HOT CONTENTS opened at DuplexAIR (Lisbon), a venue that hosts artist residencies and a gallery. Taking the words of the artists, the drawings on display “are the result of isolations and collective thoughts”. Mariana Tilly lives and works between Lisbon and Basel. She is a researcher in Art and Cultural Studies at the institutions HGK FHNW (Basel) and Kunstüniversitat Linz (Austria). She frequently participates in exhibitions in Switzerland and Portugal. Sofia Mascate lives and works between Vienna and Lisbon. She has been involved in group exhibitions since 2016 and has already three solo exhibitions: Birthday, Las Palmas (2018), Abril, Folhas Mil, Galeria Monumental (2018) and Festim Lagostim, Zaratan (2019).

We can read the following in the exhibition text: “CAUTION NOW”. This warning is a reference to those we often find on the lids of takeaway coffee cups (a type of cup that is rather uncommon in Portugal). The image of the takeaway coffee cup is quite ridiculous in the imagination of southern European countries, where coffee is sipped in tiny cups, where the amount of coffee is (approximately) half. Imagine someone in Naples ordering a coffee for takeaway, in the city where coffee is a fifth (or less) of its cup… it would be met with justified moralistic outcry. We also read that all art is content these days, some of it hot, some of it not. I wonder when art was not content, but I understand the point of this statement. The word content is used sarcastically to refer to digital content (social media and many others), loosely classified as hot or not hot, to feed the algorithm. Shortly afterwards we read a warning about the risk of burns when drinking coffee from takeaway cups, and that any burns consequence of this action will be entirely the fault of the one who did it. The blame mentioned here is the same that Zuckerberg uses to justify himself from criticism and evidence that Facebook feeds multiple chains of false, racist and fascist information that have dramatic (often tragic) consequences in people’s lives. Companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) are pioneering the neoliberal individualist thinking that ultimately the responsibility is or was yours.

“Exhausted and on caffeine” is how the artists describe people, a truthful portrayal of reality, consistent with the following manifesto: “THIS IS THE LONGEST 2020 THAT EVER EXISTED, NOW IN REMIX 2.0”. This time is never-ending and it’s going to get worse. And you can feel that in the motifs of some of the drawings in this exhibition. For example, the fish jumping out of the water with a distraught face, a self-portrait by Mariana Tilly (ME AS FISH), or Dustin Hoffman’s face crying (DUSTIN HOFFMAN CRYING). The plastic materials used are markers, graphite, charcoal, dry pastel, oil, coloured pencils. Paper (of different characteristics) is the common support for all works. HOW IT BE, another self-portrait by Mariana Tilly in graphite, conveys the same feeling. In one of the upper corners of the room, we find an inconsolable gaze in the foreground (Hot Contents 2). Not far away from it, we see a body of blue shadows (that looks like plasticine) serving coffee to an uncertain spot (Hot Contents). We see a nun riding a scooter as if it’s something she does every day (IRMÃ RÁPIDA). And a pot covered with boiling water, which has the phrase “PEQUENAS CAPACIDADES” (a reference to the song Capacidades by Nídia) as background. The inevitable frustration, sadness and disillusionment of this time (and generation) are mixed with surrealistic fantasies and images of a future that may not be so distant from reality.

Until February 4, at DuplexAIR.