08/12/2009_18/12/2009

Diário de uma Demanda
José Nuno Lamas + Valter Ventura

“A paisagem é sempre uma promessa de felicidade”. Nuno Faria

Aconteceu tudo ao mesmo tempo: a câmara fotográfica tornou-se transportável e o revólver foi inventado. Depois da Guerra da Secessão, os americanos ficaram disponíveis para explorar um imenso território, quase desconhecido, que se estendia para Oeste. Para dominar os índios tinham as seis balas de um Colt, para reclamar a paisagem tinham as chapas fotográficas impressas em albumina. Se a arma “conquistou o Oeste”, a câmara recorda-nos que ele, outrora, foi selvagem. Quando os pioneiros avançavam para o inóspito, seguiam na companhia de topógrafos, geólogos, fotógrafos, aventureiros e no seu encalço começava a estender-se o caminho-de-ferro: o progresso. Estabeleceu-se um paradigma que se foi adensando à medida que se multiplicavam as expedições para os destinos desérticos, bárbaros e exóticos. A ideia de ser a vanguarda, de estar onde nunca ninguém esteve, ou de ver o que nunca ninguém viu, testemunha-se com uma prova (a palavra aqui tem um duplo sentido) fotográfica. Para preservar intacto um território, que em breve seria transfigurado, povoado. Para registar o lugar selvagem, que não sendo nada ainda, tem a possibilidade de vir a ser tudo: o utopos, o não-lugar, a promessa de felicidade. A série «Diário de uma Demanda» interpela a figura romantizada do fotógrafo enquanto explorador. E talvez essa figura tenha sido nutrida e sustentada pelos próprios: num jogo entre a realidade e a encenação, eles incluem personagens cuidadosamente dispostas no enquadramento. Conseguem mostrar a paisagem, comprovar que lá estiveram e dizer que ela lhes pertence. Estes corpos são assinaturas que – em simultâneo – também conferem a escala épica à natureza indómita. Os herdeiros directos desta prática vieram do Polo Norte, do Evareste e da Lua, com fotografias onde se faziam retratar contra paisagens tão indistintas que poderiam ser outro lugar qualquer. Os herdeiros indirectos vêm de um destino turístico e dizem: “isto sou eu, em Paris”. [Texto dos artistas].

Journal of a Quest

José Nuno Lamas + Valter Ventura

“Landscape is always a promise of happiness”. Nuno Faria

It all happened at the same time: the photographic camera became portable and the revolver was invented. After the Civil War, Americans were available to explore a vast and almost unknown territory extending to the West. To subdue the Indians they had the six-bullet Colt gun, and to claim the landscape they had the photographic plates printed in albumen. If the gun has “conquered the West”, the camera reminds us how it was once wild. As pioneers moved towards the inhospitable, geographers, topographers, photographers, adventurers traveled alongside, and, just right behind them, the railroad promise: progress. A paradigm was established, becoming thicker as expeditions multiplied, heading to more deserted, barbaric or exotic destinations. The aspiration of being the forerunners, of being where no one had ever been before, or seeing what no one had ever before seen, is evidenced with photographic proof (in the word’s double meaning). As to keep intact a territory soon to be taken, transformed and populated, as to keep a record of the wild place, that, not being anything yet, holds the possibility of becoming everything: the utopos, the non-place, the promise of happiness. The series Diário de uma Demanda (Journal of a quest) addresses the romanticized figure of the photographer as an explorer. Perhaps this figure has been nurtured and sustained by the photographers themselves: in a play somewhere between reality and staging, they include carefully selected characters in display within the frame. They succeed in showing the landscape, in proving that they were really there and in saying that it belongs to them, it is theirs. These bodies are signatures that, at the same time, also assign epic proportions onto untamed nature. The direct heirs of this practice came back from the North Pole, the Everest and the Moon, carrying photographs where they were portrayed against backgrounds so uncharacteristic that they could have been taken anywhere else. The indirect heirs come back from any touristic destination and say “this here is me, in Paris”. [Text by the artists].


Short Bio [PT]
José Nuno Lamas (Lisboa, 1975) licenciado em Pintura pela Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisboa e Valter Ventura (Lisboa, 1979) licenciado em História da Arte pela Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, trabalham em conjunto desde 2004. Terminaram em 2005, como bolseiros da Kodak e do Banco Espírito Santo, o Curso Avançado de Fotografia no Ar.Co - Centro de Arte a Comunicação Visual. Em 2008 concluíram o 2º Curso de Fotografia do Programa Criatividade e Formação Artística na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Em 2009 participaram no MobileHome - Curso Experimental de Arte Contemporânea. www.anamnese.pt

------

home

.
FOUNDER AND DIRECTION
PEDRO DUARTE BENTO

CURATOR FOR ARCHITECTURE
RICARDO CAMACHO

CURATOR OF 'DIALOGUES OF CONTEMPORARY' ART CYCLE
PATRICIA BARREIRA

HEAD OF FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT
SOFIA POLICARPO



SHORT BIOS:

PATRICIA BARREIRA

Degree in Art History by Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Works as a production assistant, since 2005, at contemporary art gallery Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa, [PT]. At the gallery, develops curatorial projects as the exhibitions 'Workshow', by Roland Fischer, or the most recent 'Building Rooms', a collective by several artists. Beyond this collaboration, writes essays for art catalogues and develops occasional projects on contemporary art.

PEDRO DUARTE BENTO [1976]

Graduated in Architecture by the Faculdade de Arquitectura de Lisboa [PT] and educated in Large-Format Photography by the School of the International Center of Photography, New York City. Has worked in New York City at SOM and in Barcelona at Josep Lluis Mateo Map Architects. Fellowship from Fundação Oriente to photograph the shipbreaking industries in India and Bangladesh. Both of his Architecture and Photography projects are internationally exhibited and published. His photographs are represented in public and private collections as 'BES arte' Banco Espirito Santo and Museu do Oriente. Member of Ordem dos Arquitectos. Founder of NOGO. Lives and works in New York City.

RICARDO CAMACHO [1979]

Degree in Architecture by the Faculdade de Arquitectura de Lisboa [PT] in 2002, and holds a Master in Architecture from Harvard University where he has developed research on Luanda with the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Luso-American Foundation. Having lived and worked first in Munich and later in Lisbon, where he co-founded Moov and joined Emit Flesti, he opened in 2005 his own practice in Silves. Among his major projects is CasaGranturismo [Silves, PT], architectural venture with Atelier Bow Wow, Hrvoje Njiric and Angelo Bucci among others. His work has been presented in Portugal, Peru, United States and Croatia. During 2005 and 2007 he curated two international seminars on Architecture and Tourism in Algarve and in 2009 he integrated the selection commission for “Habitar Portugal”.

SOFIA POLICARPO [1974]

Degree in Management by ISEG Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, and a Master in Education and Society by ISCTE, both in Lisbon, Portugal. Has a specialization in Event Production from SENAC, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since 2002 works as a producer and financial advisor for national and international events. Member of the Portuguese Auditor Bar Association, Ordem dos Técnicos Oficiais de Contas.

------
home