Bruno Pacheco
One two, left right
From the 24th of March to the 6th of May 2022
Opening: 24 March, from 15h30 to 19h00
Bruno Pacheco (1974) is the artist featured in the Casa A. Molder Gallery’s ninth exhibition.
Um dois, esquerdo direito [One two, left right] is the title of that exhibition, which was especially conceived for the Casa A. Molder Gallery.
We are welcomed by someone who, in a sequence of animated photographs on video, performs a hand salute to us. At first sight, he may look like a soldier; he dresses in military green, has a helmet on and wears a glove on the hand that salutes us, a gesture that is both symbolic and determined. That someone is the artist himself. Now, looking closer, we can see that he is wearing paint pots as a helmet, as well as an old sweater and a glove that are clearly also objects from his studio, and that salute starts to strike us as a puerile, comical gesture.
Painting is a very serious matter, particularly Bruno Pacheco’s painting. So serious that it leads him, as in this exhibition and throughout his career, to create sculptural objects that are as pictorial and conceptual as his paintings.
Who is private Pacheco saluting? The visitors? Painting itself, like when he saw in China the changing of the guard being performed in front of Mao’s portrait?
On the wall we see a pink arch, with a shade. This pink is a hue that Bruno Pacheco created specifically for this piece, which formerly was installed outside and now has become an interior piece. It is a door that invites us to enter a wall; like a painting, like a nonsensical object, like an outside replica of the arch that divides the gallery’s small rooms. Concerning the colour of this piece, he says: “notice that the colour on these bars (at his studio) is a creation of mine; it didn’t exist before, and since then they have used it in all the other studios”. An undertaking that is both logical and unique.
And private Pacheco keeps performing his salute.
Pequenas vitórias [Small victories] is a piece made with yellow resin, a yellow that is familiar to us, being the yellow of painter’s tape. This piece is another arch displayed on a wall. This arch gives continuity to the one in the room, as if it were inviting us to enter an imaginary corridor that leads out, thus enlarging the exhibition’s confined space. This piece is modelled after the small wooden wedges that are used to tighten canvas stretchers. Here, and once again, the painter’s everyday objects come together to create something new. These tiny, invisible pieces, which generate stability, have been congregated by the artist, who has lent them sculptural grandeur by turning them into a geometric figure that also possesses pictorial qualities.
It can be said that the obstinate inability to obey the demands of that authority figure that is painting is part and parcel of Bruno Pacheco’s work, as much as his full and reverential commitment to that art.
And private Pacheco keeps performing his salute.
A special thanks to Gonçalo Jesus e Matteo Consonni.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory.
One two, left right by Bruno Pacheco exhibition views.
Carla Rebelo
Geology of a place
From the 4th February to
the 18th of March 2022
Opening: 4 February, from 15h30 to 19h00
Carla Rebelo (1973) is the artist featured in the Casa A. Molder Gallery’s eighth exhibition.
Geologia de um lugar [Geology of a place] is the title of the installation that occupies the two rooms that make up the Gallery and of the exhibition itself, which according to the artist is based on “a certain idea of the passage of time in this place”.
The lines of nails that can be seen on the rooms’ walls were once (when the shop was also a commercial art gallery) used to hang paintings and prints, and they provided a starting-point for Carla Rebelo, who usually creates site-specific installations and sculptures. On each wall, the artist counted 66 nails and stretched white strings from the floor, near the arch that separates the two rooms, to create two inclined planes that are supported by these lines of nails. The artist is quite precise: “66 nails on each wall, 132 in total. Each nail will hold two strings, each string will be tied to a 40-gram weight. 264 strings, 10,56 kilos. These are the space and time coordinates of the Geology of this place.”
Strictly speaking, this exhibition was defined by the particular features of these old rooms. They dictate the organisation of the strings that, though light and almost invisible, limit our movement across the space and are a force that generates structure, a structure that is both perennial and ephemeral.
Geology of a place also evokes drawing – through both the planes of strings and the shadows they cast across the space. On the other hand, we also observe the creation of a fabric, woven in a loom created from this space. A fabric of time that has already passed, that passed through us and what came before us. The history of a place. The time that comes before us is used by the artist to leave her own mark in the space, adding to the history of this place. Like a crafty spider, Carla Rebelo captures us in her web, which compels us to contemplate it; while doing so, we are confronted by our own time and existence.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory.
Geology of a place by Carla Rebelo exhibition views.
João Belga
I'm Alive - Yet I'm Not Alive
de 9 de Dezembro de 2021
14 de Janeiro de 2022
Opening: 9 December, from 15h30 to 19h00
João Belga (1968) is the artist featured in the Casa A. Molder Gallery’s seventh exhibition, I’m Alive – Yet I’m Not Alive. These words, which give the exhibition its title, are drawn on a small black-and-white canvas with all the graphic skill that defines his work as a draughtsman. Writing as drawing, the destruction of writing, the frightening symbolic value of all the images and texts that surround us – advertising as our manipulative established order –, all these themes from João Belga’s drawing and painting work are also present in this show.
