Sebastião Castelo Lopes - Unit 3 by Sebastião Castelo Lopes

SebastiĂŁo Castelo Lopes Unit 3

It is what it is, but it can be something else Recent works On Paper On Books With Paper With Wood With Giulia Cacciuttolo Final Show Preparation Relevant works - Installation shots CV Professional development Essay Links

It is what it is, but it can be something else My work is an exploration of the creation of form, and integral to this exploration, the sensory experience that the viewer can have with the form. It is a study of shape, structures, material, space, mark-making, textures, tones and contrasts. Fundamentally, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m interested to discover what shape could work in a specific space and in what material could that shape work better, making the works nothing but an attempt to create an object that works for a specific space. Recently, my pieces have encompassed the idea of structures that tell the story of their own making. The works reflect this concept in two different ways: through the use of a destructive perspective in the creation of the object, alongside a consideration of the space in which it exists. The destructive perspective entails starting with a geometric construction, after which I destroy the rigid and strict lines with interventions that reveal the organic, internal structure of the object. At the same time, I work with the intention of understanding weight, balance and surface, thereby creating a dialogue between the object and the architectural space in which it is situated. The relation that the viewer can have with the pieces is taken into consideration from the beginning of the construction of the works. The pieces invite the viewer to look, to move around, to read and to touch them.â&#x20AC;¨However, although the sensory experience is a major concern in my work, I do not think that the piece fails if the viewer gives them another meaning. The relation that the maker and the viewer have with the work does not have to be the same.

August 2016, SebastiĂŁo Castelo Lopes

On Paper 30 x 40 cm Mixed media on paper

A4 13x 30 cm Mixed media on book pages

On Books 20 x 15cm Print on book

With Paper 20 x 20 x 4cm (each piece) Paper

With Paper 80 x 70 x 3 cm Paper

With Wood 150 x 20 x 20 cm Acrylic paint on wood

With Wood 85 x 20 x 23 cm Acrylic paint on wood

With Wood 15o x 70 x 5 cm, Acrylic paint on wood

With Wood 150 x 70 x 5 cm, Acrylic paint on wood

With Giulia Cacciuttolo 2 x 2 x 2m, wood

Final show preparation

Relevant Work Installation Shots

Interim Show - Wimbledon College of Arts

Intersection - Collaborative work with Giulia Cacciuttolo

Assesment Unit 2 - Wimbledon College of Arts

Out of Line - C4RD London

You were in luck --- There was a forest - Solo show, collaboration with Giulia Cacciuttolo, Chelsea College of Arts

MonoCHROMA:Black & White Issue, The Crypt Gallery, London

Black Bridges,Hundred Years Gallery, London

COLLABORATIVE WORK WITH GIULIA CACCIUTTOLO Black Bridges, Hundred Years Gallery, London

CV / BIO (b.1994, Portugal) Upcoming Shows FINAL SHOW, Wimbledon UAL,September 2016 C4RD - September 2016 Education 2015 - BA Drawing, Faculdade de Belas-Artes, Lisbon

Solo Exhibition: 2016 - You were in luck - there was a forest, with Giulia Cacciuttolo, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, London, UK. Collective Exhibition: 2016 - Black Bridges, Hundred Years Gallery, London 2016 - MonoCHROMA:Black & White Issue, The Crypt Gallery, Lon don 2016 - Out of Line, C4DR, Center for Recent Drawing, London, UK. 2016 - Intersection, Hoxton Arches, London, UK. 2015 - THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: International Drawing & Cognition Research and Education, We All Draw 2015, Bargehouse, Southbank, London, UK. 2015 - Certamen Nacional Felipe Orlando 2015, Centro Cultural Castillo Bil Bil, Benalmádena Costa, Spain. 2015 - Finalistas Desenho FBAUL, Livraria Ler Devagar, LX Factory,Lisbon,Portugal. 2015 - Operação Artística #1, Palácio da Memória, Lisbon, Portugal. 2014 - Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. 2014 - Pequeño Formato, Galeria La Salita. Gijón, Spain.

