Tonguetwisters & Lovesongs

Como enfrentar a máquina? Tonguetwisters & Lovesongs introduz uma subversão ao processo comunicativo ao provocar distorções do discurso pelo uso de jogos formais de palavras - tonguetwisters - recolhidas na oralidade da tradição popular e colocadas num sistema de automatização asséptico e artificial. É neste confronto entre a expressão da linguagem natural e a abstractização da máquina que o artista lança uma espécie de desafio. Movimentando-se entre o espaço de mediação da percepção e compreensão dos significados e a artificialização das relações humanas, João Pombeiro, revelando mecanismos de instrumentalização e hibridização do mundo, desenvolve uma consciência antropológica e histórica da sociedade em transformação. O recurso a um sistema de projecção de conteúdos, apresentados de modo a sobre estimular o sentido óptico e auditivo, oferece expressão formal à palavra, que, neste trabalho, é igualada à preponderância da imagem. O observador vê-se envolvido num processo de comutação entre a percepção e a actividade cerebral, entre o que consideramos o sentido das palavras e a volatilidade dos significados, tornando dúbias e herméticas as representações mentais. A adopção deste sistema de informação desloca as referências habituais da esfera das relações humanas e esvazia de sensibilidade a experiência comunicativa, que é gerada artificialmente e reduzida a um conjunto de caracteres informáticos. A experiência do cultural e do social transforma-se num processamento artificial de informação que alcança uma variante probabilística, sem dimensão afectiva e desarticulada de subjectividade, cujo resultado é a desconexão do significado com o seu referente real e visível.

Texto: Patrícia Barreira, 2010

Inauguração:
14 de janeiro de 2010, às 21h30

Patente até:
23 de janeiro de 2010

Local:
NOGO, AGREGAÇÃO TRANSDISCIPLINAR
Pátio da Galega 20-22 (junto ao 118 da Rua da Boavista) Santos, Lisboa

Cinematic

A group exhibition exploring the relationship between the language of film and contemporary art. The first in a five-part ten month series of new commissions, exhibitions and events Portuguese Waves celebrating the vibrant Portuguese contemporary art culture.

Curated by Iliyana Nedkova and Filipa Oliveira

14 November 2009 – 13 January 2010

Open Monday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm or late on performance evenings.

Threshold artspace, Perth Concert Hall,

Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ, Scotland

Cinematic presents artists’ video and sound works that explore the strong relationship between the language of film and contemporary art. The exhibition is conceived in response to the location of the Threshold artspace where all performing arts come together. The intimacy between cinema and artists’ moving image is present in all of the selected works thus immediately transporting us to the land of cinema – be it through memory association, or by appropriation yet without the ubiquitous black box or dimmed lights. The exhibition features new commissions showing at the different ‘project rooms’ of the artspace.

New commissions include two 22-channel video works for the Threshold Wave:

José Maçãs de Carvalho, To President (Drinking Version), 2005-07

By incessantly repeating found Hollywood footage starring Marylin Monroe, re-worked with new superimposed subtitles, the artist urges us to reflect on the connection between film and politics, between politics and the construction of the image.

Adriana Molder, Sequence, 2006

Throwing down photographs of Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper as if they were playing cards, the artist creates a kind of war of the sexes, or a game of attraction between two irresistible characters. The clue is in the final shot: an iconic publicity photograph from the film Morocco (1930) (dir. Josef von Sternberg).

Showing elsewhere in the Threshold artspace:

Sara & André, Sara & André Arrive in Porto, 2007, 11 min loop

Questioning the notion of authorship, this duo often investigate, with tongue-in-cheek, the new breed of celebrity artists treated as minor movie stars. Here the artists arrive at an airport and are greeted by a gang of ‘phony’ paparazzi who follow them until they reach… the subway.

Showing in the evenings only (4pm-6pm or until late on performance nights) at Threshold Stage as large-scale wall projection.

António Olaio, Pictures are not movies, 2005, 4 min 30 sec loop

Highlighting the ambiguity in the word ‘pictures’, the artist creates a cross between a music videoclip and a ‘spindle viewer’ or a phenakistoscope as one of the earliest animation devices known. Referencing both the history of fine art and cinema, Olaio foregrounds the fundamental role of music and text in contemporary moving image.

