The exhibition FPM #3 From construction to the imaginary, held at the PLMJ Foundation, offers us a route full of works by Portuguese artists, and some foreign ones. The connection between art and architecture is, somehow, the theme that stands out the most, in a first impression of the works.

Having the drawing, as a starting point, between art and architecture, the transitions between works, and despite the diversity of the media, it subtly manifests itself. Were it not for the intrinsic design of both disciplines. The drawing is what punctuates, structures, and even summons new meanings. In other words, it suggests new semantics to the observer.

In the first instance, the works are presented within a logic of opposites. Dialogues are established between interiority and exteriority, order and chaos, between the shapeless and the calculated, the unexpected and the controlled, such as the twilight forms, by Inez Teixeira, from the series of photographs No vazio da onda, in a relationship of proximity, with abstract geometric compositions offered by Pedro Casqueiro, contiguous to the series by Vítor Pomar Neither hook or ring, 2000.

The works follow one another, as well as our need, always inexhaustible, to infer meanings or relationships between things. In one way or another, the artists’ experiences reveal familiarity, accompany their time, embedded in the problems of their time. This exhibition would therefore be no exception.

Adelina Lopes’ designs impress with the simplicity of their forms. We have, according to a design logic, and of technical debugging, in a clear line, the projections of a tree, in different elevations. They express, in an effort of direct action with the architectural design, rationality in the layout, which is opposed to the represented object: a tree. Knowing that it is organic and manifests irregularities.

Another relationship, but from an artistic creative perspective, with the architect’s praxis, is the inclusion, in the exhibition, of previous studies of the FPM 41 Building designed by the architect Ricardo Bak Gordon, and which occupies Rua Fontes Pereira de Melo, in Lisbon. This impressive building houses the exhibition itself in one of its rooms. The idea of construction is revealed by the integration, in the exhibition, of works such as those by Ding Musa. A joint, Cell X, composed of a structure made of parallel and perpendicular lines, recall the reflections of Rosalind Kraus, on the grid, and the permanence of the structure, or plot in the works of 20^th century artists, as well as the fascination with rationalism, constructivism, development, and advanced technology.

In addition to an obvious allusion to architecture, expressed through Nuno Cera’s photographs, exercises of interiority and exteriority can also be observed, with PLMJ’s interiors, contained in the FPM 41 building, and models, photographed from the outside, causing resonance effects. between the constituent parts of Cera’s work, and the rest of the elements of the exhibition, which echo in works by other artists.

The interiority-exteriority dichotomy makes you feel similarly in works such as O Nazareno, by João Pedro Vale, especially in the relationship between this interiority and the body. Or the comfort in Luísa a dormir, by Catarina Botelho, or the fragility manifested by the drapes that cover the cabin in Photosynthesis #23, by Tang Kuok Hou.

The exhibition is at PLMJ Foundation until December 2, 2022.