Professional Development - Unit 3

Curating Show at C4RD Took part on the catalogue team for the final show Part of the mounting team on the ‘Black Bridges‘ Show

Interview with Giulia Cacciuttolo about the solo show Artist profile on Artigon Artist Profile on Scandale Project

Solo Show with Giulia Cacciuttolo - You were in luck - there was a forest, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, London, UK. Group show - Black Bridges, Hundred Years Gallery, London Group Show - MonoCHROMA:Black & White Issue, The Crypt Gallery, London

ESSAY - The Artist, the Piece, the Space and the Viewer Introduction This essay will be a continuation of the Unit 2 essay under the title ‘The Viewer, the piece and the Artist’. On the previous essay where thought and discussed questions related with the role of the viewer for a piece to work and how can the artist manage the relation that is created between the piece and the viewer. One of the principal conclusion was the idea that the viewer is the identity that makes a piece work. The piece produced by the artist – the maker – creates with the viewer, while he is watching it, a relation. Is that relation that will, for the viewer, define the working ability of the piece. The artist influences the relation between the viewer and the piece with what he creates. Everything that is sensory on a piece – the sound, the space, the interactive qualities, the light – can be managed by the artist. The environment and the piece are the factors that the artist can use to manage the relation with the viewer. The relation that the viewer will have with the piece can be thought by the artist but it will always just be a prediction, as this relation is based on what the artist creates – the piece and the environment – and on the viewer’s response to it – his knowledge of the visual art language. The viewer’s part of the relation is almost unpredictable and varies from viewer to viewer. This essay will continue to clarify this question about the relation between viewer and piece, and it will include more ramifications of the theoretical research. The understating of what are the characteristics of a piece of art and how does it work will be one of the new questions on this essay. The idea is to create, on this essay, a logic path that links the piece with the viewer. Starting from what is a piece of art, passing through how does it interacts with the viewer- the gallery and museum spaces- and finishing with the identifications of the characteristics of the viewer. What is a work of art - Heidegger’s point of view A logic way to organize this essay would be, for the sake of the answer of this questions, by starting to define what is a

piece of art, to then state how something becomes one. And then, by defining how can an object become a piece of art, it would be possible to conclude what is the factor responsible for making a piece became a piece of art. Unfortunately, the problems start at the beginning as, in my opinion, is almost impossible to describe what is a piece of art and be accepted by the majority of the readers in this day and age, and, without that information, the distinction between what is a piece of art and what is a ‘normal’ piece is hard to tell. Without the characteristics of a piece of art, how can one differentiate it from any other piece? How can we differentiate sound from music? Writings on a paper from a good text? Having in mind the argument intended for this essay, it was founded relevant to have, at least, some kind of attempt to describe the characteristics of a piece of art. This is intended to give to the reader and to the writer an idea of a theory related to the piece of art, hoping that this knowledge will facilitate, for both of them, the thinking and discussing of the questions of this essay. The theory that was chosen to start this essay was the ‘The origin of the work of art’ written by Heidegger. Heidegger’s essay is complex, as he brings to the equation some concepts of metaphysics related to his other texts. Having the essay’s questions in mind, it will be presented a resume of ‘The origin of the work of art’, focusing on the aspects related to the piece of art or, as Heidegger refers to it, the work of art. In this text, Heidegger is searching for the origin, the essence, of the work of art, and for this Heidegger states that a work of art is an allegory, as it transforms something in another thing. In other words, using as an example a painting, it transforms the paint applied on the canvas stapled to a wood structure in a, for example, landscape motif painting. This implies that a work of art has two different parts: the material and the ‘allegorical’; the thingness of the work and what we are able to represent with it. This is the primary idea of a work of art, the idea that it transforms things into something else. The text starts by focussing in the material side of the work. Heidegger names this side as ‘Thingly quality’, which is, basically, everything in a work that we can phenomenological de-