Showing at all times at Threshold Stage Screen as well as at www.youtube.com/Thresholdartspace

João Pombeiro, Schizo, 2002, 2 min 28 sec, loop

Manipulating a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), the artist reflects on the randomness and apparent schizophrenia of our contemporary society. Just by erasing the plane that is pursuing Cary Grant from the scene, the artist makes the actor appear to run and duck away for no reason.

Luísa Cunha, The Hat, 1997

This audio installation tells a short and odd story about a man with a hat. While keeping us in suspense for the story to unfold, the artist reminds us of crime movies where the hat is Hitchcock’s Macguffin: a plot element that catches our attention and drives the fiction along.

Showing on loan from the DGArtes Collection, Ministry of Culture, Portugal.

Also showing at the Threshold artspace micro cinema, the first of a four-part programme of artists’ films and videos from the prestigious corporate collection of PJML Foundation, Lisbon showing for the first time in the UK.

Telepathic Agriculture, António Olaio, 2005, 5 min

My Centrifugal Body Force 2 / O meu corpo centrífugo 2, Cristina Mateus, 2003, 5 min

The Experience of a Place II / A experiência do lugar II, Helena Almeida, 2004, 13 min

Pose, Make-up, Pose I / Pose, maquillage, pose I, João Tabarra, 2004, 3 min

Timelines / Linha do tempo, Jorge Molder, 2000, 5 min

Never Tell a Secret, José Maçãs de Carvalho, 2004, 3 min

Lacan’s Assumption, Julião Sarmento, 2003, 12 min

Showing as a bonus short each night preceding the arthouse, independent and world film features programmed by Perth Film Society selected Thursdays. All shorts and films start at 7.45pm. Admission to shorts free with a valid ticket for a feature film. More at www.horsecross.co.uk

Produced by the artists, curators and Horsecross Arts for Threshold artspace in partnership with 55degrees, Glasgow, Perth Film Society, PJML Foundation, Lisbon and DGArtes Collection, Portugal

Supported by the Calouste Gulbenkain Foundation, Instituto Camões Portugal of Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Arts Council Acordo Tripartido Fund.

A Escolha da Crítica

Um projecto de Lígia Afonso

Artistas: Miguel Carneiro / Paulo Mendes / Pedro Barateiro / Susana Gaudêncio / Pedro Cabral Santo + Ruy Otero / Mafalda Santos / João Tabarra / Miguel Palma / Eduardo Matos / Pedro Amaral / João Fonte Santa / João Pombeiro / Sara & André

Querer pensar acrítica e descontextualizadas as práticas artísticas contemporâneas é assumir passivamente o lugar do conforto dentro da sua estrutura estabelecida e alienar a possibilidade de encontro pelo diálogo e a criação, aos quais assiste a própria ideia de provocação e conflito. “A Escolha da Crítica” é uma selecção de obras dos anos 90 à actualidade, realizadas por artistas de diferentes gerações que se posicionaram criticamente, sistemática ou episodicamente, face ao sistema da arte contemporânea e se propuseram a reflectir sobre os papéis sociais e económicos que a cultura desempenha, mais concretamente sobre os fenómeno da mercantilização, produção e divulgação artísticas. A lógica da exposição assenta na selecção e não na encomenda de obras assumindo-se, desta forma, o seu carácter retrospectivo. É uma tentativa de mapeamento de um discurso, mais ou menos polémico e interventivo, tornado possível com a lenta ultrapassagem dos limites e fronteiras historicamente herdados, ainda que porém, e agora em democracia, mais frequentemente normalizado que radicalizado. Porque os agentes que intervêm no mundo da arte se definem em relação uns com os outros, a partir das suas mútuas relações e interdependências, esta exposição reclama um discurso cooperativo e dialéctico entre as obras e os próprios artistas em relação com a instituição, como uma proposta possível de pensamento sobre crítica institucional.

Video Art and Art and Essay Film in Portugal

+ INFO (English)  | +INFO (Português) |  DOWNLOAD


Lançamento do livro | Conferência de apresentação

Sexta-feira, 12 de Dezembro às 18h00

CAMJAP Sala Polivalente - Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa.

