BeAdvisors Art Department is in Lisbon for the third edition of ARCOlisboa 2018, which hosts 68 participating galleries from 14 countries. We are delighted to present our selection of the most outstanding galleries and artists in our Collectors Guide.
GENERAL PROGRAMME
BELO-GALSTERER (Lisbon)
Manuel Tainha
(1993, Lisbon) lives and works in Lisbon.
After graduating at Faculdade de Belas-Artes Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, Manuel Tainha moved to Hamburg and was accepted as a student of the Anselm Reyle class at HFBK University of Hamburg, Germany, embracing the understanding of art as a greater field of experimentation. He began to exhibit his work during his studies, with painting as his major medium, and space as second one. Painting as installation and installation as painting – to experiment with space and the traditional way we relate to painting in space is his challenge. Tainha positions himself on a threshold: his paintings are made out of dyed clothes, mostly twill that he whitewashes with bleach and intervenes with sewing thread – the dying process is highly experimental and again, momentum is important.
MONITOR (Rome and Lisbon)
Sérgio Carronha
(Cascais, 1984) lives and works in Montemor-o-Novo, Alentejo.
Sérgio Carronha has developed an exceptional practice by using materials like ceramics and earth materials. With those, he creates disturbing objects that put in discussion the role of different materials, their origins, their uses and the possibility of reuse. The artist, working mostly with earth-based materials – some more permanent and others more perennial – is currently based in Alentejo, where he is developing a long-term project in a piece of land; where he lives, collects materials, and produces his works, being the land a work of art itself.
Between his most recent solo shows, there are Land and Purpose at MONITOR Lisbon (2018); Inland view – View to the interior in Montra, Lisbon (2015); Catch a stone. Give it value at Espaço Arte Tranquilidade, curated by Maria do Mar Fazenda (2013), and The Sensitive Beings on the Worlds of Form and the World of Desire at Parkour, Lisbon (2012).
BAGINSKI (Lisbon)
Ana Vidigal
(Lisbon, 1960) lives and works in Lisbon.
Belonging to a generation of Portuguese artists from the 80’s, which in Portugal has a specific relation with the port dictatorship, Ana Vidigal develops a work of political, feminist and colonial contexts. The work of Vidigal, however, is never of pamphleteer activism, instead, she uses objects, images, posters, that belong to a specific context and generation of popular culture to, in a humorous way and of false naivety, introduces a critical view on the subject she’s exploring.
As Flor Amarela writes, “In TUTTI-FRUTTI series of works, Vidigal manipulates the covers of vinyl records of songs and bands that were a part of the musical imagination of the artist during her childhood holidays in France. During the period of the Portuguese dictatorship up to 1974, the borders did not allow for the free circulation and commercialization of goods, which made a lot of these discs to be hard to find and quite expensive. Even so, these records would arrive in Portugal without being censored because most of the population did not have levels of education to understand the lyrics. By scribbling out the text from these covers and overlapping materials that blur the images, Vidigal imposes an analogous process to the censorship put over people that were symbols of an ideological and corporeal liberation.”
PROJETOS
CARLOS CARVALHO (Lisbon)
Mónica de Miranda
(1976, Porto)
Mónica is an artist and researcher. Born in Porto (Portugal) she has an Angolan background. Her work is based on themes of urban archaeology and personal geographies. Mónica has a visual art degree from Camberwell College of Arts (London, 1998); a Master’s degree in art and education at the Institute of Education (London, 2000) and a PhD in visual art from the University of Middlesex (London, 2014). She has received the support from the Foundation for Science and Technology. She is currently developing her research project: Post- archive at CEC (Centre of Comparative Studies, University of Lisbon).
Mónica is one of the founders of the artistic project of residences Triangle Network in Portugal and the founder of the Project Hangar (Center of artistic research in Lisbon, 2014). She was nominated for Novo banco Photo prize and exhibited at Museu Berado (Lisbon, 2016). Mónica was also nominated for Prix Piclet Photo Award (2016). She also exhibited at Photo Paris (Paris,2013), Arco (Madrid, 2013), Arco Lisbon ( Lisbon, 2016), 1.54 ( London and New York , 2016), ArtBo (Bogota, 2017), Artissima ( Milan, 2017).
