Group exhibition with works by 35 artists, at Espaço Expositivo do Centro de Artes de Águeda, (IM)MATERIALITY is a tripartite approach to the notions of materiality and immateriality, seeking a state of apnoea, a grey zone between what is and what is not. Curated by Graça Rodrigues, Sónia Ribeiro, Katherine Sirois, Lourenço Egreja and Diogo Bento; texts by Katherine Sirois, Graça Rodrigues and Francisca Vaz; artistic direction and production by This is not a White Cube Gallery.

At first sight, before the preamble where we are confronted with the work Trail 4 by Patrick Bongoy, in the venue’s foyer, we must underline the invasion of an entity that claims not to be a white cube, in the museological sense of the expression, in the white cube gallery of Centro de Artes de Águeda. This thought, in collaboration with the themes exhibited and even with the origin of the artists represented, creates an important and not merely semantic narrative. The white cube must be invaded for its own sake.

The curatorial concept is based on the idea that the notion of plastic (or plastikós, in ancient Greek) is central and reconciles materiality and immateriality in the field of art. In the introductory text, Katherine Sirois says that between the material of a work of art (its genome, if we will) and the simultaneously visible and invisible action that transforms it into what it will become (a kind of phenotype, following the same reasoning), there is the notion of plastikós, simultaneously aggregating the gesture that transforms and the thought, which will perhaps elevate it in its spiritual or emotional dimension. Therefore, we set off for the exhibition project divided into three nuclei, explaining the concept brought to us by the curatorial gesture:

The Body and the Earth, where they address the relationship of the self with the earth and with all that is visible and perishable in it. Perhaps the mundane.

Plasmic and Plastikós (between materiality and immateriality), the space of interruption. The search for a place of contemplation in a transitory stage.

The Spirit and the Sky, where the exhibited works seek to convey the invisible.

The work of art will never be subjugated to the signs of our eyes. In these works we perceive that the notion of plastikós is perhaps our brief possibility of touching (literally) the sublime, of giving body to the plastic images, a concept by Barnett Newman that also theoretically supports this exhibition. The involuntary process of disremembering the matter allows us to open the door to these images. After all, in the inevitable recourse to memory and to the other ethereal references that compose us, all is and all is not.

With works by Ana Silva, António Faria, Barbara Wildenboer, Bete Marques, Cássio Markowski, Dagmar Van Weeghel, Domingos Loureiro, Ery Claver, Hennie Meyer, João Dias, João Jacinto, Katharien de Villiers, Kimathi Mafafo, Kudzanai Chiurai, Gonçalo Mabunda, Luís Damião, Manuela Pimentel, Marion Boehm, Nadia Raaths, Nelo Teixeira, Nicole Rafiki, Patrick Bongoy, Paulo Climachauska, Pedro Pires, Pedro Valdez Cardoso, Raquel Belli, Remofiloe Mayisela, René Tavares, Saïdou Dicko, Sidonie Hadoux, Sofia Yala, Stephané E. Conradie, Susana Cereja, Vanessa Barragão and Vivien Kohler.

(IM)MATERIALITY ends on January 15, 2023.