Book Launch | Conference
Friday, December 12th at 18:00
CAMJAP Multipurpose room - Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.


ARTISTAS / ARTISTS:
Adriana Molder, Ana Bezelga, Ana Efe, André Guedes, André Romão, André Sousa, Ângela Ferreira, António Leal, António Olaio, Augusto Alves da Silva, Carlos Bunga, Carlos Carrilho, Cecília Costa, Célia Domingues, Cláudia Cristóvão, Cláudia Ulisses, Daniel Blaufuks, Daniel Malhão, David Etxeberria, Fernando José Pereira, Francisco Tropa, Gabriel Abrantes, Graça Sarsfi eld, Helena Almeida, Hugo Canoilas, Inês Amado, Isabel Ribeiro, Joana Vasconcelos, João Louro, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, João Nora, João Paulo Feliciano, João Pedro Leonardo, João Pombeiro, João Seguro, Jorge Molder, Jorge Santos, José Carlos Teixeira, Luís Alegre, Luís Filgueiras, Manuel Valente Alves, Margarida Paiva, Mariana Viegas, Marta Moreira, Martinha Maia, Miguelangelo Veiga, Miguel Leal, Miguel Palma, Mónica Gomes, Mónica de Miranda, Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, Nuno Ramalho, Nuno Sousa, Paulo Brighenti, Paulo Mendes, Paulo Romão Brás, Pedro Barateiro, Pedro Maia, Pedro Neves Marques, Pedro Paixão, Pedro Tudela, Pedro Valdez Cardoso, Ricardo Jacinto, Rita Sobral Campos, Rodrigo Oliveira, Rodrigo Vilhena, Ruben Verdadeiro, Rui Mourão, Rui Valério, Sandro Resende, Sérgio Taborda, Sílvia Moreira, Susana Anágua, Susana Guardado, Susana Mendes Silva, Susanne Themlitz, Virgínia Mota, Xana.

Alexandre Estrela, António Rego, Catarina Campino, Cristina Mateus, Daniel Barroca, Filipa César, Francisco Queirós, Hugo Brito, João Onofre, João Penalva, João Simões, João Tabarra, José Maçãs de Carvalho, Julião Sarmento, Maria Lusitano, Miguel Soares, Nuno Cera, Nuno Ribeiro, Paula Roush, Pedro Cabral Santo, Pedro Diniz Reis, Rui Calçada Bastos, Rui Toscano, Vasco Araújo.

Adriana Sá, Ana Borralho & João Galante, António Caramelo, António Contador, Clara Games, Edgar Massul, Edgar Pêra, Fernando Fadigas, Gustavo Sumpta, Hugo Olim, Ivan Franco, João Carrilho, João Vinagre, Luciana Fina, Miguel Clara Vasconcelos, Nuno Maya, Nuno Pedrosa, Olga Roriz, Patrícia Portela, Pedro Costa, Pedro Gil, Pedro Henriques, Pedro Sena Nunes, Regina Guimarães & Saguenail, Rui Viana, Ruy Otero, Sandra Dias, Sandra Zuzarte, Sérgio Cruz, Tiago Pereira.

Enganar a Fome

Press-Release:

"The imaginary is that which tends to become real." *

Pode-se pensar no artista como alguém que cria cenários dentro de um contexto cultural especifico.
O mundo da Arte Contemporânea não é imune á feroz realidade comercial actual de uma sociedade animada por um capitalismo global.

A competição é grande quando galerias se estabelecem e encerram ao público a um ritmo constante. Ao mesmo tempo, museus e espaços públicos de exposição concorrem por apoios e patrocínios, por vezes estas estruturas de vulto aparentam preocupar-se mais com números de visitantes e angariação de fundos do que com o seu capital cultural.