UNDERDOGS (Lisbon)
±MaisMenos±
±MaisMenos± is an intervention art project by Portuguese visual artist and graphic designer Miguel Januário (1981). Exploring the characteristics, debilities, and contradictions inherent to the dominant political, social and economic system, the ±MaisMenos± project has developed a reflective, critical and activist framework seeking to engender a practice that acts upon the observer in a thought-provoking and catalyzing way geared towards social transformation. Operating both in the public space (with or without institutional sanction) and in exhibition venues, the project has been materialized in various actions and media such as installation, video, and performance, but also painting, sculpture and assemblage, with a strong component of appropriation and détournement.
±MaisMenos± has also been the subject of two TED talks, at TEDxLuanda (Luanda, 2014) and TEDx (Porto, 2015), and other public lectures.
It offers a critical reflection on the model of political, social and economic organization inherent to contemporary urban societies. Conducting a clinical dissection of reality that plays with the system of dualities intrinsic to the Western ideological edifice, the project’s programmatic expression is conceptually reduced to an equation of simplicity and excluding opposites: more/less, positive/ negative, black/white.
REVOLVER (Lima)
José Carlos Martinat
(1974, Peru) lives and works between Lima, Peru & Mexico City.
During the last decade, José Carlos Martinat adopted the concept of appropriation as his peculiarity. His idea of appropriation implicates the decontextualization of street elements and social features. By collecting plaster molds of the bronze statues of IXX century, or by making casts of equestrian figures with aluminum paper, he re-contextualizes historical figures to comment the different uses of public spaces and of the political history of certain countries.
Often the most interesting result of this practice is the accumulation of fragments of information in the World Wide Web, the bigger public place of contemporary society. His work is based on the dialogue between historical topics and technological use: in his exhibitions the gives a tangible aspect to virtual research.
His work has been part of various exhibitions in Latin America, Europe and US, such as: Eva+A Nord Ireland Biennial, Biennial of Mercosur, Trienal Poligráfica de Puerto Rico, Nord Holland biennial with Marljolijn Dijkman, Biennial of Shanghái (China), La Habana Biennial, Saatchi gallery (London), Carrillo Gil de México, Tate modern (London), Marco museo Vigo (Pontevedra, Spain), IFA (Germany), La Laboral (Spain), Mali (Lima), Tate Modern (London), WWVF (Holland).
His artworks are included in collections like Museum of Modern Art, NY; TATE Modern, London; Saatchi Gallery, London; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI) y Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). He is represented by Galería Leme (Sao Paolo, Brazil) and Revolver Galería (Lima and Buenos Aires). Between his most recent solo shows there in museums, galleries and fairs there are: Infografia del aprendisaje, Revolver Galería, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2017), Art Brussels (solo booth) with Steve Turner Gallery (2017), BASTA!, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Nueva York, Estados Unidos (2016), Pangea: new art from America and Latin America, Saatchi Gallery, London (2014).
JUANA DE AIZPURU (Madrid)
Sandra Gamarra
(1972, Lima, Peru) lives and works in Madrid.
Sandra Gamarra’s project is conceived as a small museum room where a collection of paintings of classic pictorial genres, such as portrait, still life and landscape, which inform us about a history of the objectification of peoples, their cultures, their resources and the spaces they inhabit.
It consists of four display cases in which are located paintings of Andean ceramics, pre-Columbian artifacts like the ones that can be found in Spanish museums. These objects, uprooted from their traditional use, are organized, ordered and exhibited with distance and pulchritude. On the back of each painting, there are words that have historically been used to name the “other” have been written, like Indian and Red, besides naming a color tone of iron oxide, have become a pejorative term for the Andean populations.
The installation is conceived as a metaphor of our society’s way of defining ethnic minorities: it narrates a seemingly neutral story in the classic genres of paintings take part in an understanding the world that is imposed as unique and truthful. Such worldview remains present in various aspects of the contemporary world such as the migration of people, the relation to other cultures, the use of natural resources and the arts.