“Contamination” is the word the artist chose to describe the works exhibited here. Works that were contaminated by the 2020-2021 timespan, by lockdown after lockdown, by the fear, failure and chaos we have all experienced collectively.
João Belga secluded himself in his Caldas da Rainha studio, whence three series of small-format paintings emerged over time, not so much, we might say, as a reaction to these troubled days, but rather as an extension of them. In these series there is so much darkness and (faux) chaos that the artist appears to have been not just contaminated by the times, but has shaman-like contaminated the world itself, and that by letting ourselves be enfolded by his works we fall into a dark, unredeemable territory.
But that is only a first impression; actually, the three series of paintings (two in black on white unpainted canvas and one in white on black-painted canvas), in spite of being all “contaminated”, offer us a number of clues:
In the Paleta Series, which often resorts to the process of automatic drawing, we can recognise letters, skulls and the vestiges of quite precise drawings, which have been destroyed and transformed by a succession of dense layers laid over time, as well as by the fact that the artist has used some of these canvases as palettes while creating other works. The ones here have survived, and they give us some answers and a measure of redemption when we consider their titles, such as “White Light from the Mouth of Infinity” (the title of a 1991 Swans album) or “On Some Faraway Beach” (the title of one of the songs in Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets). In the series Luz Negra [Dark Light] the density of noise is gone, but there is a visual deceptiveness that causes us to see characters, false symbols and even landscapes in its pictures. The third series is a lot less tumultuous as a whole, being drawn from models and featuring clearly defined compositions, which strangely does not bring us to a less sombre world than the previous ones. Still, there is noise, music and humour here.
This relationship with music, a defining feature of João Belga’s work, is also present in the white canvas that shares the title I’m Alive - Yet not Alive: a palimpsest whose ninety-one layers are slowly revealed, as in a slide show of the paintings that make up this work, in the video piece that accompanies it. The video, which shows all that has been concealed in the white canvas, has a cadence that allows us to see each one of the hidden images, while hypnotising and manipulating us. The sound that envelops the whole exhibition, created by DAS COOL ensemble, a group of which João Belga is a member, is also used to soundtrack his studio work, thus making us artists as well as viewers.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory.
Francisco Tropa
Polaris
From the 16th of September to the 22nd of October 2021
Opening: 16 September, from 15h30 to 19h00
Francisco Tropa (1968) is the artist featured in the fifth exhibition at the Casa A. Molder Gallery.
Polaris is the title of his sculpture, as well as of the exhibition.
Polaris is the scientific name of the North Star or Pole Star, the star that seems to remain fixed while the other stars rotate around it, the star that has been guiding seafarers from times immemorial, the star that guides us.
At first glance, Francisco Tropa’s sculpture appears to offer us no guidance at all, such is the astonishment that this irregular-shaped (its front a section of wall and its back suggesting a cloud or a piece of clay), light-emitting object, inspires in us. Here, the hole in the wall is not something to peek through, but a means to irradiate light. The intermittent light is a cold, hypnotic force that adds a surface shine to the sculpture, while also dazzling us.
It can even be said that Polaris, as it lies on its painted plinth, like an extension of the wall, displayed like an artefact that has fallen from the sky, befuddles us: Is that piece of wall light or heavy? Is it made of clay, concrete, bronze?
Is it a prop from a play, the greatness of which transcends us, being life itself? Will it remain there permanently, while conducting us with a luminous cadence, reminding us that art can never be explained, only experienced?
According to the artist, the answer is a poem by John Keats:
“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory. Access to the gallery space is limited to three persons at a time.
Exhibition views from Polaris by Francisco Tropa.
BÁRBARA FONTE
Pustule
From the 8th to the 30th of July and from the 1st to the 10th of September 2021
Opening: 8 July, from 15h30 to 19h00
Bárbara Fonte (1981) is the artist featured in the fourth exhibition at the Casa A. Molder Gallery.
Pústula [Pustule] is the title of the video piece that was specifically created for the Gallery’s space, and also the title of the exhibition. This video, which stemmed from the artist’s desire to “bring the rural world (Bárbara Fonte’s studio is in Paredes de Coura) to the centre of the city”, quickly became, as is usual with her video work, a personal narrative in which the everyday life of a body (always the artist’s) develops, through various actions, which appear innate, such is the intimacy we feel between the body and the camera, the construction of a time.
In these actions, we find allegory, religious rituals, deconstructed cinematic images, the artist’s love for late medieval Western paintings and sensuality, among other elements. Bárbara Fonte’s visual lexicon is quite precise, and the same can be said of her props, made by the artist herself, who shares with them her working space, a sort of cabinet of curiosities where the props are kept in small display cases, filled with inspiring, poetic objects.
In Pustule, the solemnity in Bárbara Fonte’s filmed actions sometimes becomes comic, like the work of a serious clown. Out of the solemn act a burst of laughter comes. That burst of laughter is liberating, but it also makes us vulnerable, revealing the artist’s strength. It could be said that Bárbara Fonte’s work vomits, while ripping out the norm and turning it inside out, offering a strange and distressing visual rawness.
