Oneiroikos
Video stills of Construction, 2002. Mini-DV, 1'12''; Cor; Som.
Bróteria +info
The exhibition brings together works by artists Carlos Bunga, Diogo Costa and the pair Eduardo Fonseca e Silva and Francisca Valador, through the prism of the book The poetics of space (1958), by Gaston Bachelard. The works act as discreet worlds, that contain micro- and macrocosms, and that aim to explore and reflect the relation between interiority and exteriority, both physical and psychic, creating Bachelardian poetic images that are born out of the meeting between subjectivity and reality, between intimacy and the world.
Bachelard invites us to relate poetically to the spaces we live in; not only physically, functionally, and structurally, but also through our imagination. To inscribe our own intimacy onto the spaces we inhabit and frequent, and to create possibilities together. This intimacy requires a certain unguardedness, and all the artists in this exhibition openly show us their intimate and vulnerable imaginations and invite us to do the same. As Bachelard states, any lock can be disarmed with an adequate amount of violence, but truly disarming is the complete lack of locks, of limits and barriers, as happens in dreams.
In his video Construction (2002), Carlos Bunga reverses the relation between exterior and interior, while, with a certain urgency and restlessness, he reformulates a miniature house, a rather conventional representation of one, which, to a degree, brings to mind the toys found in Kinder eggs or in McDonald’sHappy Meals. The artist’s hands take apart and glue back together, deconstruct and reconfigure, at times abortively, capturing the impermanence – as opposed to a finality - proposed by Bachelard , so that we may continue to project our dreams into the future, towards a horizon that is forever receding.
The artist discovers and activates the power of his hands and his vision, as he gains the courage to imagine and construct a home without feeling the need to subscribe to pre-existing models; he creates a poetic image and he is unafraid to live in impermanence, to fail, and to start over. In this way, Bunga draws a direct line between the dream and action.
In More space for another construction #13 (2007-2008), Bunga inscribes a structure bright with colour and form - a space possibly hard to identify apart from being his own -, onto the page of an architecture magazine. It isn’t clear exactly what the drawing covers but, from what remains unconcealed, we can glimpse what looks like a rationalist, functional, modernist space. The drawing is, to a certain extent, a graffiti and, like in the video and in Bunga’s more recent largescale works, the artist leaves his mark on dominant narratives, bringing to the surface not only his inner world, but also realities and histories that are often buried by said narratives. In this way, Bunga forcibly brings his intimacy to spaces that, a priori, don’t allow it.
Furthermore, Bunga represents a system of modular spaces that creates a prismatic collective of forms which alters as the eye glides over the drawing, thereby highlighting the space of intimacy as one of sharing. In fact, Bachelard also introduces us to the idea that inscribing our poetic images onto an outside world is a culturally collective exercise, as well as an individual act.
More space for another construction #13, 2007-2008. Acrylic on magazine paper, 31 x 31 cm.
Curator: Eva Oddo
2022. Lisbon, Portugal.
