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Susana Mendes Silva
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The first solo show in the UK by this internationally acclaimed Portuguese artist The second in a five-part ten month series of commisions, exhibitions and events Portuguese Waves Co-curated by Iliyana Nedkova and Filipa Oliveira
14 Jan – 13 Feb 10
free exhibition guide
FREE EVENTS AND RESOURCES Artist’s Talk: off-site at edinburgh college of art | date to be confirmed Curator’s Guided Tours: By prior arrangement through e-mailing inedkova@horsecross.co.uk Read More: Horsecross journal: Forthcoming issue with a newly commissioned essay by Neil Mullholland
‘The restless, ingenious Susana Mendes Silva has worked across many media, settling on none. She has made disturbing fused objects (a golden tampon in the shape of a bullet, a bar of soap implanted with a razorblade); she has done a witty and anxious private performance-on-demand (“Artphone: +351 91 7218012: Don’t be afraid to ask anything you always wanted to know about contemporary art,” she said on a flyer, and I assume the offer still stands); and she has taken disembodied photographs of her feet, as if both of these body parts somehow have minds and lives of their own. These images are characteristically cute and also rather lonely: the body is a delightful and perplexing encumbrance, a whole other country that never appears whole.’ James Westcott A versatile artist, Susana Mendes Silva, moves with ease and expertise through different subject areas often responding to the spaces she is exhibiting in, as well as to the people associated with these places. For her solo exhibition at Threshold artspace – her first in the UK – Mendes Silva presents five works from the last six years in which language, voiceover and text is central. There are works that literally speak to us direct, and others that entangle us in the intricacies of writing both as drawing and video making. At first sight these works might transpire as formally minimalist, but after some contemplation they become profoundly disconcerting and unsettling. All new commissions and acquisitions are showing at the different ‘project rooms’ of the artspace including the Welcome, Wave, Stage and Flush areas, as well as the artspace dedicated YouTube Channel.
Susana Mendes Silva (born Lisbon, 1972, lives and works in London and Lisbon) has created a varied body of work since the mid 1990s, making use of photography, video, installation, drawing, and performance. She has worked from a specifically female consciousness and sensibility, building a style that is fragmented and antilinear, one that exudes poetic irony and finesse, balancing itself on the fine line of indifference and invisibility, intimacy and aggression. She studied Sculpture in FBAUL (Lisbon, PT), and is currently a MPhil/PhD candidate in Fine Art (Studio Based Research) at Goldsmiths College, London. Mendes Silva is a Research Assistant at the University of Évora since 1999. Her latest solo and group shows include X at Marz Galeria, Lisbon; Beyond Time at National Museum Soares dos Reis, Porto and One Hundred Drawings at Viarco Express, Museum of the Presidency of the Republic, Lisbon. Her exhibition at Threshold artspace, Perth is her first solo presentation in the UK.
www.susanamendessilva.com
Threshold artspace | Bold contemporary art by Scottish and international artists in Perth since 2005 Pioneered and managed by Horscecross Arts Ltd | Core funded by the Scottish Arts Council and Perth and Kinross Council
to onday Open M on or late visit FREE to
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Also showing : the solo exhibit ion Inst ant Light. The Mag ic of Polaroid by SHEILA BORTHW art space at Per th Theatr ICK and our COL LEC T + SUPPOR e: 185 High Str eet, Per th PH1 Tini tiat ive - bot h at the 5UW Also showing : online wor ks by Ant ónio Olaio, Vuk Cosic, Julit a Wojcik, Alec Finlay and Susa contem porary art on the n Collins as par t of Horsecr Thr eshold art space website oss collection of and YouTube Channel | www .hor secr oss.co.uk/abou t/t hresho ld-arts pace
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Welcome = interactive soundscape doorway of 16 sensors and 8 speakers
Words in My Mind, Words in Your Mind (2009-10) | 1 min | loop This audio installation has voiceover at its heart, departing from a collection of statements about common psychological disorders. Some of these utterances derive from the scientifical description of symptoms, and others from the description of states of mind from diagnosed (or undiagnosed) people.
Wave = a long canvas of 22 flat screens in a row under the copper-clad dome Ritual #2 (2006-10) | 5 min 49 sec | loop In psychology the term ritual refers to a specific action or series of actions that have no apparent reason or purpose. The term is strongly related to obsessive-compulsive behaviours that are performed in order to find some relief from unwanted thoughts. In this video the personal confessional statement ‘My obessession leads to compulsion’ is written over and over again until you can longer read it. The repetition, both in the act of writing and in the dynamic flow along the wave of 22 screens, transforms writing into drawing evoking the school punishment of copying the same lines ad infinitum.
Stage = a playground for live art with larger-than-life projections, a camera and a screen left of the wave Did I Hurt You? (2006) | 3 min 31 sec | loop Departing from the most simple unit of drawing and geometry - the point - this video work portrays the brutal act of perforation. The use of a simple pin that trespasses and pierces irreversibly a sheet of paper is as much as violent as beautiful scene to watch. A word emerges under the pin producing percussive sound and strange crossing of light. Mendes Silva’s work questions the frontiers of perversion in human relationships. How do we relate to others? How do we share our affection and desire towards others? What about the violence which remains unconfessed and unspoken about? Showing at all times at Threshold Stage Screen as well as at Threshold artspace YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/Thresholdartspace
Polaroid (2004) | 1 min 40 sec | loop ‘The short video work moves Susana Mendes Silva’s explorations from the realm of detachment and disembodiment to dematerialization. A figure gradually but inexorably emerges from the pure white void of a developing photograph. Mendes Silva seems to bleed into being, and it happens almost too quickly to savour the gorgeous exposure of colour and texture. We are inescapably left a step behind, struggling to grasp the exact moment when the image first forms, when it seems to be fully formed, and when it actually is. At the end, we are denied eye contact with the figure, and, in a way, the void remains.’ James Westcott, Disembodied Fragments, From Life-cage Exhibition catalogue, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Showing in the evenings only (4pm-6pm or until late on performance nights) at Threshold Stage as large-scale wall projection.
Flush = a trail of 8 small screens tucked away in the public toilets You Look Lovely Today (2009-10) | 30 sec | loop This ultra-minimalistic, text-based artist’s video might make us smile, feel better, and even look once again in the screen as the new mirror. ‘Isn’t this the function of a mirror? To show who I am, here, now? Allowing me to adjust the mask to perfection? Or, in rare and extreme occasions, allowing me to remove the mask and contemplate what is behind it?’ Vilém Flusser, Ficções Filosóficas São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 1998. Translated into English by Susana Mendes Silva
Susana Mendes Silva Co-curated by Iliyana Nedkova and Filipa Oliveira. Produced by the artist, curators and Horsecross Arts for Threshold artspace in partnership with 55degrees, Glasgow. Supported by the Calouste Gulbenkain Foundation, Instituto Camões Portugal of Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Scottish Arts Council.
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