Exhibition by Caetano Carvalho, "The Island" at WORKSHOP Gallery
Exhibition by Caetano Carvalho, "The Island" at WORKSHOP Gallery
The Island and the Ants’ Path at Workshop Gallery
Workshop Gallery, Jisr El Basha
01 494 552 ext 203
Oct 23 till Dec 10
Opening: 23 Oct at 6:00 pm
Performance, sound and technology play a pivotal role in the work of Caetano Carvalho who arrives in Lebanon for the first time in October for his latest exhibition.
Caetano Carvalho is interested in observing and bending social systems/spaces by using a diverse range of media and technological tools that are part of our everyday life.
Throughout his artistic practice he has often aimed to break out of standard presentation methods, by situating his work in time rather than space and simultaneously engaging with the local/spatial context in which it takes place to create meaning. The importance of making objects (as memento-mori of complex processes and performances) is very often overrated in the contemporary art system. His aim is to create platforms that deliberately confuse hierarchies and the relationships between theory and practice, gesture/form and critical thought, the role of the artist and that of the viewer. He has always been interested in work that does not necessarily fit within the confines of the typical “white cube” gallery setting.
The artist will be exhibiting at the Workshop Gallery from October 23 till December 10, the opening being from 6:00 till 9:00 p.m. “The Island and the Ants’ Path” is part of a bigger project that aims to experiment with the creation of temporary associations among people and alternative, autonomous realities. Four people are dressed in white suits in order to hide their gender and physical features. They are given a simple set of rules: starting from the city centre, they have to walk towards the south for eight hours. The four performers have a black box on their head, which makes them blind and unable to see their surroundings. They are all tied to each other with a rope (allowing a distance of 1 meter from each other). The last performer in the line has a black box with a small hole on it, which gives him the ability to see and thus direct the rest of the group. The positions of the performers shifts throughout the action, so that all four have the chance to experience the role of the one who sees and leads the group.
In 2014 Caetano will be part of the board deciding the artistic directions of the Amsterdam based art institution, W139. His work has been recently shown at: Impakt (Utrecht, NL); MEXICO (Leeds, UK) and W139 (Amsterdam, NL). He performed at the Mobile Radio of the 30th Sao Paulo Biennial (Brazil), at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2012), Steim (Amsterdam, 2012 and 2011), DNK (Amsterdam, 2009, 2008) and Paradiso (Night of Unexpected, Amsterdam, 2010). He collaborated with The Pirate Bay at the Internet Pavilion in Venice Biennial in 2009, and designed a visualization system for BitTorrent files at Visualizar Medialab Prado (Madrid) in 2009.
