|Arte Lisboa Contemporary Art Fair 08-13 Nov. 2006 Portugal|
||Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art|
FIL, Rua do Bojador, Parque das Nações, Lisbon
08 > 13 November 2006
> 4 pm - 10 pm
'Outdoor Sculpture, Cahors', c-print, 186 x 126,5 cm, 1999
Captured in several cities from Taipei to Cahors to Appenzell, Erwin Wurm's Outdoor Sculpture series engages, transforms, estranges and interrupts the everyday. The simple yet puzzling actions portrayed in these pictures are played-out by volunteers, anonymous "actors" who help the artist test the boundaries between performance and sculpture. Wurm registers these compelling performances with snapshot-like pictures that ultimately transpire the fragility of human existence. These images also articulate his concern with expanding the concept of sculpture, from static and unchanging to dynamic and unpredictable.
In this rather implausible scene, Wurm eschews our relationship with a familiar, harmless household object, the average couch, transporting - hurling - it from the once familiar inner world to the strange outside world of inexplicable events. Not only does the couch integrate a transient sculpture, but it becomes a lethal instrument of sorts.
'Duration, Variable and Location Piece (Unnumbered Extended Version)', digital c-print, paper, frame, 61 x 85 cm, 2006
'Duration, Variable and Location Piece (Unnumbered Extended Version)', 2006, is a direct, as opposed to disguised remake of several of Douglas Huebler's most well known series of conceptual works, namely his duration, location and variable pieces. Onofre adopts Huebler's spirit of pseudoscientific experimentation and makes a cyclical hybrid, in part by using the summer solstice (the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, when the sun is at its northernmost point) to photograph a young woman simultaneously between seasons (spring and summer); a transition that is imperceptible to the naked eye. Not only does Onofre "factually" register the time lapse, but he subtly expands or extends Huebler's 'Duration Piece #31, Boston' from 1974 by playing on the physical likeness between models, photographing a doppelganger of the original 32 years later.
'Untitled', oil on canvas, 180 x 190 cm, 2006
José Loureiro's latest paintings are not static or tame but a sublime play with a tender, shimmering light. In these works, the artist seems to submit the grid to the tonalities of the rayograph, exchanging the stable silhouette for one that seems unpredictable, unstable, transparent and almost weightless. The brush is a subtle instrument in Loureiro's hands, which he uses to create depth, tone gradations and a wide spectrum of shades and rhythms.
Luís Paulo Costa
'Horizontal Landscape', mixed media, 24,5 x 21,5 x 4 cm, 2006
Luís Paulo Costa's practice operates a conversion of found, mass-produced objects into paintings. In this particular instance, he impeccably camouflages the exterior of one of Phaidon's glossy catalogues, The Garden Book, with a seamless coat of paint. Although his work is surgically executed, and the book (now a painting) does seem to disappear into the world, closer inspection reveals his textured, precise hand. What Costa seeks to undermine is painting confined to the stretched, primed canvas. Through this displacement, he seeks to prompt an awareness of certain assumptions and expectations, such as the firm imprint of the artist's signature on the object (the art) he makes.
'Revolver' / 'A Day in the Life I' / 'A Day in the Life III' / 'Melancolie'
collage, photo paper and scotch tape on acid free paper, 104 x 78 cm (each), 2006
These pictures represent the work of a fictional character, a private eye who pours over the evidence he has gathered, using montage as a means of bridging the gaps and architecting a succession of events as they are played-out in the mind of the perpetrator. Juxtaposing the pictures, the PI not only edits the images, but becomes drawn into them, unaware of the imminent moment of crime, the spiralling trap that awaits him.
With these works, as with others, Sendas builds on a sense of heterogeneity, shattering and fragmenting consciousness/the image in the continuance of his visual exploration into a primordial type of anxiety, an anxiety related to death.
'No 1 (pfaff)', c-print mounted behind perspex, 149,5 x 256,5 cm, 2003
Sabine Hornig builds on an experience that is familiar to us all: walking past storefront windows and helping ourselves to the freely available mirrors. This large format photograph depicts the artist's treatment of the window as a membrane that condenses several layers of visual and spatial perception. At first, one sees the inside of an empty storefront window, then, on another layer, one becomes aware of the glass, its scratches and residue, the reflection of the other side of the street. The two merge at this point to form a spatial impression that projects one's gaze beyond the interior-exterior divide. On a third, ultimate layer, this generative process includes the observer in the virtual plane of the image, as he or she becomes aware of his or her reflection on this glossy surface, adding to or complicating the scene.