scribe: the material, the size, the surface, the colour, etc. To create a work, the artist manipulates the materials, using tools, with an objective in mind. For Heidegger, all these things are part of the Earth: the ‘thingly qualities’ of a work, the tools used to create the work and the artist are part of the Earth, are matter, substance. So every object is part of the Earth and every work. But what defines a work of art is, as it was written in the beginning of this chapter, the allegorical aspect of it. Heidegger states that as both the work of art and, for example, a tool are part of the Earth are matter, the work of art creates something new. ‘To be a work means to set up a world’ (Heidegger, 2011, p.108) A work of art is part of the Earth, but, as it is an allegory, it creates a World. A World, for Heidegger is ‘never an object that stands before us and can be seen’(Heidegger, 2011, p.108). The World is the result of the allegory, is something that has as base the Earth, the things, the matter, but that evokes something new, makes us thing about the Earth -about the Being- but it is not Earth. World Work of Art

Creates Based on Earth (Thingly quality of a work)

As things are part of the Earth, and as the work of art has a ‘thingly quality’; the work of art is part of the Earth too. But the work of art is an allegory, it transforms things into other things. The work of art creates a World, something about the Earth, about the Beings. The origin of the work of art argues that the principal characteristics of a work of art is that it is something more than what it is, something more that the matter –Earth. It starts on the Earth, but it creates a World of thought, about the Earth.

The viewer or the space? The viewer is the one who decides if a piece is art or not. Take as an example what happened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this year. As Christopher Mele writes on The New York Times, a group of two students while attending to an exhibition in the museum, decided to leave their eyeglasses against the walls in one of the rooms of the exhibition. According to The New York Times’s article, within a couple of minutes the majority of the people in the room started to consider the eyeglasses as a piece of art – relating with the piece and taking pictures. On the same article, was possible to find a citation from one of the students/’artists’ saying, while talking about the intervention, ‘Is this really what you consider art?’(Mele, 2016). In the article was not clear to whom this question was directed, but this essay will ask it to the viewer. What this example proves is that the viewer is the identity that creates art – and in this example, it is so literally. The artist usually creates the object but, as it is proven by this example, the viewer creates the art in it. In this example the students just use the environment - the museum – that presupposes the characteristic of having art in them, and they just add another object to the environment. The factor that made the pair of eyeglasses became a piece of art in this specific space, was not responsibility of the artist nor the piece itself – the eyeglasses – but was responsibility of the viewer. We can conclude that, based on the behaviour that the spectators had on this example, the answer to the question ‘Is this really what you consider art?’ is : yes, it is art because it is on a museum in the same room with another, so called, pieces of art. This idea gives a big importance to the space where the piece is located. Not the position of the piece – not concerning the ‘art work’ – but the identity of the space itself. The fact that, for the general public, the museum and the gallery are spaces where one sees art, was the idea behind what happened in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is a fact that this spaces are usually related to showing art, but the problem is when it becomes a characteristic of a ‘piece of art’ to be in one of this spaces. The museums and the galleries should not be a condition of a piece of art, but

a place, as any other place else, to exhibit the piece. The idea of the importance of the gallery as a “stamp of art” that the piece needs is very interesting. Art movements such as land art or street art tried, somehow, to turn this idea around. But the fact is that it is hard to run from this spaces. For example, in land art, artists usually exhibit on the gallery not the actual piece – as it is in the field – but a “recording” of the piece, using techniques related to ‘Non-Space’ such as photographs of the environment, presenting maps of the surroundings of the piece and presenting samples of the soil. It seems like even being one of the primal characteristics of the land art pieces the space where they are exhibit in – and that space is not the gallery or the museum – the artist needed the gallery ‘support’ for the piece. The land art example adds more importance to the space in which the piece is exhibit, turning it into a necessary characteristic to that peace to become a piece of art. The question is: is the responsible for the ‘art factor’ a characteristic of the space where the piece is, or is the space just a vehicle that transports pieces from the artist studio to the viewer, for him to decide if they are art or not? Taking in consideration the work of Smithson as an example is interesting for this essay as the relation between the location of the work and the gallery shows that he had, relate to the questions asked. In his work the pieces were in a space that almost does not concern to art. But then, for the show on the art spaces, the pieces were made and presented with another language, just to have the so called “art stamp”, and this idea is not something that is out of consideration while discussing Smithson’s work. As Stavitsky stated, regarding Smithson works on exhibition in the Montclair Art Museum: He was taking materials from certain places in New Jersey, and them putting them in metal containers bringing them into what you might call the non site or the artificial site of a gallery or an art museum. But he actually hopes that you would go back to the original place (…) and experience it, so that would be some kind of a dialogue between nature and art; the original site and the new non site, the artificial site of the art world: the art gallery. (Gail, 2014)

