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Armoured Room: Fernão Cruz at Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães

Fernão Cruz presents Armoured Room at Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, an exhibition that is part of the cycle On the edges of fiction, curated by Marta Mestre.

The Centro’s room occupied by Fernão Cruz extends vertically and horizontally, allowing and challenging the artist to occupy a large space and to make use of creative ambition during production. Armoured Room is divided into three planes: the yellow floor marks the entrance to the room and cuts the spatial connection with previous exhibitions; a second ground level, occupied by several figures sculpted by the artist; finally, a third, accessible only through vision, where a set of panels painted in raw cloth is hung.

The different levels relate to the numerous moments of the exhibition, starting with Atalho para casa nenhuma, objects scattered around the room, apparently at random. Between the surveillance camera, the monkey climbing some stairs and figures that, without belonging anywhere, harmoniously inhabit the space, appear Jantar para oito, which needs no explanation. Eight figures get together for dinner, a bizarre behaviour, given the lack of weirdness in the fantastic context of Armoured Room. Accompanying this static earthly movement are 10 Notes on Solitude, the panels painted and hung at the top of the room. These paintings, based on F.D. Bedford’s etchings for J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, concern the dream of the boy who refused to grow up. Armoured Room is a space that removes itself from reality and gives access to a dream environment, built according to the duality of thought of a “grown-up” who, through his knowledge, realizes that he does not want to grow up – caught between the weight of reality and the impossibility of the dream.

On the edges of fiction is an exhibition cycle dedicated to narrative and the space between the story told, the story perceived and the story lived. Armoured Room is Fernão Cruz’s proposal for a space of refuge within the narrative. This cycle of exhibitions is at Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães until September 5.

Phd Student of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Braga, she has a Master's in Critical Curatorship and Theories of Art by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon and a degree in Plastic Arts – Painting by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. In 2018 she launches the first issue of Dose magazine of which she is co-founder and editor, and in 2020 she founds the studio space for artists o.estúdio in Bonfim, Porto. She currently works as an artist, freelance curator and writer, having already contributed articles to several publications.

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