Mas nem todos os espaços criativos disponíveis se apresentam deste modo, O Espaço Avenida tem desenvolvido um papel importante de divulgação de artistas e suas obras. Reconhecido como um local de experimentação e exibição, auto-didacta, temporário e alternativo, tem recebido uma programação forte e constante de artistas que de outra forma teriam maior dificuldade em alcançar visibilidade. Fundamental para o seu sucesso tem sido a capacidade organizadora dos artistas envolvidos. Este é um espaço sem cinismos mercantis e que combina não só a possibilidade de exibição mas também uma atmosfera criativa geral, advinda da sua coexistência com estúdios de artistas que proliferam no edifício. Este é um fenómeno global, comum a tantas outras cidades, onde surgem espaços de exibição, produção e residência, geridos por artistas, que tentam desta forma colmatar a insuficiência de oportunidades noutros espaços mais institucionais.

"Enganar a fome" tem a ver precisamente com a necessidade premente dos artistas obterem a desejada visibilidade para as suas obras, uma vez que a aptidão para produzir de um autor motivado é muitas vezes inversamente proporcional ás suas possibilidades de exibição.

Os artistas intervenientes em "Enganar a Fome" pertencem a uma geração artística mais ou menos recente, mas que na sua maioria criaram laços com galerias comerciais ou instituições creditadas. Esta geração tornou-se adulta num mundo onde referencias se entre-cruzam e auto-influenciam. Onde a totalidade da sua actividade artística se apresenta mais essencial que uma sua obra especifica.

As peças em exposição, criam momentos únicos de apreciação estética propondo encontros diversificados e singulares. Materializadas através de técnicas tão distintas como o desenho a escultura, o vídeo, a animação, a música ou a instalação, expressam laços à arte conceptual, ao minimalismo, estética relacional, ou a conceitos tão vastos como a fenomenologia, a politica, a geografia ou a arquitectura, proporcionando um interessante e valioso diálogo entre diferentes processos de trabalho e visões artísticas.

*Breton, André, Le Revolver à cheveux blancs, in Clair De Terre/Mont-De-Piete/Le Revolver a Cheveux Blancs, Gallimard. Paris, 1966



Inauguração / Opening:
11 Setembro, 22h
11st September, 10 p.m

Horário / Schedule:

De 12 a 25 de Setembro 2008
From the 12th until the 25th, September, 2008

Terça a Domingo, das 15h às 20h
Tuesday - Sunday, from 3p.m. until 8 p.m.

Morada / Address:
Espaço Avenida
Avenida da Liberdade 211, 1ºesq
Lisboa

Artistas / Artists:
Filipe Lucas Frazão
João Pombeiro
Luisa Goulart Estevão
Marco Pires
Natércia Caneira
Nuno Vicente
Orlando Franco
Susana Anágua
Susana Gaudêncio
8551120 Assemblage Project

http://enganar-a-fome.blogspot.com

Meaninglessness (Time Out review)

João Pombeiro
Galeria Paulo Amaro

É inegável a existência de uma atracção por escrever letras pretas sobre um fundo branco. Para além da fácil leitura deverá haver algo de metafisico, pois isso vai desde a simples escrita à máquina ou no Word do computador e até à arte conceptual. Estamos aqui então na tal fronteira existente entre as artes plásticas e a escrita que nos pode levar desde Lawrence Weiner até aos concretistas brasileiros ou ao também brasileiro Arnaldo Antunes, entre outros.

Aqui estaremos perante um exemplo de arte conceptual? Será que o artista assim designa o seu trabalho? Estas questões colocam-se devido à desarmante honestidade e realismo com que João Pombeiro coloca a arte perante o mundo mercantilista e mesmo filosófico da mesma. Essa afirmação começa logo numa impressão a laser limitada a 500 cópias onde ele posa a segurar num cartaz que diz “I’m a Real Deal” e depois segue através de várias pinturas, esculturas, vídeos, tudo numa plasticidade de preto e branco e numa ironia constante com o tal mundo da arte e numa liberdade linguística que brota da poesia visual. Joga-se com conceitos, com ideias feitas, ou simplesmente com a linguagem. O que é bom.

João Pombeiro estudou na Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha e expõe desde 1998 em colectivo ou individualmente, de Berlim a Lisboa. Quanto a esta exposição, vale a pena “ler”. Mas cuidado, pois “Language is a virus” como afirmava o escritor beat William Burroughs.

