On Rua Anselmo Braancamp, a continuous line prohibits cars from stopping and parking. Linha Amarela migrates from the outside to give its name to a project by the Campanice, who lend the front window of their studio to the perpetual movement of artists. The current exhibition Festina Lente, by Clara Sánchez Sala, is open until April 29 and takes place in direct connection with the artist’s studio in Madrid. The oxymoron of the exhibition’s name means in Latin “hurry slowly”, a mantra that translates the artist’s working methodology “between urgency and diligence”^[1]. Mimicking this expression, three aromatic candles make Anselmo Braancamp’s studio smell like Clara’s; when lit, the candles mark the presence of one of the Campanice members, who repeat this process until the work dissolves in the air.

These network dynamics make us reflect on the studio in contemporary art. For some, “great artists don’t need a studio”^[2], for others the studio has never ceased to exist. The truth is that the studio, as an “ivory tower”, is nothing more than a romantic idea, obsolete since the 60s, when, motivated by conceptual art, post-studio practices began. Since then, artists have reinvented their working space in the face of new realities. A historical contrast that helps define the transition of these practices is Buren’s essay The function of the studio. In 1971, he described the studio as a “unique space of production”, which, like an ideological frame, mystifies artistic production. What will be the function of this space today? Often, artists have transformed their studios into hybrid and fluid, quasi-exhibition, or even virtual platforms where they accumulate multiple operations and interactions. Lane Relyea, based on Deleuze, uses the term ‘network’ to describe the type of studio we know today, which is more democratic, horizontal and multidirectional. This allows artists greater operative flexibility and informality – the studio in the expanded field. When analysing Clara’s work, we can also reflect on the contemporary “object network”, which connects everyday materials. In this case, they are artificial (like the tulip lamps that give shape to her work) and analogical (like the candles consumed throughout the exhibition). Sculpture is now more attractive because of its physical and material roots; since the 1980s, as theory was rejected, it has re-approached artists to craft practices (this is evident here in the work’ manual production). Between institutional training and the D.I.Y. spirit, the artist draws the viewer’s attention through the sensitization of smell, reaching an intangible dimension of our perception.

A final consideration on the concept of “network”^[3] is that which allows us to counter the idea of the solitary artist. According to Relyea, the studio “gives the artist a mailing address and doorstep”^[4], allowing meetings and exchanges, which are also evident here. The studio has long ceased to be private and has become a meeting place and a place for relating to the surrounding environment. The Campanice window is the embodiment of this interaction, in the image of a world that is increasingly transitive and contingent. The synaesthesia of the showcase draws the pedestrian spectator into a space (ironically) without time and leads us to build a parallel between Rua Anselmo Braancamp (full of studios and their shop windows) and the Parisian shop windows of the 20th century. Like the Flâneur, we wander among the murmur of the shop windows, we see Clara’s work through the reflection of our own body, we travel to a mirrored world, full of secret affinities.

^[1] Sala, Clara Sánchez. (2022). Festina Lente [Exhibition Text]. Porto: Linha Amarela.

^[2] Galeria Fernando Santos [@galeriafernandosantos]. (2022, Abril). Meanwhile… at the artist’s studio [post]. Instagram.

^[3] Relyea, Lane (2010). «Studio Unbound» in The Studio. London: Whitechapel Gallery. p. 218.

^[4] Idem, Ibidem, p. 222