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#Slow #Stop … #Think #Move – Fidelidade Arte

I “dive” into the darkness of the venue and I spot with some difficulty the work Bigwide (1991) by Michael Biberstein. The first room of the exhibition #Slow #Stop… #Think #Move (a few days away from its end at Fidelidade Arte Gallery and about to open in June at Culturgest Porto) is in the shadows. Then I notice other works, but I can’t see them clearly, due to the room’s poor lighting. I can discern shadows, small creases, some flexuosity, but with enormous effort. My eyes must become accustomed to it.

Between hesitations, going forward and backward, I revisit works to better understand them and know to whom they belong. Some are impossible to grasp and for that reason I go back to try and perceive them better.

Ana Anacleto, curator of this exhibition (#Slow #Stop… #Think #Move), by darkening the area where the works are exhibited, intends to slow down the visitor’s pace and nurture a deep aesthetic experience, focused on the work’s longer contemplation, inviting the viewer to stop and think. Ana Anacleto also seems to undertake the analytical dismantling of the curator’s action, perhaps a meta-curation, or testing the edges of the discipline.

I return to Bigwide, in the dark room, and remember a long and important interview the artist gave in 2001 to Delfim Sardo[1]. He explained how he was surprised when, as a child, he visited a museum for the first time, obsessed with a work by Nicolas de Stael. From that moment on, Biberstein was blown away by the power of images and their ability to startle us, leaving traces in our minds for a long time.

It is no coincidence that the exhibition opens with a work by Biberstein, an artist who conceptually became interested in the physiological and mental mechanisms elicited in the viewer when confronted with works of art. Often, the artist, “besides the act of painting”, fundamentally took on the “act of presenting the work to be observed”[2]. Everything happened in the mind, according to him.

This act of presenting the work, this attention to how it is received, is emphasised/reinforced by Anacleto and represents the crux of the exhibition.

Among other things, we identify in it the approach to “perception not only as a simple contact of the spirit with the present object”[3] – in this case the works, as Bergson would say -, but also as the materialization of “pure memories”, through “memory-images” suggested by those works[4]. The images, here obscured, awaken the memory and (re)create new presents, from the memory pasts. “The past ceases to be pure memory and mixes with a part of my present[5] What is the act of observing a work if not remembering it? Pyramid, 1986, by Sol Lewitt, like many other works presented, takes us into that shifting past in the present, the outcome of individual experiences, particular to each of us. Hindered by the feeble light, Lewitt’s painting emphasises perception and confirms what Merleau-Ponty said about the visible: “the spirit goes out through the eyes to wander around things, for it does not stop adjusting its foresight in them”[6], and perhaps its accounting.

This work by Lewit[7] also introduces us to a notion of minimalism grounded in geometric forms and simple gestalt. And also the problematisation of the essentiality of painting and its elements, which in a less obvious way were inspired by Greenberg; even if only to subsequently establish a different path, based on the plainness of colour.

Ana Anacleto’s choice of works underlines contemporaneity as a place where several times come together. We see works by Ana Santos, Mattia Denisse, Sol Lewitt, Fernando Calhau, Ana Jotta, Isabel Carvalho, Luís Paulo Costa, Jonathan Monk, Armanda Duarte, Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, Francisco Tropa, António Júlio Duarte, Isabel Carvalho, Vasco Barata, António Dacosta, Isabel Cordovil, Julião Sarmento, Paulo Brighenti, Tiago Baptista. As we strain to adapt our vision to the place, we hear the chirping of an overflowing, white liquid (milk), coming from a flash emitted by a video (Spilt Milk, 2019) presented in a deep corridor by artists Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela. This emphasises the time invested and required to contemplate a work, and our time, where we have lost the ability to problematise and live mildly the present time. A must-see.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Sardo, D (2019) “Uma espécie de modo paisagístico: uma conversa com Michael Biberstein, ao longo de duas tardes em 2001”. Fundação Caixa Geral de Depósitos – Culturgest. Lisbon. http://hdl.handle.net/10451/42688

[2] Ibidem

[3] Bergson, H. (1999). “Matéria e Memória – Ensaio sobre a relação do corpo com o espírito”. Martins Fontes

[4] Ibidem

[5] Ibidem

[6] Merleau-Ponty (2018). “O olho e o espírito”. Nova Veja. Page 27.

[7] He himself enjoyed being referred to as a conceptual artist.

Carla Carbone was born in Lisbon, 1971. She studied Drawing in Ar.co and Design of Equipment at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon. Completed his Masters in Visual Arts Teaching. She writes about Design since 1999, first in the newspaper O Independente, then in editions like Anuário de Design, arq.a magazine, DIF, Parq. She also participates in editions such as FRAME, Diário Digital, Wrongwrong, and in the collection of Portuguese designers, edited by the newspaper Público. She collaborated with illustrations for Fanzine Flanzine and Gerador magazine. (photo: Eurico Lino Vale)

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