessible - wood, paper, copper, brass - and resonate with the original practices and objects, while questioning resilience and time by being more fragile, imperfect and uncertain.
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TRAÇAS - TRAÇOS
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Henrique Neves
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TRAÇAS - TRAÇOS
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Henrique Neves
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EILEEN, 2018 Wood, Platex, Acrylic Paint 170x190x60 cm
TRAÇAS - TRAÇOS
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INSTALAÇÃO CAÍDA, 2018 Brass Sheet, Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint 40x30x15 cm
Henrique Neves
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HER Paula Guimarães Curated by Zé Ortigão
Uma mulher que é como a própria lua: Tao linda que só espalha sofrimento Tao cheia de pudor que vive nua Vinicius de Moraes Com Her, a fotógrafa Paula Guimarães conclui um ciclo criativo que teve o seu início com a exposição NoMad realizada há dois anos em Madrid. No transcurso deste período, a artista trata de explorar o corpo feminino através de evocadoras e oníricas imagens captadas na selva e no oceano. Da alteração da ordem natural das coisas, mediante a sobreposição de duas imagens, com o propósito de provocar novas emoções e sensações. Trata-se de um trabalho que se entende como uma procura pessoal através do corpo, permitindo traçar a alegoria do feminino e dos ciclos que surgem do seu amplo universo. A mulher transcende a mera função de musa inspiradora, não se limitando a desempenhar o papel de ser inalcançável, arrastando a artista a um ímpeto quase místico e desgarrado. O conjunto das dez fotogra as que integram esta exposição não pretende ser um mero re exo do mundo, sendo antes um convite para percorrer uma dimensão mais remota e longínqua, algo que em certo sentido nos remete ao além. Um universo dominado pela natureza e pelos seres femininos que alcança o seu ponto mais prominente e sublime na imagem La copa del sol, ummonumento situado em Careyes dedicado à fertilidade da mulher. O seu olhar é refrescante, sensual e vital; feminino e maternal, como a mãe natureza, e não obstante ousado, vigoroso e independente. Uma reivindicação de valor poético do vivo e do quotidiano através da natureza, ressaltando as profusas possibilidades da sua idealização em perfeita harmonia com o entorno físico e emocional da artista. Careyes, o monumento da fertilidade e a mulher nua, que se abraça a si mesma para assim reivindicar-se como tal. Assim é Paula. E assim o re ete na sua obra. Paco Pintón
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HER
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Paula GuimarĂŁes
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HER
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Paula GuimarĂŁes
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FIGHTER 2018 Fine Art Print 100% Cotton 61x43 cm
HER
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JUNGLE WONDERS, 2018 Fine Art Print 100% Cotton 172x120 cm
Paula GuimarĂŁes
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contact@focolisboa.com http://www.focolisboa.com/ Galeria Foco
Rua da Alegria, 34 1250-007 Lisboa