print May 1991

Cristina Iglesias

This exhibition of Cristina Iglesias’ recent works demonstrated the continued evolution in her concept of nature, her understanding of the process of artmaking, and of her ideas regarding architecture and light. In this work Iglesias “denaturalizes” the exterior, that is, she removes any reference to nature from the sculptures. Still this work may somehow conjure up projections of a long-forgotten nature; for example, in the construction of a landscape of sculptures. Thus, she allows the work to resonate beyond itself. Iglesias makes light a theme in these works by using various transparent

print October 1990

Pedro Proença

Pedro Proença often presents his work in group shows alongside that of other artists notable for its visual exuberance,eclectic references, provocatively ludicrous elements, and clearly ironic approach to the making of art. Proença’s own work, however, is completely personal. His paintings are dominated by drawing and indeed, he commands a rigorous graphic technique. The figurative images lean toward the metamorphic, the expansive, and the ornamental. Human, animal, and vegetable forms develop rhythmically into perverse deformations that transform one into the other. Usually his drawings have

print April 1990

SKIN DEEP

O Moustro no Aquario The monster in the aquarium

THE IDEA OF THE aquarium evokes in me three different recollections and feelings. In the first place, in chronological order, we have the small aquarium of childhood: an open sphere of transparent glass, almost full of clean water, where, without stop, small red fish move. The child places both hands around the aquarium and stares at the fish, his eyes wide open. The predominant feeling is one of fascination with a life form that is both strange and thrilling. Curiosity takes an enchanted form. A suave type of fear transforms itself into a ludicrous

print April 1990

Jose Pedro Croft, Rui Sanches

The sculptors Jose Pedro Croft and Rui Sanches have exhibited jointly several times since 1985, together with a group that includes, among others, Cabrita Reis and Pedro Calapez. In his early work Croft used stone as his primary material. He employed geometric forms and placed blocks of stone one upon another. The starting point was a simple form—the parallelepiped—and the composition related to architectural forms, such as the arch and the column. It also made reference to the funeral architecture of tombs and coffins. These works had a tendency to be large, to have an anthropomorphic scale;

print November 1989

Rui Chafes

In his early exhibitions, Rui Chafes showed site-specific sculpture. A single construction would fill the gallery, leaving only the necessary space for the circulation of the viewers. Some of these constructions had interiors that were large enough to be entered. Materially, they often contrasted “natural” elements, such as bamboo and wood, with “artificial” ones, such as plastic. The play of different materials was determined by the relation between structural form and the surface, and the total effect was enhanced by the choice of color, texture, and illumination.

Chafes’ installations correspond

print Summer 1989

Michael Biberstein

Michael Biberstein’s work combines two kinds of reference, each of distinct origin and resonance. One is the representation of landscape, executed within traditional modes and methods, and related to the history of certain kinds of painting—mainly Romanticism and early Chinese painting. The other are the formal elements of a reductionist attitude of minimalist appearance. Biberstein presents diptychs in which one panel depicts a landscape and the other presents a gray monochrome, as well as a number of smaller works on paper that juxtapose a delicate landscape with the floorplan of a house or

print May 1989

SOME THINGS THAT CANNOT BE SAID ANY OTHER WAY

IN TODAY’S SPECULAR PLAY between society and art, artists generating works based on the logic of redundancy bet on the re-presentation of the object as a demonstration of the inauthenticity of the real. This logic, however, operates by a short circuit: the artist’s denial of individual authority is presumed to deny, simultaneously, any possible new meanings for the objects that carry the artist’s signature. Yet when one speaks of new meanings for the object, one need not be committed to rehabilitating the Modernist myth of originality or of pure invention. For objects do not only refer to their

print April 1989

Juliao Sarmento

The body as object and desire as mode are two topics that emerge from the work of Julião Sarmento. The artist’s mutable, visual language suggests a correspondence between his position as a producer of images and the position of the lover in relation to the object of his passion. Here, it is important to make a distinction between the common notion of passion and a tragic notion of passion. According to the common notion, passion is the expression of an explicit relation. According to the tragic notion, passion is the product of an impossible relation. In this second sense, passion is a work that

print September 1988

Leonel Moura

The recent work of Leonel Moura deals with a pervasive problem on the contemporary artistic scene. The question at hand is, What social and economic geography informs our perception of the contemporary international cultural situation? Since the beginning of the decade, there has been an esthetic revaluation of cultural and regional traditions. In some cases, the result has been a simplistic analysis of the problem of cultural differentiation and homogenization. An interpretation based on a juxtaposition of regional cultures, or on the simple opposition between dominant and dominated culture,

Alexandre Melo