Between surrealism and Dadaism, the underground and the surface, Jorge das Neves is presenting a monographic exhibition at the School of Arts of the University of Coimbra until November 29.

From the surrealist perspective, shaped by the black painted plinth running throughout the whole space, there is a certain parallel to the twelve hundred charcoal sacks at the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition. Faced with the inclusion of this strip, I sense an intention by the artist to divide the space, thus creating a depth, a sub-level, shared between the viewer and the Tampas Altas – cast iron lids usually used for urban sanitation, spread throughout the exhibition. To understand part of the ironic weight of this gesture, we should revisit an episode in his life in which, while walking through Porto, he was struck by the warning message that he would inscribe on these objects without even managing to see any of them at the time, presumably due to their bizarre non-existence: ‘ATENÇÃO TAMPAS ALTAS’ (‘WATCH OUT HIGH LIDS’) was, at the time, a meaningless message that now takes on exceptional relevance in this exhibition’s context. This idea of danger made real through artistic creation is both interesting and provocative.

In a nearly black and white journey, the works start from the author’s self-referential universe, and become strangely familiar through its various elements.

Dias no Chumbo is a ready-made appropriation of a group of kitsch figures typical of any junk shop, beneath a group of lamps that I would define similarly. The artist spills lead over them, corrupting everything. These are images in the process of being obliterated. Like a reminiscence – between a memory of what we have seen and what we have seen of a memory. Kronos is formed by four photographs of four heaps of the artist’s beard, collected over a period of 10 years. The scale and absence of a face blur our perception. In Puxa Empurra, two photographs from opposite sides of a caravan, time is once again the subject: not to see its natural advance, as before, but to witness how the artist ploughs it through these two images.

Vigília is a set of 8 photographs whose common presence is a mattress, an object that, in Jorge das Neves’ perception, mimics another, much more artistically conventional one – the canvas. The concept of a mattress, faced with the bleak images that form its background, makes me think about the notion of home, connecting it inescapably with the problems of reality, which increasingly aggravate the public/private dualism. Esculturas feitas com a cabeça are clay pieces worked with the body part mentioned in the title – the head. I can understand the absurdity of the gesture, but also its mechanical nature. An act of contrition mirrored in the density of the material.

The darkness deepens in the final area, so that every hour we can listen to the phrase ‘Life is good for a few, mate’, spoken by an anonymous passer-by and spontaneously recorded by the artist. If, on the one hand, a certain social critique in this exhibition becomes more pronounced, on the other I find a clear connection between this saying and what I believe to be the substance of Triunfo: a wandering, half-absent, half-liquid body from the depths, made up between the artist, the mundane clothed in the city and the relationship they establish. One could say the same about so many other exhibitions, admittedly, but Jorge das Neves’ Triunfo explores this worldliness in a peculiarly visceral way, towards a strange solace with the absurd.

During the same period, the School of Arts of the University of Coimbra is hosting the site-specific installation ah! by João Belga, in Quarto 22. An existentialist pictorial musing originating at the dawn of the pandemic period, it embodies the concept of repetition – João Belga obsessively painted on the same canvas for two years – and the dualism of visible/invisible -, the installation splits the exhibition area, emphasising one part and inevitably hiding the other.