João Maria Gusmão at Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art
A trademark of any exhibition by João Maria Gusmão—an artist who, till just lately, was greatest recognized for his collaborations with Pedro Paiva—is its considerate staging. For the exhibition “Lusque–Fusque Arrebol” (a Portuguese phrase that describes the reddish-orange colour seen within the sky at twilight), the primary room of Cristina Guerra has been made to resemble one thing between a contemporary artwork museum and a movie show. Within the middle of the house, the bronze sculpture Farol projetor (Gentle Projector), 2022, rests on a pedestal. It’s surrounded by partitions boldly painted within the titular reddish orange and partially lined with putting black-and-white silver gelatin prints, all from 2022, created by enlarging pictures of drawings on Publish-its. On the far wall, a cutout window within the partition frames a tableau of three cast-bronze sculptures organized to echo the compositions round them, so that in the first place they learn virtually as one more {photograph}. On the similar time, the position of Farol projetor playfully suggests these sculptures themselves are the projected picture.
In the meantime, the place of the patinated bronze Relógio de Sol (Solar Dial), 2020, on the entrance to the exhibition foregrounds the connection between the passage of sunshine and time and the way that relationship determines what could be imagined, no matter whether or not or not it may be perceived visually. The artist enacts his personal optical illusions with 4 magic-lantern projections revamped the previous two years. The ever-changing move of images stimulates the will to see—a back-and-forth amongst expectation, satisfaction, and frustration—that’s the raison d’être of the visible arts generally and of movie particularly.
Translated from Portuguese by Wendy Gosselin
— Alexandre Melo