Leonel de Jesus
in TimeOut

Roundup #9: The Best Artists on artreview.com This Week

"Our guest critic, the independent curator, critic and regular reviewer for ArtReview magazine, Laura McLean-Ferris, makes another selection of outstanding artists on artreview.com. See her selection last week here .

(...)

Moving swiftly on, João Pombeiro is from Portugal, and studied at ESAD, in Caldas da Rainha, where he now lives and works. Continuing with the theme of that which refuses to die, we find his work peppered with the kinds of 'branding' styles that we have come to expect from artist like Damien Hirst or Daniel Buren, which now come back to rest on everyday domestic objects. The stripes on this chair certainly look like the work of the latter.

João Pombeiro, Chair, 1998

And this first aid kit the kind of motif used by the former...

João Pombeiro, 1st Aid Kit, 1999

This seems to be almost an exercise in 'putting back' these objects and symbols of the everyday into their original domestic context, and examining how they've been changed by this transformative process. Perhaps a clue is to be found in one of Pombeiro's text pieces: a circle of text which states: 'Every art definition follows a circular logic' - and perhaps this is the final stage in the circular process. Pombeiro has a solo exhibition (titled, unsurprisingly: Meaninglessness), which has just opened in Lisbon Galeria Paulo Amaro for those of you planning summer trips.


João Pombeiro, Landscape, 2000

This scrambling of references works like a virus, creating a humorous dialogue about meaning and meaninglessness in art. Does such pilfering strip the colour, shape or work of content, or is meaning and content created in the process? In Landscape for example, both the landscape itself and the history of landscape painting and photography gets scrambled together along with references to artists who used jigsaw puzzles in their work: Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Georges Perec are two that spring to mind."

Written by Laura McLean-Ferris
Published by Artreview.com

MEANINGLESSNESS

REAL DEAL, upload feito originalmente por joaopombeiro.

New Solo Show:

MEANINGLESSNESS
15th May - 21st June


OPENING: 15th MAY, at 21:30 P.M.

Paulo Amaro - Contemporany Art
R. Capitão Leitão nº14,
1950-051 Lisbon
Portugal

Schedule:
Tuesdays - Saturdays
From 11 A.M. until 7:30 P.M

Phone: (+351) 214544450
Fax: (+351) 214544459

mail@pauloamaro.com
www.pauloamaro.com

Where is João Pombeiro looking for freedom?

A review by Marta Jecu*.

In the dialogue with Tiny Domingos, João Pombeiro talks about wanting to make a connection between the history of Berlin and this exhibition. Berlin wall, the most handy to come symbol, disappears at first from the mind, while entering his exhibition at Rosalux. But "freedom is a state of mind" and is also gesture. A palimpsest of different signs, acts and citations – the wall unfolds a compact space of conceptual expression. Joao Pombeiro reloads this attitude of mind and develops uninhibited his posture in a widened art-theoretical reference context.

Taking a look on João Pombeiro's website, we can see a bunch of very different directions, strategies, problematizations, which extract elements from disparate fields of experience, substance and style, express artistic traditions, but don't follow down their implications. Somehow confusing, these elements seem not coordinated in a stable conceptual frame. But I would say, that this is not a less mature and less rigorously internalised conceptual process, but rather a different approach: Joao Pombeiro seems the one who searches for very disparate sources of information, images and builds fragments in a personal palimpsests, which is by its nature provisory, temporary and fluid. This attitude doesn't look for the abode of a doctrine, in which to grow, and isn't concerned with speculating on a theoretical norm. It rather proceeds accumulatively, receptively and sensitive to hints, reacting too situations, spontaneously and rather candid – in an "everyday" rhythm. Even if the process is not so analytical to be self-critical, his approach brings in distortions, unexpected turnings of established frames, destabilisation. These deviations open territories, where a long awaited freshness, free expression, lack of self restricting consciousness unfold a deep conceptual substance. Vivid, spontaneous and receptive – this attitude turns out to be very effective, to develop an active potential on a smaller or bigger scale.

