MAAT is hosting two exhibitions curated by João Pinharanda: Shining Indifference by Luísa Jacinto and Mar Aberto by Nicolas Floc’h. These seemingly dissimilar exhibitions share a similar vision when exploring colour and the submerged, in an effort to show and embody the unseen.

In Cinzeiro 8, a room well-known for providing a venue for Portuguese artists whose work is installation-based and transformative, we have Shining Indifference – a collection of works by Luísa Jacinto arising from a long research period and centred on the question of what painting is and its limits. Featuring pieces from new artistic lines, the exhibition is, upon first glance, an invitation to enter a scenic, labyrinthine universe filled with colour and suspended bodies that require the observer to take action.

With its renowned experimental nature, Jacinto’s work in this exhibition is expressed in a process of observation, movement and layering. The artist, attempting to escape her comfort zones, the “discreet and fatal enemies of a bold and surprising creative process”^[1], leads us on a journey through time, dragging us along, beckoning us to immerse ourselves in an experience that is a reminder of the vulnerability we all share. It reminds us how the suppleness and transparency inherent in the materials used (rubber membrane, thread, fabrics) are not fragile or weak qualities, but rather body components that extend and complement each other, lending the exhibition its own spatial identity. In this instance, the base and the colour result in a single body, a single work, a single support.

Wavering veils that transform and absorb the surrounding elements (Em Todo Lado / Em lado nenhum), pigmented rubber with built-in LEDs (Desconhecidos) and drawings with their own physical body (Trabalho do espaço) break down the confining boundaries that strive to segregate painting, sculpture and installation. There is a “tactile, atmospheric sensuality”^[2], an environment with a mystical force stemming from stain, light and translucency.

The artist incorporates – or accepts, in other words – omens and intuition when developing her work, “what one is not aware of, what one does not expect, what one does not fully grasp must be brought into the creative process or things will not unfold”^[3], making her vulnerable to surprises and contradictions. In Shining Indifference, this freedom and intuition produce a dynamic, flexible dialogue, a combination of clarity and blurriness using physical objects that are causes-of-sensation, something that makes us move. We witness a sort of materialisation of unknown elements, the body that Luísa Jacinto ascribes to a matter that is among us but cannot be seen. A matter that cuts through us, “thicker than air” – the artist adds – where the colour stain is a vehicle but also an obstacle. Crossing and overlapping pieces form a maze of planes and bodies that “do what paintings on the wall cannot achieve”^[4].

Suspended and unfolding colours and shadows suggest portal-like works. The notion of a portal, of passage, is enhanced by the viewer’s movement, as if the work were only achieved through the observer’s drifting through this colourful mist. Shining Indifference challenges conventional painting notions, inviting us to reflect on the ever-changing nature of art and reality through works that condition, conduct and involve us.

Like Luísa Jacinto, Nicolas Floc’h at MAAT Gallery widens the possibilities and presents us with a virtually unknown narrative, liberated from photographic anthropocentrism. The acclaimed French photographer, whose artistic output is based on the sea, is exhibiting in Portugal for the first time.

Mar Aberto is not a purely educational exhibition, as João Pinharanda makes clear from the outset. Floc’h reveals a greater awareness of the world around us, of the lesser-known underwater landscapes of our planet and, through raw and poetic capture, inevitably raises awareness of the seas’ pollution and destruction.

This is an extensive photo, video and sculptural exhibition that portrays Brittany, Mississippi, Spain, Japan, the Azores and the Tagus River in unfamiliar ways. An exhibition that bears witness to Floc’h’s wide-ranging research work, but also to a rapidly changing landscape.

Famed for his enquiry into transition, flux, demise and regeneration, he proposes a range of photographs with an enigmatic quality and an almost obsessive technical accuracy, offering a new kind of artistic imagination. He captures different landscapes that plunge us into a dreamlike atmosphere, between memory and a hypothetical future. Open-space photographs capturing genuine underwater forests imply a distant realm of giants, offering us a true perception of the real, overwhelming size of the universe that remains unknown to most.

Leading us on a guided exhibition tour, the photographer starts by presenting us with a set of sculptures that are, in reality, a 1:10 scale representation of different artificial reef structures. Built by engineers to submerge in the sea, their role is to restore ecosystems. The photographer started by documenting these functional items, following the idea that they could be sculptures, conceived and created by artists, which “could be part of sculpture history, but are part of our planet’s history”. This is also a glimpse of a fleeting moment, a time that ends, since, when immersed, the environment and underwater life alters their shape and appearance.

This article cannot omit the great stained-glass-mural A Cor da Água – Rio Tejo. Consisting of 340 photographs along the stretch between Castanheira do Ribatejo and Bugio, it covers a 95-kilometre distance. Dipping into 34 different points that result in a striking colour scale, in which each one represents a particular time and space. A sort of cut, a water slice altered by the changing concentration and light, revealing its own signature.

The artist gradually understood that the “‘colour landscape’ told the story of the world, the interaction of the living being with the mineral kingdom, the tale of the Earth, the ocean, the atmosphere, the ice, and all in multiple timescales. The hydrological, biological and geological flows and cycles visible in these photographs foster the encounter between abstract painting and the photographic representation of the landscape.”^[5]

More than just documentary photography, Mar Aberto portrays seascapes stripped of exoticism and anthropocentrism – this is about the history of our planet and the significance of our seas.

Shining Indifference is on show at MAAT Central – Cinzeiro 8, until September 2, 2024; Mar Aberto at MAAT Gallery – Galeria 2, until August 26.

^[1] The artist in an interview with ARTECAPITAL, available at <https://www.artecapital.net/entrevista-241-luisa-jacinto>.
^[2] João Pinharanda in “Cena Aberta”, the exhibition text.
^[3] A 2022 interview given by the artist to Umbigo, available at <https://umbigomagazine.com/pt/blog/2022/06/27/23866/>.
^[4] Luísa Jacinto on the exhibition.
^[5] Nicolas Floc’h on A Cor da Água – Rio Tejo.