This also applies to the drawings in this exhibition, done with a brush in Indian ink on Canson paper; in them, smiling mouths mix with a variety of largely organic forms, in which we see whatever we want or manage to see: from wombs to teddy bears, still lifes or vulvae, among many other things. Created from memories or small models, they are certainly an important part of this artist’s work, where drawing plays a central role, alongside her videos and photographs.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory. Access to the gallery space is limited to three persons at a time.
Exhibition images from Pustule by Bárbara Fonte. Drawings Varible dimentions, Indian ink on Canson paper, 2021. Video: Videostills from Pústula, vídeo 16:9 (Digital Image), 1´21´´, Braga and Paredes de Coura, 2021. © Bárbara Fonte
RUI CHAFES
Permanent beginning
From the 28th of May until the 2nd of July 2021
Opening: 28 May, from 15h30 to 19h00
Rui Chafes (1966) is the artist featured in the third exhibition at the Casa A. Molder Gallery.
Início permanente [Permanent beginning] is the title of the iron sculpture that names the exhibition and was created specifically for the gallery’s space. According to the artist, “Permanent beginning is that suspended time in which life and non-life, death and non-death find their source, their starting-point.”
The iron sculpture lies on the wooden floor, in semi-darkness. It is the female form of the origin of the world, but now it is dark, heavy and we do not know if it carries life in it. It could be a rotting skull inside a suit of armour that emerges out of the earth, like a germinating seed, several days after the battle. There is hope that it might be a portal, a spectre that will take us to another world or, better still, that will bring us back to this one.
Rui Chafes’ work is of this world. A work of fire and iron. This sculptor, who works in series that stretch across time and sees his pieces as shadows, believes that the origin of art was the tension between the sacred and the profane and that we must know what our destiny on earth is. With Permanent beginning, he brings us a new sculpture, and thus an expansion in the language of art.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory. Access to the gallery space is limited to three persons at a time.
Permanent beginning by Rui Chafes, exhibition views.
ANA CATARINA FRAGOSO
Mountains Running Through Our Fingers
From the 22nd of April until the 21st of May 2021
Opening: 22 April, from 15h30 to 19h00
The Casa A. Molder Gallery’s second exhibition brings to us the work of Ana Catarina Fragoso (1984). According to the artist, “As montanhas por entre os dedos” [Mountains running through our fingers] – the exhibition’s title – “is a painting installation that was conceived for the space of the Casa A. Molder Gallery.
It is a movement between two dunal landscapes, between day and near night, as we walk from the sea to the land.”
There is a confrontation in these landscapes, one sandy, the other overgrown, in two very definite moments in time, noon and incandescent sunset. The dazzling daylight and the approaching dusk, which, instead of blinding us, allows us to see, for one short moment, a whirlwind of colours and memories. It is a confrontation between aridity and abundance, between metal and paper. The mouldable aridity of the depiction of those sand mountains, erotic under that full light, set on the solidity of metal, can cause us to wander, while the abundance of the light that dwindles, set on the lightness of paper, is a spectacle that compels us to remain there.
These paintings are representations of landscapes chosen by Ana Catarina Fragoso. The artist finds her models during walks she takes with her camera, with that goal in mind. Then, on a luminous screen, her fingers enlarge those landscapes, revealing colours imperceptible to the naked, untrained eye. Painted while laid horizontally on the floor, in acrylic, one on metal and the other on paper, these previously unshown paintings find here, in the space of the Casa A. Molder Gallery and in their final vertical position, a new confrontation and relationship with our bodies and gazes.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory. Access to the gallery space is limited to three persons at a time.
Mountains Running Through Our Fingers
by Ana Catarina Fragoso, exhibition views.
GUSTAVO SUMPTA
Luto
From the 19th of November until the 8th of January 2021
Opening: 19 November, from 15h30 to 19h00
The Casa A. Molder Gallery opens its doors with Luto, an exhibition by Gustavo Sumpta (1970).
Luto is also the title of the ephemeral sculpture that was specially created for the premises of the Casa A. Molder Gallery. The piece envelops and delimits the gallery’s space, inviting the viewer to attentively interact with it. In the words of the artist, who frequently uses in his sculptures tapes from VHS cassettes, an obsolete magnetic recording material: “This sculpture is presented like it was a residue from a performance art piece. It is a celebration of continuous, repeated movement. Here, Mourning [Luto] is the metamorphosis of lamenting”.
The exhibition is open to the public on weekdays, during the shop’s afternoon schedule, i.e. from 3h30pm to 7pm; visits on weekends and holidays can be made by previous appointment. Access to the Gallery is through the shop.
Covid-19
To enter the shop, mask-wearing and hand-sanitising are mandatory. Access to the gallery space is limited to three persons at a time.
Luto by Gustavo Sumpta exhibition views, day and night time.
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