The dialogue between the ‘original site’ and the ‘artificial site of the art world’ implies a specific space for the art world that we can conclude that is the gallery/museum. The existence of such space specific for art transforms all the other spaces unsuitable for art, witch gives to the galleries and museums – the art spaces- power to, at least, state that what is in them is art. The perfect example of this ‘power’ in action was the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art one. O’Doherty states, in his book ‘Inside the White Cube’ that ‘so powerful are the conceptual fields of force within this chamber that, once outside it, art can lapse into secular status. Conversely, things become art in a space where powerful ideas about art focus on them’ (O’Doherty, 1999, p.14) This statement resumes both examples, and point the power, and possible danger, of having a space specific for art. The danger starts by being, of course, for the viewer as he is exposed to a variety of barriers to the relation with a piece of art, based on the fact that there are spaces specific for art. Barriers such as the ones presented on the examples of the land art and of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, barriers that have to do with if the fact that if the piece is not in the gallery is not art and if it is in the gallery is art for sure. The barriers created on the relation between the viewer and the piece of art are dangerous to art itself too. As, if the factor that makes a piece become art is the space, creating ‘art’ becomes an easy activity, and that affects art making. We can conclude an interesting fact from this argument that we are having, is that we have to trust in the viewer to be able to understand what is a piece of art and what is not, not only based on the context where the piece is, but on the characteristics of the piece that he is able to see and to understand. The viewer is the key to the piece of art, he is the one that can dodge the context and surroundings of the piece when necessary, to relate with it without any ‘art traps’. The viewer Being viewer still the principal responsible for the piece to becomes art, lets study him one more time. More specifically, lets try to understand who does that processes work, the process of transformation of a piece into art. Berger introduces an idea concerning the viewer: he claims

that when confronted with a piece of art the viewer’s ‘look at it is affected by a whole series of learn assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, taste, etc’. (Berger, 1972, p.) The majority of the ‘assumptions’ given on this example by Berger are subjective, and that fact will end in a more ambiguous notion of what is a piece of art. This is because Berger’s examples imply personal decision and subjectivity, not some kind of pattern or mathematical system, when describing a piece of art. This theory gives importance to a subjective opinion from the viewer. A theory that goes against this way of thinking is presented on the essay ‘The theory of the signs and the role of the reader’ written by Eco. On this essay Eco designs a theory that tries to demystify the phenomenon of the interpretation. Eco creates a very important distinction: the idea of use and the idea of interpretation of a text. This distinction allows him to differentiate the use of a text, which can be any use that the reader wants - a good example of a use of a text is the Bible, where the same text is used by different readers to defend almost opposite points – and the interpretation of a text, which is completely objective. This idea of interpretation of a text, which is not as polyvalent, it is based purely on the signs that are present in the text. A sign, or symbol, to Eco is everything; everything that one can identify and then associate with the meaning: a tree can be a sign of balance, a star can be a sign of a religion, a flag can be a sign of a country. In other words: ‘The notion of the sign presupposes a rigid mechanism which has, at its input, the subject in the guise of a transparent screen upon which reality designs, by means of reflection, its substances and accidents - the linkage between the two being assessed by an equivalent connective.’(Eco, 1981, p.38) We can presuppose that if the interpretation of a piece of art is based on the symbols present in it, and if the identity that creates the piece and the symbols is the artist; on this theory, the intention of the artist and the interpretation of the viewer has to be much closer to each other. This implies two ideas useful for the artist: the first is that if everything is a sign, the environment of the piece will in-

