Salon de Montrouge Comissariat Portuguais 2006

Chemins qui ne mnent nulle part ()

Chemins que l'on dirait avec art ()
Chemins qui souvent n'ont
Devant eux rien d'autre en face () 1

Io que vagando al limitare intorno,

Invan la pioggia invoco e la tempesta,
Acci che la ritenga al moi soggiorno () 2

Regarding the works chosen for the present exhibition I measured an idea rooted on
some late considerations upon words, images and art itself - possibly expressing a sort
of obsession prevailing nowadays.
Concerning the domains of Art, as in life itself, it seems that (sometimes) anything goes:
any thought can become an accomplishment - even if followed by gloomy actions +
reactions. Anything might turn into real but the same concept or act might mean nothing
at all! A certain grade zero versus horror vaccui of perception, reception or
interpretation is additionally offered for those who desire it!
So, it might or might no be; you chose the most self-convenient procedure; provide
yourself with the best outer images converted as inner images and suitable concepts. It
really has no profound significance, spite of the hush words enjoyed in accurate
discussions; its pointless either youre supposed to act for or against or even if you
just avoid a commitment why should it be either way?
Transporting these cloudy ideas or challenging concepts into art theory, lets recall a
few purposes:
1. the artist as an author
2. the public as individual and/or collective identity
3. the work or the concept as substance and/or material.
And we could keep running along with the time as in Wim Wenderss tittle Im lauf der
Zeit or Fellinis masterpiece E la nave va
Everyone as the right to deny or agree, refuse or aim at something, either as an author
or a person in the audience. Art does not necessarily incorporate an obvious sense; it
might just translate the opposite of its meaningfulness or qualify the lack of any sort of
comprehension, sliding away from any interpretation. Thats an entitlement (and a
claim) of the spectator domain as an aesthetic operator, his life is interfered by these
concepts and he is inclined to act.
I dont presume the apology of an aesthetics merely based on a randomising perception
or reception. I dont support the unbearable lightness of being in the art kosmos but
in a paradigmatic way: does not any product of art emerges from a parallel world or at
least from a matching income of veracity?
Lets follow those paths driving nowhere, be for a while der Wanderer or le flneur...
Im sure that Baudelaire, Rilke, Benjamin or Pessoa had good laughs about it, thinking
how lucid they were, a team of clairvoyant fellows
Denial is such a dogmatic action, such a closed decision! Disrespecting the freedom you
think you master - both rational and sentimental! Non-definition is such a creative
agony for some of authors, but it makes us feel good as spectators! Or, in the
opposite, nonchalance is voluptuous for the artist and an intense pain for the audience

1
Rainer Marie Rilke, Chemins qui ne mnent nulle part in Vergers, Paris, Gallimard, 1978, p.117
2
Leopardi, Canti, XXXVIII Io qui vagando, Milano. Ed. Mondadori, 1987, p.237
Lets reduce it to the pitch: the whole world is just expecting you, me, and everyone!
Denial, refuse or non-definition is supposed to achieve exquisite and different outlines
as idea or embodiment:
1. Its the frame which contains the world reflected in a suitcase a sort of
discerning blind mirror which echoes barely inner/outer chosen scenes; the man
is hardly perceptive, dispossessed of his own identity so he becomes anyone;
the suitcase is the journey, remembering what Hermes awarded the mortals: the
man with the suitcase mirror is a messenger, a wanderer Rui Calada
Bastos;
2. the inaudible words - you only hear it in your creative little head the random
movements or words echoing in honour or fear from Caravaggios heritage; 1
and 7 turn into Caravaggio and the rotation turns into a kaleidoscopic shadow ,
absorbing the moveable idea towards light , regaining the white, the sacred
Beatriz Albuquerque;
3. the pictured departure but also the arrival at the bottom of the paintings, deep
and simultaneous shown in its darker symbolic; lets recall Jung, Bachelard or
Gilbert Durand: considering departure as the night-time world and arrival as the
day-time world Joana Rego;
4. the numeric signals (+ or -) parted from their functional meaning and achieving
their physicality; the substance within its primary symbolisation regarding
others degrees of significance and value; it promotes antinomians aesthetic and
vivid reactions - Isaque;
5. the ancient cinemas once full of spectators and now thrown into broken
archaeological memories; the standing still structures left as tracks from absent
humans Ana Pereira;
6. the renaissance and baroque outlines driven into drawings of epistemological
categories persons, objects or landscapes projected in lands of frightened
utopias; those 3 categories of subjects correspond to 3 substances dominated by
the idea both of essence and existence Catarina Leito;
7. conceptual, improbable and non-useful structures for a house to become a non-
home objects accomplished for parallel livings; materials are used to
accomplish architectural concepts, clearly expressing the artists capacity in the
production of trustable aesthetics beings - Nuno Sousa Vieira;
8. passages of the will, land of shadows and paradise truly lost or forgotten;
revisiting the concepts by Jonas Mekas regarding his autobiographical movie
Lost, Lost, Lost (1963) into outer images: loneliness, attempt of integration in
foreign communities, preservation of self-indentity - Nuno Cera;
9. the gibbet as an ultimate place for a until yet embodied soul; the last claim for
ideological causes when corps are one; and also the empty prints of the
personal objects pulled off - the pigment to remains and the once fulfilled
emptiness Ins Lousinha;
10. Place of time and Time Zones allow us to discuss, conclude, absolve, equally
ideology, reason and affections freely developed into a real but virtual world
illusional of and critical sublime surely granted by the inner condition we are
able to perform and behave Miguel Soares.

So, lets enjoy walking meaningless, lets allow ourselves a journey without a set up
goal just once
Maria de Ftima Lambert