"Eclipse II", 2012
Spray paint and acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 cm
Rui Toscano (1970, Lisbon) is an artist who, since the early 90s, has revealed an unusual ability to expand his field of artistic possibilities by recurring to different media in his projects - painting, sculpture, sound, video, installation, drawing - crossing a complex network of references, materials and formal solutions.
In the exhibition "La Grande Avventura dello Spazio", Toscano returns to the topic visited in his shows "The Great Curve" (2009, Chiado 8, Lisbon) and "Out of a Singularity" (2010, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon) - where the artist is developing further his research based on space exploration and what is the perception of space in the domains of cosmology, and the artwork "The Right Stuff" stands out as a key piece, being the first in a long string of work where Toscano explores the visual apparatus that usually surrounds rocket launching.
In "La Grande Avventura dello Spazio", a tittle appropriated from a 1967 Italian compendium on space exploration, the artist recalls the expectations, forecasts, and scientific data of a time prior to the landing on the Moon. This takes form in the development of a series of artworks that abandon the idea of an appropriation focused on the representation of cosmos (of which is an example the piece "Messier 5 (NGC 5904)", from the "Untitled (Cluster)" series, presented in 2010) to explore a more complex and subjective approach, allowing new possibilities of interpretation.
A recurring approach in the artist's work, the presence of several media marks this exhibition - drawing, photography, sculpture, painting, and video. Dominated by a play with relationships of scale, the show places the viewer in a thin line between real and imagined in the representation of the Universe as a landscape and the human expectations and impulses.
The artist currently features Sound Sculptures 1994-2013, an anthological exhibition open until May 19 at Culturgest.
* Original title: La grande aventure de l'espace, Éditions Rombaldi, Paris, 1967.
RUI TOSCANO (1970) was born in Lisbon, where he lives and works. He studied Painting and Sculpture at AR.CO (Centre for Art and Communication) and at the FBAUL (University of Lisbon - School of Fine Arts). He has presented his work in galleries, museums and alternative spaces since 1993, in exhibitions such as Take Off, Galerie Krinzinger, Benger Fabrik, Bregenz, Austria (1997), 1, MACS (Serralves Contemporary Art Museum), Oporto, Portugal (2002) and Metaflux, 9. International Architecture Biennial, Arsenale, Venice, Italy (2004), Esculturas Sonoras 1994-2013 (Culturgest).
His work is represented in several public collections as Fundação de Serralves, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, FLAD (Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento), António Cachola, Madeira Corporate Services, PLMJ, Portugal Telecom, Fundación ARCO (Spain), Fundación Coca-Cola (Spain), MEIAC (Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporneo, Spain) and also in numerous private collections between Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Austria, Switzerland and USA.