When we vanish as a species, all images will fade away. This is a possibility based on the presumption that the human mind is its only capsule or, at my peril, its only real interpreter. Nevertheless, we should remember Georges Didi-Huberman, who said that the greatest probability lies in the survival of the image over our individual existence: ‘in front of it [the image], we are the fragile, passing element (…) The image often has a greater memory and a greater future than the being that looks at it»[1].

Diogo Costa is exhibiting six oil paintings on suspended canvas on the -1 floor of Coimbra’s Galeria Sete. They are dream-like landscapes, with striking shapes reminiscent of nature, as the artist himself says on the exhibition text. They are impressionist pieces subtly made surreal by the presence of a foreign body in each one, a white «alienating geometric form»[2] that «is reminiscent of a floor, a plane, a stage, a platform and/or a concealing wall»[3].

This looming presence is uncomfortable due to the way in which it is apparently intended to provide an escape. It certainly seems as if a portion of the image has eluded the viewer, travelling through all the works on display in pursuit of a certain idea of endless movement, the continuous moment referred to in the exhibition’s title. The positioning of the works in the room is precisely conducive to the notion of this strange rectangle continually on the move – an absence substantiated on the canvas that, on a different level of understanding, draws the viewer back to issues related to time and visibility, and provides the justification for transcribing Didi-Huberman’s ideas at the beginning of this article. Actually, these movements arising from the relationship between the works refer to a flow that we cannot grasp, which turns out to be an exclusive feature of Diogo Costa’s landscapes, reaching its wholeness only on their pictorial surfaces. We also overlook the image fragment that, through époché, leads us to believe that we are witnessing, in situ, the permanent change of an image, with the time it encapsulates and the gazes that behold it. These authentic tension grounds between memory and oblivion are endless lapses that disturb the dreamlike stability of the landscapes that host them. These seemingly forgotten areas could, paradoxically, be the actual spaces of these works’ potential reminiscence in the future – memory will thus dwell in its own suspension.

As we have seen, this apparent erosion, which is treacherous when approached unwisely, is present in other works by the artist missing from this exhibition. In the Blind Spots series, Diogo Costa superimposes small circles drawn in charcoal on the depiction of forest scenes which, like the alien geometric shape mentioned here, help to suspend or, if we prefer, conceal the image.

The exhibition Para um momento aparentemente contínuo is open until 8 February.

[1] Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2017. Diante do Tempo. Lisbon: Orfeu Negro. p. 10.

[2] From the exhibition text, with a text by the artist himself.

[3] From the exhibiton text.