Saga by Bernardo Simões Correia at Sismógrafo
In what way can drawing reflect its imagistic realm? How can an image consider and extend temporal realms? How can space be a territory for thinking about image? These are just some of the questions raised by Bernardo Simões Correia’s (1980) exhibition Saga, curated by Ana Anacleto, which answers, much like in a game, are uncovered and revealed as we move through it. Questions posed to us and rendered apparent in a utopian and limitless territory, conceived by the curator and the artist as they define a free space where the works enter into unexpected and surprising dialogues, constantly based on a logic of coming into contact with each other. Occupying different spots, the works move and talk to each other, drawing connections, echoing and releasing reflections, in a playful call to the audience’s sense of humour, surprise and delight.
Bernardo Simões Correia’s artistic practice, as we have come to expect, is centred on a relationship arising from matters relating to the image, whose formal and conceptual expression surpasses disciplinary typologies, embracing various techniques and materialities, as evidenced by the pieces in Saga, the artist’s first individual presentation in Porto. Faced with the work of Bernardo Simões Correia, we are led to remember the legacy and study of twentieth century art theorists and historians such as Aby Warburg (1866 – 1929); Erwin Panofsky (1892 – 1968); Fritz Saxl (1890 – 1948); Ernest Gombrich (1909 – 2001); John Berger (1926 – 2017); Hans Belting (b. 1935); Didi Huberman (b. 1953) and José Gil (b. 1939), on the subject of how images and forms survive, seeing them as living realities travelling through time and capable of metamorphosis. Through time and space, we acknowledge the spectre-like nature of the images summoned by the artist into his universe, images that – like ghosts – stir up and evoke so many other possibilities, by appropriating and (re)contextualising visual signs – both classic and contemporary -, building up successive information and interpretation layers, in an ongoing and ever-changing process.
Captivated by Sismógrafo’s depth and lighting, we enter the exhibition area, whose length and horizontality guide us to two large-format digital prints on marine canvas (100×200 cm). The work’s visual and aesthetic impression, with its long, open layout extending across the wall of the exhibition area, piques the audience’s curiosity and plunges it into an immersive experience afforded by the rhythmic, convulsive sequence of images that, seemingly unconnected, generate a timeless whole. As we view the printed images, we realise that some are already familiar in the artist’s output and others are combined with them to broaden his iconographic repertoire. These references range from Egyptian mythology to Judeo-Christian culture and literature, inspirations that the artist encounters and absorbs, turning them into drawings that subsequently take on multiple appearances. Sarcophagi; palm trees; tigers; eyes watching us; falling bodies; people and animal figures; the naked torso of a woman; whales; fire; the representation of Anubis as a dog, resting on a tomb to ask for protection (…) are some of the drawings printed on the two canvases and which, like a game, materialise as we go further into the brass sculptures dotting the living room floor. Bernardo’s curiosity about reproduction mechanisms – from analogue to digital media, from two-dimensionality to three-dimensionality – is evident in the audience’s meeting with the installation in which drawings and sculptures complement each other. Notwithstanding the contrast between materials – from the weightlessness of the canvases on which we observe the free, spontaneous and swift gesture of the prints, contrasting with the sturdiness of the ten brass sculptural pieces -, there is a constant dialogue and acknowledgement between the works comprising the installation. Opposing floor and wall pieces, different materials and colours, we let ourselves be surprised and entertained by the echoes revealed by the ensemble.
Cleverly spread out on the floor, in front of both prints, the gold-coloured sculptures of varying dimensions, acting like little treasures, puzzle and entice us to walk and interact with them. While contemplating them, as an act of uncovering the images and their referential field – a sarcophagus, a whale, a mask, a tiger -, we notice that they have ties to the printed drawings, recognising them, and unveiling the artist’s plastic enquiry into potential platforms for fixing his phantasms. Rounding off the discourse, we find the last work in the exhibition, a small oil pastel on plywood, with lively colours and a naïve character. An attentive glance at the work opens a scene that we know from one of the digital printing segments, images that, like spectra, are now presented with a new scale, technique and colour.
Honouring its title, Saga, as a narrative with an epic dimension, Bernardo Simões Correia’s pieces at Sismógrafo provide the audience with an opportunity to meet and look at the images as a moment of discovery. By promoting a reflection on the way we construct images today, and using the fantastic quality of the works in Saga, the artist reveals his gaze by, as Ana Anacleto says, fixing ‘the moment of awe, the magical instant of creation and his imagined visions’. Sagas of stories, objects and images crossed in a mythological universe of stories, forming narratives and revealing the artist’s urge to make drawings that turn into prints and sculptures.
An encounter with Bernardo Simões Correia’s imagination and his pursuit of materialising images, on view at Sismógrafo until November 2.