A four-storey building stands on Rua da Quintinha, near the São Bento district in Lisbon, and was home to the Random group exhibition for five days. The exhibition comprised a group of works by 50 artists chosen by AZAN contemporary art, an independent project developed by the artist Tomaz Hipólito.

With this initiative, he did not attempt to curate an exhibition, but rather to provide a free creative opportunity where artists could showcase their own work, some of which had been especially crafted for the event.

For a short time, the building was filled with artworks from a wide spectrum of media and fields in its most diverse nooks and crannies. Each artist was allowed to choose their own room, having no idea which artists would be on the list of participants, or even who else would be sharing their space.

By free association, this was like the Surrealist exercise of a Cadavre Exquis, where works could be assembled in an unpredictable way, leading to the most diverse results unfolding and being revealed only upon the opening.

The random nature of Hipólito’s idea was an opportunity to purely and clearly establish a healthy and heterogeneous connection between artists from different generations and open the door to experimentation, resulting ultimately, as he has said, in an ‘’unlikely collective‘’ capable of providing new perspectives and a fresh take on artistic endeavours.

The moment we entered the first floor of the exhibition, we spotted, opposite the entrance, a room in the background, carved out by a long suspended structure, made up of red elements, tracing the white colour of the wall. Cristina Ataíde’s piece was an extensive structure, resembling the shape of a canoe, hanging in an unusual way, diagonally across the layout of the room. In a sloping stance, Ataíde’s work seemed out of sync with the conventional hydrodynamic position normally applied to these structures. It is part of a group of works by the artist that have made us familiar with lightness and hanging forms.

It touches on the subject of movement, travelling and unclear geographies, and once more contains allusions to a shifting opposition between emptiness and fullness, negativity and positivity. But it also engages the audience in perceptive conflicts such as outside and inside, line and colour.

Ataíde’s room led to another one, displaying a piece by the artist Clara Lambert. Made in 2024, it looked as if it was carrying on the narratives found in Ataíde’s piece, or mapping its history, although all that was visible was a figure printed on metal, alluding to a certain area, a drawing of a plant and, then, at the same time, a patterned surface reminiscent of marbled patches.

On the same floor, to the right, the pavement was carpeted with black paint stains, heralding yet another room. Covered in paint, the walls of the new room were awash with grand and lively gestures. Upon entering this new room, we were struck by these long smudges, not only on the floor, but also on the walls. The artist was Tomaz Hipólito, already used to working on the subject of space. In addition to the walls and floor overshadowed by these vigorous stains, the artist was also exhibiting some drawings with abstract motifs on sheets of paper. Also in the same room, Richard Hoglund presented a two-dimensional work of small dimensions, covered in paint and finished with textures such as straight lines, curved lines and tiny doodles.

A different room displayed a canvas by Sofia Aguiar, 2015 and, opposite it, perfectly in harmony with the artist’s painting, a work by Cabrita Reis, Cabrita, 2017. A wonderful piece, mounted on the wall, consisting of wooden fragments from a cupboard or bedside table and inside filled with an upside-down bottle.

Catarina Câmara Pereira and Pedro Letria contributed with an installation. A photograph of the latter, attached to the wall, reflected on the floor using a group of mirrors set up in tile patterns. His photo depicted a place of intimacy, a bed, shot from above. The linen and cushion (decorated in fine floral motifs) were shaped in such a way that, to some, it seemed that the elaborate figure was a female silhouette lying on a bed.

A work by Tomás Toste preceded a new room, where one could also see a sculpture by Vasco Futscher. Standing high on the wall was a stoneware form made by the latter artist in 2021. Could it be a candlestick? Its thick, strong structure brought to mind Zola and the way the writer marvelled at the sheer strength of Rodin’s work.

Vasco Araújo’s installation was in the centre of this same room. The work Trabalhos para nada: in memoriam, made in 2024, includes gilded fragments arranged on a workbench and individually identified. Labels with statements on the theme of the body and the fleeting nature of love are attached to them: ‘Do you know? We love because the solitude becomes unbearable. It is for this very reason that we fear the inevitable’, or ‘To love someone is not simply to want them to love, it is also to be amazed that they cease to love, as if dying were not natural.’

Fernanda Fragateiro presented a work from 2009, a small sculpture of a house, half-open on the roof, reflecting the whole room, rendered possible by the mirrored surface. Delfim Sardo was quoted as saying about the artist in the exhibition text for Cidade Incompleta: “Fragateiro’s work is always born out of a friction between the uncertainty and fragility of historical processes, the shortcomings of modernity, faced with the strength of utopia and the strict form of her sculptures.”

João Lança Morais revealed a set of triptych photographs. Perched on top of each other, made up of structural joints and architectural structures, they enter into dialogue with each other and also with Fragateiro’s work.

Miguel Palma’s chosen room masks a hidden mezzanine. The lower floor is home to a small underground shelter, adorned with camouflage panelling. A long porthole binds the two floors, inside and out, emphasising the sense of fragility and insecurity of our times.

José Taborda presented a work made in 2024. A hanging saw in the centre of the room is itself cut by another small saw.

Once again, Arturo Comas told of a chair transmutation. This time, the intervention was made on a Gonçalo chair, along with a similar type of table top placed on the wall.

Ana Hipólito Magalhães, Chico Aragão, India Mello, Inês d’Orey, João Madureira, Margarida Norton de Matos, Maria Ana Vasco Costa, Maria Appleton, Mariona Berenguer, Mia Didek, Sophie Warren, Jonathan Mosley, Diogo Soares, Teresa Segurado Pavão, Tiago Batista, Carlos No, Diogo Guerra Pinto, Einar Grinde, Francisca Aires Mateus, Guilherme Dutschke, Hugo Bernardo, Igor Jesus, Inez Wijnhorst, João Rosa, Manuel Caldeira, Maria Peixoto Martins, Miguel Rondon, Rodrigo Rosa, Rui Sanches, Rui Toscano, João Simões, João Campolargo Teixeira, Maria Couto, Philipp Mettler, Rui Horta Pereira, Tatiana Macedo and Tomás Colaço were the other artists involved in Tomaz Hipólito’s exhibition and made the greatness of the Random project possible – and, for this reason, and for their magisterial participation, they warrant a fair bit of attention and a more in-depth analysis in the time to come.