Bricks, pieces of wood, plaster, forms made of clay, cement, ceramics – all impoverished materials in the works of Greek artist Kostis Velonis (Athens, 1968), in his first solo show in Portugal, at Galeria Monitor, Lisbon.

Slapstick Masonry is the title of the show, designed to create a series of “object-subjects” whose identity belongs to theatre – or rather to that “comedy based on deliberate clumsy actions and embarrassing events” (slapstick), also known as commedia dell’arte.

Kostis is inspired by instruments that generate noise, used throughout the history of theatre; the artist builds items and mechanisms that, when propelled, simulate an action – for example, a slap. In this way, the works become a kind of living tools: objects with a soul.

These artefacts correspond to a double identity. On the one hand they have the form of sculptures, on the other we see in them the mechanisms behind the use of function: sounds and rattles.

But there are also “celibate machines” lying on Monitor’s gallery floor. Here, as in the plays, not all objects fulfil their purpose. Many of them are described by Kostis as “stumbling products”, i.e., useless. They show the frustration and failures that artists, actors, writers face during the conception of the work and the course of their career.

Before our eyes, Kostis presents the metaphorical result of infinite “torn pieces”, like Backstage: a plastic bucket filled with cement, paper tape, paint and plaster to the brim.

About Backstage, the show has yet another reference to the world of theatre, openly said by the artist: “I used Monitor’s floor as a stage, a scenography”, says Kostis. He could not have made a better choice: the red and white squares of the Monitor’s ground floor are the perfect proscenium to represent this collection of objects, which seemingly want to achieve their independence, that is, they seek to free themselves from their role.

As we approach the sculptures, we must see them thoroughly, giving our imagination time to understand them: they all have an “unstable, fleeting narrative”. They are the results of a path taken by a “staggering sleepwalker”.

Although all the materials seem cohesive, here is an apparent crack: these are the Kostis sculptures – simultaneously union and division; all that is right and wrong in the obscure survey of art. It’s an antagonism of victories and defeats of human tension, always between comedy and drama.

Slapstick Masonry, by Kostis Velonis, is at Monitor – Lisbon until March 19.