terfere with his interpretation, because the environment is a sign. The second is that the interpretation itself relies on the viewer’s ability to recognise the signs and to understand them. This information is important for the work of the artist as it proofs that everything interferes with the piece, and everything is a sign that will change the piece. So the artist should plan all the details of the piece which include: the piece itself and the space – environment, light, position, etc. We can conclude too that not all the viewers will understand the pieces presented by the artist as, to understand the piece, one has to have the visual art language knowledge to identify and to comprehend the signs. To Eco, everything is a sign, but the activation of the sign relies on the person how is engaging with it. In other words, everything has meaning and is language. It is very important for this theory the role of the viewer because, for example, if we present a book on a gallery and if the viewer does not know how to read, it is possible to claim that the viewer will loose information concerning the piece. He will still be able to identify the other signs related to the space and with how the work relates with it, but he does not have the language knowledge to activate all the signs that are part of the piece. This means two other things: the viewer has to have in mind that he will not be able to fully activate and understand all the signs on a piece, and the artist has to have in mind which kind of signs is he using, trying to understand if the piece is working for the general public or not. Ricoeur on his book ‘The conflict of interpretation’, he writes the phrase ‘The symbol invites us to think’(Ricoeur, 1974 ,p.28) to almost summarise the same idea that Eco defends on his book. These sentence sustains Eco’s theory of the role of the sign as a vehicle that takes the piece to the viewer, and when that happens, interpretation is created. ‘The symbol invites us to think’ is the phrase used by Ricouer to explain how one can interpret anything, based on signs and on our own knowledge of language. To summarize: a text can be used as critical or psychoanalistic evidence, as hallucinatory device, or a stimulus for free association. But all of this has nothing to do with the in-

terpretation of text qua text. Now, this does not mean that a text is a crustal-clear structure interpretable in a single way; on the contrary, a text is a lazy machinery which forces its possible readers to do a part of its textual work, but the modalities of the interpretative operation – albeit multiple, and possibly infinite- are by no means indefinite and must be recognized as imposed by the semiotic strategies displayed by the text. (Eco, 1981, p.369 In other words, the uses of a text can be endless, and they do not have any interference with the interpretation of the text. This happens because a text can be used without any interpretation, just based on decontextualizing the information needed to prove some point. But the interpretation of a text is only based on the signs. The reader can identify and understand them if the writer made them identifiable and understandable to the reader. The same principle is applicable to a piece of art. The uses of a piece to prove a point is almost endless, but the interpretation can be based on signs. Take as an example the ‘Fountain’ by Duchamp. This piece was used as an argument to prove a very diverse range of points, and about this piece were written a lot of different texts with different ideas – the uses of the piece are almost endless. But the fact is that the interpretation is much less debatable, because is based on the signs. In this case a urinal signed and dated on a gallery space, that is activated by his title and the environment surrounding it. The relation between me, – the author – the theoretical questions on this essay and my work As a creator of pieces, I try not to ‘project’ myself and my ideas on them. Therefore, normally, I do not think it is possible to understand, by looking at my work, the theoretical questions that I am interested in, such as the ones discussed in this essay. Perhaps they are more understandable on the titles that I give to some the pieces. I would say that as my recent work is a mixture between minimal shapes and structures covered with abstract expressionism

and movement related marks. My work is ‘stuck’ in the middle of two art history moments – abstract expressionism and minimalism - that struggled with questions related to the viewer and the idea of art, such as: ‘is this art?’ or ‘does this deserve to be here?’ (In the gallery/museum). I understand if my pieces create those questions on the viewer too, and some of the titles that I choose aim to intensify those questions, possibly creating another layer on my work that has more to do with thinking that with the sensory experience. As subjected on the title of the Fig.1.