Joao Pombeiro's work made for the gallery Rosalux in Berlin, if seen having in mind his other works, gains a dimension which it would otherwise lose. Seeing this unitary constructed space in the gallery, minimal but condensed, and isolating it from the context of his other works, we could be tempted to associate this work to structuralist frames of interpretation, to the preoccupation for text as architectural image. In this light his images and texts could be seen as rigorously constructing on each other, in order to built a stable edifice of meaning. From a different perspective we could see his work also as a graphic game, where text is loosing its significance to become a compact surface, invested with calligraphic qualities. His text-image also could function like a sign, signifying a coded, underlying context.

But as previously stated, I think these theoretical frameworks do not fuse with this work and bring no additional relevance for it.

Joao Pombeiro rather gives a glance to all these fields of "exercise" and turns the game to his will. These references are used to fortify his game but are finally completely ignored, for the artist seeks to follow his personal sense of free, vagabond expression. Stating a truism, making a riddle or a joke, Joao Pombeiro is going round and round in circle, visually and conceptually, till the circle he constructs, is undermined by its own means. "Every art definition follows a circular logic" - overlapped analysis: a general statement, a particular work, a graphic form collide and the closed circular affirmation, with its inclusive borders, the stated rules by which the work functions, the pre-determined statement, suddenly open up. Text and image deconstruct on each other, make way for free spaces of expression. "I went to the big opening at the gallery, but everyone was there just to be seen, so I left and went to the movies" His statements are questioning their own content. An affirmation is set in circular motion, evidence is repeated, until a distance from the object slips in and the initial meaning is turned upside down. Unexpected, evident absurdness fragments what it cites, till a new conceptual continuity emerges.

The visual text is associated with sonority in the spoken riddles. So, Joao Pombeiro is adding another device for freeing up the immobile canonical statement. Verbalizing, in a continuous tongue-cracking litany, destabilises the well-guarded structure of written words, sonority brings mobility in space. Continuous, tricky shifting, humour and negation impose an affirmative space of discourse.

Marta Jecu

Berlin, 2007

Looking for Freedom

'Looking for Freedom'
João Pombeiro interviewed by Tiny Domingos

Why and how did you choose this title for your show at rosalux.com?
For my first solo show in Berlin, i wanted a title that would have some connection with the city and it´s history. I made some research about the Berlin wall, and i read about David Hasselhof’s song “Looking for Freedom” and the role that he claims the song had in the fall of the wall.

Are you looking for freedom? How?
I believe freedom is just a state of mind and it only last for a fews moments. In that way, everyone is always looking for freedom in it’s many forms. In my case i trying to find freedom in fame and fortune.

May I ask you what do you have to offer (as an artist)?
I guess the only things i have to offer as an artist are sarcasm, irony, laughter, and one or two interesting ideas about life in general.

Who and where is your public?
That´s funny... everyday i ask myself the same question.

Are you happy with it?
The only thing that matters to me is if they are happy with me.

Do contemporary artists have to be elitist?
Not really, i think it works the other way around. Contemporany elitists have to be artists. Or maybe, elitist artists have to be contemporany.

Would you like to have more public?
Acttually, I would like to fill Wembley Stadium with my public. Is that aiming too high?

Do you want to change the world with your art?
Not really. Like any other artist I’m just trying to reach a state of immortality through my work.

Is poetics essential for an artist?
Not only for artists but also for every human being

Where is your poetics?
My poetics is always side-by-side with my humor.

Is art a bore?
Sometimes it is. Art shouldn´t be as serious as some people make it.

Is your art also a bore?
Of course not. Mine is the good kind of art.

What do you think about the art system?
It´s just a system like any other systems. It has some qualitys and it has some defects.

What do you think about the artist’s role?
I think the artist’s main role is to reflect social and individual realities, and hoppefully to change them at some level.

What thinks the art system about you?
It wonders if I am profitable or not. Maybe it just wonders who am I?

What do you want to deconstruct?
I would like to desconstruct the art system from the inside. But i’ve heard that someone already did it.

Can you change the art system from the inside?
That’s the only way to do it.

What do you want to build?
A home, a family and a solid art career.

Does religiousity plays a role in your work?
It doesn´t. And I hope i don´t go to hell for that.

Does Portugal or your nationality plays a role in your work?
I don´t think so, because i consider myself a very global individual. But maybe that´s just my portuguese way of thinking...