JENSEITS

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A group show by Nuno da Luz, André Romão, Gonçalo Sena and André Sousa
en Blanco, Berlin
30.05>20.06.2009

Vista geral | Exhibition view

André Sousa
Pedinte | Beggar
Indian ink on paper, paper cup.


André Sousa
Torre | Tower
Black plinth and white PVC.


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André Sousa
Jenseits, 2009

Texto publicado na folha de sala:
Text published in the exhibition's hand-out sheet:

When asked to share some ideas about my work I can only do this by showing all the layers and pointing out possible ramifications, without fearing to explain too much.
To put it simply, I’ll tell you that what you see is a curtain, a beggar and a tower.

The black curtain blinds no window. Instead its positioning divides the space and its colour brings darkness to the room. This darkness is a quality of those mourning for something lost. Hidden behind another artwork, this curtain, border or limit becomes invisible.

The white sheet of paper was placed in the position you see. Only then, kneeling by its side, and without changing my position, I drew vertical and horizontal lines outlining the space of my body. My limbs became vectors and where my hand should be I placed a paper cup that I got at a “coffee to go” and similar to those that beggars use. The drawing takes a step from the wall to the floor and tries to stand on it’s own, as an individual. But this beggar, one of many, has no head and so, no name or identity. He is headless and so uncountable as one. The drawing suggests a body in such a graphic way that it could become a real size pictograph.
I think about the paper cup and many questions arise. Why do beggars use this paper cups? Do they collect them or did they drink the coffee in it? Why do they keep the same paper cup for ages, bringing it old as an amulet or has another valuable object? Is it to show that they beg for a long time and their condition as beggars is real? Is it to underline their misfortune? And me, what is to go on my knees? Which position of obedience and subservience is this, and towards whom? I think all this and I almost forget the issue of misfortune, poverty and dependence.

The black plinth with white plastic applications is no more a simple base. It becomes a model of architecture for a building to be edified. As a chess piece, this object has a potential movement. The Rook, when used to castle provides a safe retreat for the one in power - The King. The black and white plinth comes from no imagination. It is a simple appropriation of the design and graphical proportions of the “Karte” in my favourite café in Kreuzberg, and which has the same name of this show. You can take this transformation (drawing into tower) as a tribute to the qualities and identity of a space that stands for a certain way of thinking and resisting trends.

Now look how the beggar and the tower come together, and how in these days one could become the other.

André Sousa, V.2009

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JENSEITS
A group show by Nuno da Luz, André Romão, Gonçalo Sena and André Sousa
30.05>20.06.2009

Opening: Saturday, Mai 30 2009 at 6 pm


Manteuffelstr. 73
10997 Berlin
www.enblanco.de
info@enblanco.de



enblanco is pleased to announce its second exhibition:

JENSEITS is a group show by the Portuguese artists Nuno da Luz (1984), André Romão (1984), Gonçalo Sena (1984) and André Sousa (1980), with works in drawing, sculpture, sound and video.
With the aim of creating a single installation, the different artists’ works come together in an intense dialogue, blurring the notion of objecthood and the limits they impose on one another.
Following on from a structured spatial division/occupation, based on the multiple layers this kind of blurring and interplay generates, the exhibition contains its own negative, reflecting its duality and amplifying what the space’s identity is, both in its architectural sense and its more social function as a project room/studio. In the end, the project contains in itself all the plurality of definitions that the actual word JENSEITS can gather, from openly referring to a space of action as well as the ungraspable [or: unattainable].

Gonçalo Sena’s work stems from research on the architecture of space, which is the context of the show with three other artists, and how the work can function in order to receive and deal with their works. The T-shaped graphite column draws a spatial division in the gallery, projecting itself visually on the limits of the room, working as a structural interior of an invisible fake wall, or a sculpture on its own.

André Sousa shows a three element piece using drawing and sculpture. His work takes part in the reorganization of the room after Sena’s piece and populates it with codified references to reality/urban space, recalling notions of value and visibility in the social and artistic sphere.

Nuno da Luz tackles the prevalent systems of expenditure and economy of knowledge in the exhibition space: {[(8-h ∈ 24-h × 6 ⋅ 24-h) ∑total 19 days of work] + 5-h extra} ≍ 157-h of necessary work. This amount of work and labour will eventually lead to the construction of a live sound piece that will feed the expended energy back to the site.

André Romão works from Hölderlin’s Hyperion (1797-1799) to try to settle the conceptual basis for a perfect state. Part of an ongoing project, his video, Nothing lasts forever, departs from two moments in the narrative, when Hyperion travels to and from the battlefronts, where a failed revolution had attempted to implement a metaphysical state on earth.




MANTEUFFELSTR. 73
10997 BERLIN
WWW.ENBLANCO.DE
INFO@ENBLANCO.DE