From August 27 to September 6, 2015
Opening lecture: Wednesday, August 26, 7:30 p.m.
Curator: Maria João Machado
Auditorium. Free admission.
This exhibition presents a series of videos by Portuguese artist Vasco Araújo (Lisbon, 1975), made between 2001 and 2014 and selected under the theme “stories of power,” a central theme throughout his work. The videos combine contemporary references with the great narratives and themes of classical culture, reflecting on universal political issues.
Vasco Araújo has structured his discourse through a particular form of deconstruction and reconstruction of social codes, which allows him to observe the subject's links with the world from new perspectives. Power relations, the competence of the body and voice (including that of the artist himself, who practices lyrical singing), gestures, language, and established social forms are rethought through a highly representative poetics.
Drawing on a broad literary and philosophical background, the artist critically examines the gaze of the other, the ambiguity of relationships, the fragility of systems, the construction of reality, identity and sexuality, the virtue of morality and duty, and the geographies of affections, drives of desire, and passion. In several of his works, dialogues take place through a multiplication of identities, starting from a single voice, in a sharp inner journey.
Main Hall
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, continuously from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Duettino (Portugal. 2001. 2’06”)
Program 1
Thursdays, Saturdays, continuously from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Hipólito (2003, 15’16”)
O Jardim (2005, 9’44”)
About Being Different (2007, 18’24”)
Mulheres d’Apolo (2010, 18’24”)
Program 2
Fridays, and Sundays continuously from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Augusta (2008, 7’23”)
Impero (2010, 17’39”)
O Percurso (2009, 17’39”)
Vasco Araújo
(Lisboa, 1975)
In 1999, he completed his degree in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, and between 1999 and 2000, he completed the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Maumaus in Lisbon. Since then, he has participated in various solo and group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad, and in residency programs such as those at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (2007); Récollets, Paris (2005); and the Core Program, Houston (2003/2004). In 2003, he received the EDP New Artists Award. Published in several books and catalogs, Vasco Araújo's work is represented in various Portuguese and international public and private collections: Centre Pompidou (France); Musée d'Art Modern (France); Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal); Fundación Centro Ordóñez-Falcón de Fotografía – COFF (Spain); Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Centro de Arte (Spain); Fundação de Serralves (Portugal) and Museum of Fine Arts Houston (United States), Pinacoteca do Estado de S. Paulo (Brazil), among many others.
