Two cantos
PALACETE PINTO LEITE, PORTO, 2015
© Photo credits: Tiago Madaleno
Inversion of the Mexican bean jump (2015),
Wood (pine and MDF), cling film, tape, water, plastic container, twine, soap and yellow pigment 100 x 110 x 98 cm
View of the collective exhibition Reunião, Palacete Pinto Leite, 2015
© Photo credits: Tiago Madaleno
Inversion of the Mexican bean jump [when the soap piece condense inside the showcase, obstructing visibility] (2015),
Wood (pine and MDF), cling film, tape, water, plastic container, twine, soap and yellow pigment, 100 x 110 x 98 cm.
View of the collective exhibition Reunião, Palacete Pinto Leite, 2015
© Photo credits: Tiago Madaleno
Map (2015),
Graphite, marker, acrylic paint, acrylic plaster, charcoal on canvas, 346 x 150 cm
View of the collective exhibition Reunião, Palacete Pinto Leite, 2015
© Photo credits: Tiago Madaleno
Amanhecer (04-09-2015) (2015),
Laser print on paper, wood frame, 33 x 41 cm
View of the collective exhibition Reunião, Palacete Pinto Leite, 2015
" It is sung that 49 sailors invaded a specific toilet, at the Fine Arts Department, Porto University, to send an Image through two washbasins, expecting that in that way the Image would reach the sea.
It is sung that, from these 49 synchronized men, two of them were wearing armbands, one blue and another yellow, and that both of them hold with the hands in front of the body, similar to a priest marching with the sacred text, one Image each, from the row structures of the light seeding machine. It is sung that, from these 49 elements, one of them had a trumpet, holding on to the neck with a black string. That, after entering in the toilet, he rose upon a little step, elevating his body from the floor, perched between the step and the ceiling. And that in that moment the roar started, the ceremonial rhythm. And then all the other sailors entered in the toilet.
It is sung that, if it wasn't the excess of elements of the Portuguese Marine inside the space, that certified the ceremony with their presence, maybe the little audience could have seen what happened next. Unfortunately, that excess obstructed the sight of what happened, relegating the comprehension of the event, as we have it today, to the rumor, to the speculation, to the translation of what could have happened."
(in Tiago Madaleno, Clepsydra - Image, Document and Action, 2016)
The works shown in the collective exhibition Reunião (2015) came from the same moto: an attempt to recover that event, since there was no photographic or video recording of that action.
The intention was to think on the problem of producing a document, beyond the authenticity that technological devices could grant, and to question in which way the symbolical or rhetorical dialogue between image and medium could bring new angles to this question: how the use of the language of painting, as a tool to document, could add to the perception of the event? Could an object be more relyable to recover a memory of an event because of its material properties? How the context in which the documents were presented might influence their perception and, subsequently influence the perception of the documented event?
In this reenaction through the use of documentation, there was an intention to maintain one of the main propriety of that performance: its crave for invisibility, for staying as a rumor.