OPENING
BALCONY (Lisbon)
Tiago Alexandre
(Lisbon, 1988) lives and works in Lisbon.
Tiago Alexandre has a degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine-Arts, University of Lisbon, 2012. In the same year, he was the author of the Artist’s Residence Pé de Cabra, “It’s Not Basel But It Could Be”, in Lisbon.
Tiago, who is a multidisciplinary artist, uses different formal resources and various media, like video, painting, drawing and sculptural objects. From his solo exhibitions stand out the O Filho do Carro Preto from Bregas, Lisbon (2016) and “Entre o Boné e os Ténis” in Graça Brandão Gallery, Lisbon (2015). Tiago’s work has been included in collective exhibitions, institutions and galleries such as: Portugal, Portugueses, Museu Afro-Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil (2016); Black Dolphin, São Miguel, Açores (2016); Gente Feliz com Lágrimas, São Miguel, Açores (2015); Stoli, you stole my heart, Kazakhstan (2015). For ARCOlisboa 2018, Balcony presents three artworks from Tawapaiera, a collective show presented in Atelier Museu Julio Pomar (Lisbon, 28.10.2017 – 04.02.2018) curated by Alexandre Melo.
FRANCISCO FINO (Lisbon)
Mariana Silva
(1983, Lisbon) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon.
Mariana Silva’s artwork at Francisco Fino’s booth, P/p juxtaposes a colonial bangle produced in England — which, historically, was used as payment for the purchase of slaves in Africa — with a number of different chains, some of which jewelry. In his writings on fashion, Brazilian architect Flávio de Carvalho identified in the minuscule links of jewelry the sublimation of slaves’ chains. Retaining their colonial shape, open bangles (“escravas/ sclavas” in Portuguese and Spanish) are commonly found to this day throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
Mariana Silva’s relevant solo shows include, among others: Audience Response Systems (2014, Parkour, Lisbon); Environments 2013 (e-flux, New York), with Pedro Neves Marques; The Organization of Forms2011 (Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon); Relevant group shows include, among others: Gwangju Biennial, 2016 (Gwangju, Korea); HYPERCONNECTED, 2016 (V Moscow International Biennial for Young Art at MMOMA—Moscow Modern Art Museum); EDP New Artists Prize, 2015 (EDP Foundation, Lisbon) Europe, Europe, 2014 (Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo); Indie Film Festival: Moving Image, 2012 (Cinemateca de Lisboa, Lisbon).
MADRAGOA (Lisbon)
Adrián Balseca
(Quito, 1989) lives and works in Quito.
For The Condor passes by – in Spanish El Condor Pasa, the artist purchased a car: the mythical Condor GT (1981). This emblematic model fabricated in fiberglass during the transition from a military dictatorship to the restoration of democracy in Ecuador has been also a symbol of the last days of the period of the “oil boom” in the country. Balseca recalls the nostalgic story of one of the last “national” cars and ironically pays a posthumous tribute to that period of the local industry. The video shows the last moments of the vehicle before taking his “last flight” when it is dropped from the top of a hill in the surroundings of the Mount Catequilla. At the boundary of non-fiction film and documentary aesthetics, this project is an invitation to the viewer to re-think the anachronisms of modernity in Ecuador, and the implications of an economic model heavily based on oil and automotive industries. The video reflects on a failed “change of productive matrix,” meanwhile points out the environmental impact that has taken place in recent years around the “Middle of the World City”, understanding this tourist site as a territory of symbolic meaning related to the imagination of the Nation. The flight of the Condor by these places reveals and alerts us about the presence of large road projects as well as about the impacts of massive roaded developments, which have completely modified the natural landscape in this specific site.
Balseca’s work aims to activate strategies of representation, narration, and/or interaction in order to highlight cultural specificities of a particular place. It explores the relationship and tensions between industrial and craft practices, revealing a fascination with the historical processes, and the configuration of materials involved in the production of manufactured goods. His work often involves transforming the composition of daily objects or certain civil laws into other material forms, or legal experiences. These projects —from small interventions to large-scale ‘site-specific’ actions or video documentations— elaborate on ideas of emerging economies, nature, power, and social memory.