Fig.1 – Sebastião Castelo Lopes - What is this picture but a fragment?, cement, 14 x 10cm (each piece), 2016

What I do not intentionally work on my pieces is the idea of personal, of individuality. Even the paint job that is done in some of my objects is intended to be just a repetition of a simple and mechanical process, for example: first black paint, followed by white paint then sand the surface. (Fig. 2) Fig.2 – Sebastião Castelo Lopes 17x19x85 cm, 2016

Object I , paint on wood,

I do this because I do not think that ‘the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person, the author, which delivered his “confidence”.’(Barthes, 1977, p.2 ) As, in my opinion, the artist is nothing but the maker, I almost try to eliminate the Man in the pieces. In other works – such as in the Fig.1 – I try to amplify the contrast between the clearly Man made and the possibly machine made – the existence and inexistence of artist. As it was stated above, the work starts with the maker, but the “final voice” is the viewer’s one; so why not try to eliminate the maker, the ‘right answer’, the idea ‘behind’ the piece? In a sense, what the theoretical questions that I am interested in prove is that, almost no matter what I do – as a creator of pieces- ultimately, the viewer will say what they are. And here is where my theoretical research intersects my work.

I study questions related to the viewer and the ‘art space’ because I’m interested to understand not how my work is made, but how it is perceived. Something that I can conclude is that, in my opinion, the viewer does not know his power, his importance. The titles that sometimes I associate with my pieces, titles that have to do with the importance of the viewer for the art work, are almost as important as the pieces. They, somehow, intend to make the spectator discover his role. By almost obliging him to ask ‘What is this picture but a fragment?’ , I am stating that it is ok to ask it, and those , in my opinion, are the kind of questions that the viewer should ask about ‘art’. I am trying to free the viewer from the chains that are the ‘art spaces’ and the artist’s rules for the works. By making part of the experience of art, testing and question the piece and art itself. We can conclude as well that for the question on the introduction that had to do with the way that the artist can manage the relation between the viewer and the piece, the answer is, ultimately, the artist can not control it. The artist creates a piece full on signs and symbols connected to the language of the visual arts, but the piece is dependent of the relation that the viewer has with it. In the words of Barther: “the author is never anything more than the man who writes, just as I is no more than the man who says I: language knows a “subject,” not a “person,” end this subject, void outside of the very utterance which defines it, suffices to make language “work,” that is, to exhaust it. “(Barthes, 1977, p.3 ) The two essays that I have wrote on the viewer’s role – this one and the Unit 2 one – created other questions for me, a question that can influence what is visual in my work. If the maker does not have any power as an individual, why should he be visible in the work; in other words, if the maker does not have any interference on the viewer’s interpretation of the piece, but to create the signs that then can or cannot be understandable by the viewer, why even show the artist? If the piece works without the direct interference of the artist in the relation between the viewer and the piece why should the artist be there? If one is an ‘artist’ – a maker of pieces of art – and if the pieces work without him, what is his importance and why should he be mixed between the true and important variables: the piece and the viewer?

As Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand “I do not enjoy making “desolation,” believe me, but I cannot change my eyes! As for my “lack of convictions,” alas! I choke with convictions. I am bursting with anger and restrained indignation. But according to the ideal of art that I have, I think that the artist should not manifest anything of his own feelings, and that the artist should not appear any more in his work than God in nature. The man is nothing, the work is everything! This method, perhaps mistakenly conceived, is not easy to follow. And for me, at least, it is a sort of permanent sacrifice that I am making to good taste. It would be agreeable to me to say what I think and to relieve Mister Gustave Flaubert by words, but of what importance is the said gentleman?” (McKenzie, 2009, p.337)

BIBLIOGRAPHY Mele; C – ‘Is It Art? Eyeglasses on Museum Floor Began as Teenagers’ Prank’, The New York Times, 2016 - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/arts/sfmoma-glasses-prank.html?_r=1 Heidegger - “The Origen of the work of art”, Heidegger Basic Writings, 2011 Barthes; R - The death of the author (translated by Richard Howard), 1977 Orr; D - Beautiful and Pointless, A Guide to Modern Poetry, 2011 Foucault, Michel - “What is an Author?” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001. Eco; U. – “The theory of the signs and the role of the reader”, The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol.14, 1981 Berger; J. – Ways of seeing, 1972 O’Doherty, B. – Inside the White Cube, 1999 Ricoeur. P - The Conflict of Interpretations, 1974 Stavitsky, Gail - Robert Smithson’s New Jersey – 2014 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty1dIDu2VPk McKenzie; A.L. – The George Sand – Gustave Flaubert Letters, 2009

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