Corte, Galeria Virgilio
(April 8—May 5, 2010)
“Corte” (“Cut”) is the title of the solo exhibition presented by Thiago Honório at Galeria Virgilio, spanning both floors of the gallery and featuring never-before-shown works that have been in the works since 2008. It sees the artist address recurring questions in his output, which moreover were centrally featured in Exposição (Exhibition, held in December 2007 at the same gallery).
“Corte” reiterates the questioning concerning the artwork’s condition of emergence at the very moment of its exhibition; as such, it interrogates the act of looking – ultimately, when it comes to this act, who does the looking, and who gets looked at? Thus, the artist keeps under a sort of suspense the subject/object relationship that habitually presides over a visitor’s expectations regarding the works in an art exhibit.
In the gallery’s ground-level room, separate from all other pieces, sits Imagem (Image); it features an anonymous 18th century procession statue with remarkably realistic eyes, sitting on a whole animal hide attached to a mirror set, confined in an acrylic dome; thus, Thiago Honório renders ostensive the interplay of representations that intervene in between the exhibited object and its beholder. Solitary, permanently watchful, “floating” above the mirror structure, the head emerges as a sort of offering in exhibition, fully available to be seen. It results in a strong presence which paradoxically imposes itself on the basis of the absence it contains, precisely due to the fact that it declares itself as a sort of vacant place, a place of reverberation of images.
As the artist puts it, “the artwork happens at the very moment of its exhibition and in a relationship potentially established between it and the visitor. It is as if that moment and that relationship revealed its subtlest formative mechanisms.”
In the second piece, Estudos (Studies), set up in the upper floor, Thiago Honório looks to address the notion of body and organicity without resorting to anthropomorphic or narrative references; this is a series of objects whose materials are associated and articulated amongst themselves, even as they seem kept in their raw state. They are: Vis-à-vis – composed of bull horns, magnifying glasses, and a convex mirror; Presa (Tusk) – comprising an elephant’s tusk, a bronze ring, an a solid transparent acrylic apparatus; Viravolta (Turnabout) – black and white hare hides from which a pair of wild bull’s horns emerge and are reflected on the mirrorlike polished brass surface; Paparazzi – two round-shaped makeup mirrors with magnifying glasses and articulated brass arms attached to the wall next to one another; and “Entre” (Enter), two bull’s horns which emerge from the adjacent wall.
In this room, like in Exposição (2007), Thiago Honório sets out to establish a relationship between the artworks and an active statute to the empty spaces left between them; he connects them into a bundle of reciprocal relationships, a situation in which visitors may find themselves permanently called upon to redefine this set mediated by reflexive surfaces.
“Corte” is accompanied by a brand new essay from Rodrigo Moura.
works
Imagem, 2008-2010
Vis-à-vis, 2008-2010
Paparazzi, 2008-2010
Viravolta, 2008-2010
Presa, 2009-2010
Entre, 2008-2010
TEXTS
Awakened gaze, Rodrigo Moura