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Caring for and thawing discourses

This was supposed to be a brief phone call regarding her second solo exhibition at NO·NO Gallery, but it escalated into a long and meaningful multi-part conversation, after all we are talking about the artist Ana Pérez-Quiroga. The market and the state of affairs were discussed, but also issues relating to fragility, rights, language, sexism and the urgent imperative to deconstruct limiting discourses. All of these are more or less directly evident in her research and artistic work.

Having accustomed us to mapping everyday life, the artist here offers a sort of emotional atlas. A maze-like landscape of feelings, thoughts and personal references, which we walk through in an aquatic, blue, profound, complex and simultaneously light atmosphere, allowing us to feel the remarkable union between encounter, duplicity and discovery.

However, we shall start at the beginning, and where our conversation commenced: love. The exhibition’s central theme, this feeling sets the tone for the artist’s proposal of a new feminist vision founded on fair and free forms of affection.

The lesbian, activist and queer Ana Pérez-Quiroga builds Estonteante – the exhibition’s title – from her vision, a perspective that naturally emanates from her universe. The autobiographical element is evident in her work built up over the years, constantly revealing a highly personal position and vision, the result of a restlessness and commitment to self-development work. This exhibition, based on her theoretical and practical investigation, explores the idea of relationships and love, but, as she explains straight away, this is not romantic love. She is interested in sentimental love, unburdened by the narratives that have been eternalised over the centuries by authorities who want to define and model relationships based on a man-made love. “In popular culture love is always the stuff of fantasy. Maybe this is why men have done most of the theorizing about love.. (…) Male fantasy is seen as something that can create reality, whereas female fantasy is regarded as pure escape. (…) However, when men appropriate the romance genre their work is far more rewarded than is the writing of women.”[1].

She clearly revisits the past and memory – both collective and individual – to question the position of women in recent decades, the role they play in relationships, and a clear determination to tear out the roots that have spread, restrictedly, into the sensitive sphere, making it impossible to have an intellectualised discourse and new formulations in which women stand as creators and active players to destroy heteronormative and stereotyped narratives. “Women’s pioneering insights on the subject still need to be treated as seriously as men’s reflections and writings. Although they may theorise about love, women are more likely to put it into practice”[2]. By doing so, she poetically and intuitively addresses gender issues and clarifies her ambition to forge a new place centred on the feminist perspective.

As we talked, it became clear that Estonteante is also about care. Such care is expressed both through the objects that have been pulled from their original places, repositioned in an artistic context, and which Pérez-Quiroga carefully waters in her studio (5 pedras #1 + Natura #8, 2023) and through the inevitable recognition that almost every work in the exhibition has a partner, a sort of complement, an extension of itself, alluding to the care involved in relationships between the two parts. Susan Sontag frequently addressed the quest for identity and authenticity within relationships, implying that the other can be a mirror through which people uncover and challenge their own identities – an exercise guaranteed to be both liberating and painful. Ana Pérez-Quiroga explains how they are connected to each other – i.e., piece, piece box, piece photograph (You are here to risk your heart, 2024; You are her and she is you, 2024; Magical presence, 2024) – and how, like relationships, they exist on their own. They are unique and individual, although mirrored: “I’m keen on the idea of mirroring, of how we mirror each other while in relationships, how we are complementary, but how we must keep our individuality”[3].

The notion of performative work, which Ana Pérez-Quiroga finds very interesting, is also deeply rooted and manifestly present in the exhibition: “I like the effort of producing, the sensory experience, the performance, that which is not repeatable”[4]. Performance is used as an artistic expression in different and innovative ways. Through the work It is a lovely way, a sculpture to make soap bubbles where the playful nature of the transformative power of love is made clear[5]; the piece Las que son como yo! consisting of air-filled balloons, representing the idea of giving voice and awareness; and especially through You are here to risk your heart and You are her and she is you, initially made up of two ice blocks which, during the exhibition’s opening, thaw, unveiling a heart and an apple cut in half that symbolically allude to vulvas, the artist invites us to a sensory and reflective experience on gender issues, paradigms and the melting of masculine discourses, celebrating and glorifying love, “a hymn to life and to love itself”[6].

As such, this exhibition is “a sensitive, private and generous universe”[7], a labyrinth of fabrics that are both sky and sea with words containing multiple dimensions, closely related to experience and memory. It tests the edges of dominant discourses, revealing the critical stance typical of his work. It mirrors the examination and questioning of identity, bringing up key questions such as: who do we belong to? Where do we position ourselves and what community do we belong to? Who are we and what is our role in our relationships? There is a clear desire to communicate with those who share the same outlook. Since it is impossible to reach everyone, Ana Pérez-Quiroga is trying to deeply resonate with those who think like her and bring us closer to a fairer society – through a sleeping blindfold embroidered with the word “Utopia”, she is reminding us that when we sleep, we dream and, when we dream, we do not discriminate, we do not judge. Estonteante is a manifesto calling for a reshuffling of roles, essential for expanding the understanding of love in contemporary times[8].

Her works are based on ethical principles (“how can we love if we do not also love and look after the planet we live on?” [9]) and pay tribute to muses-artists (11 gifts of, 2024), remind me of Mel Duarte’s poem-manifesto, with which I conclude this article:

“(…) may our dance reverberate in bodies imprisoned by
[preconceptions,
may our word pierce barriers and in the chest have an
[effect
may our sound spread and reach those ears that are the most
[primitive
may our image overpower all that has been
[learnt
And may our arts once and for all be deservedly acknowledged.”[10]

The exhibition can be visited at NO·NO Gallery until September 7.

 

[1] HOOKS, Bell. (2023). All About Love, New Visions, Orfeu Negro, p. 23.
[2] Id. Ibid, p. 20.
[3] Ana Pérez-Quiroga on the exhibition.
[4] Idem.
[5] Carolina Quintela in the exhibition text.
[6] Ana Pérez-Quiroga on the exhibiton.
[7] Exhibition text.
[8] Exhibition text.
[9] The artist on her work and concern to create in an increasingly conscious and ethical way.
[10] DUARTE, Mel. Excerpt from the poem “Deslocamento – poema manifesto”. In: Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda (org.). (2021). As 29 Poetas Hoje. 1st reprint, Companhia das Letras, p. 145. Free translation.

Maria Inês Augusto, 33, has a degree in Art History. She worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) as a trainee in the Educational Services department and for 9 years at the Palácio do Correio Velho as an appraiser and cataloguer of works of art and collecting. She took part in the Postgraduate Programme in Art Markets at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa as a guest lecturer and is currently working on a project to curate exhibitions of emerging artists. She has been producing different types of texts, from catalogues and exhibition texts to room sheets. She also collaborated with BoCA - Biennial of Contemporary Arts 2023.

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