New exhibition by João Maria Gusmão

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 - 00:28

You can now visit João Maria Gusmão's latest solo exhibition in Lisbon. Animal Farm opened yesterday at Galeria Zé dos Bois in Lisbon, where it will be on show until September 7, 2024.

School of Arts is co-producer of the Animal Farm exhibition, which opens in December at SoA Exhibition Hall.

joão gusmão

Animal Farm invites the viewer to take part in a visual odyssey exalted by pastoral consolation, animist minstrelsy and metaphysical enigmas - ghosts, goblins and ogres - offering fleeting glimpses of an otherness that exists between technê and poiesis, the human and the non-human, the nocturnal and the diurnal.

Through more than fifteen new projections on 16 mm film, we are challenged to explore the latest advances in an enduring investigation into analog media and analog concepts. A journey towards ecological detachment from the extractive rural landscape. The exhibition is curated by Marco Bene.

Over the last two decades, João Maria Gusmão has developed, in collaboration with Pedro Paiva, an enigmatic and complex set of practices ranging from experimental cinema, through sculpture and photography, to literature, exhibition curating and book publishing. His most notable work takes the form of immersive installations made from projections of analog 16mm films. Its visual vocabulary brings together references to the imagery of contemporary literature and philosophy. His bronze sculptures use simplified schematic foundations to create figures. The artist models not the pieces themselves, but their molds, a feature that opens up random possibilities.

His recent solo exhibitions are Lusque-Fusque Arrebol, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal (2022) and Variations - Eugène Frey's Light Set Projections, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco (2021). He also took part in the group show O Canto do Bode, Casa da Cultura de Comporta, Comporta, Portugal (2021).

More information about the exhibition here.