Aurora is an individual exhibition of the visual artist Mariana Romão, curated by Jorge Reis, produced by EMERGE – Cultural Association, which resides in theoretical-practical exploration based on the technique of concrete photography.
The movement of concrete art, where the above mentioned artistic practice is inserted, appears with Theo Van Doesburg in 1930 with the publication of the Concrete Art Manifesto that contributed to the framing of the artistic production of the beginning of the 20th century where the creation of plastic materials creations characterized by ‘self-referencing and inherent drive’ (G. Jäger, 2005). Emphasis is placed on the artistic object. In agreement with Max Bense (1965) “concrete is the non-abstract. Everything that is abstract presupposes something from which certain characteristics have been abstracted. In contrast, all that is concrete is only itself. “.
The work of Mariana Romão is inserted in the instigation of this thought based on the thesis of Gottfried Jäger on concrete photography in an article published in the European Photography – Art Magazine (Berlin) no. 77, 2005, where the author supports his argument using historical facts and literature.
In this project of exhibition the main technique used is the quimigram, the procedure carried out without the use of the photographic camera that consists in the creation of an image from the materials that composes it. Each image is the result of the chemical reaction between the agents present on the film itself and household materials on the photographic paper. This technique is applied to the instant film or directly on the photographic paper in an act of almost absolute control of the reaction and its consequent behaviour.
These images are distanced from the real, at least in the way we conceive it, and even though they are at the same time part of the same reality in their own singularity, they don’t need of the transcription of the visible. They live on the barrier of what we identify as a photographic image, being unique and unrepeatable.
The exhibition project started from the idea of an apparent hallucination of the uncontrolled to seek the answer to these questions where the perception is in the limbo of an image that can represent something or that is lost in its own cosmos.
This exhibition result from the prize awarded by EMERGE in the Portuguese Emerging Art publication 2018. Five visual artists included in this book were selected for individual exhibitions at Casa Azul as a stimulus to the national contemporary artistic creation.
Casa Azul promotes contemporary art initiatives that appeal to the participation of the local community, provided by the Torres Vedras City Council to this association.
* The Portuguese Emerging Art book is available at MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Casa Azul, Underground Gallery 40 or by email sales@emerge-ac.pt
Organization EMERGE
support and partners Câmara Municipal de Torres Vedras . A3 – Artes Gráficas, lda. . Águas Vimeiro . Torres Vedras Web