Desertado. Algo que aconteceu pode acontecer novamente
Deserted. What happend before might happen again
An exhibition by Maria Trabulo, curated by Pieternel Vermoortel
With the artists
Abbas Akhavan, Ana Kun, Bahman Kiarostami, Dora García, Flaka Haliti, Jeremiah Day, Loukia Alavanou, Melvin Moti, Pilvi Takala
Galeria Municipal do Porto, Portugal
June 8 – August 18, 2019
Maria Trabulo builds an environment which acts as a context for the works of the invited artists, and her own video Digging the Desert (2019), a collage of interviews she took during her residency in Tehran, is the basis for the entire project. The show is very dense with information, the works deal with issues of fiction, memory, politics. Read the article by Kristian Vistrup Madsen.
My intervention is a large drawing on the staircase wall leading to the floor of the exhibition, an introductive commentary to the references in the following art works, to the environment, my own movement and the movement of the guards and other such instances. I made this intervention during the first week of the show, and some of the text is the direct result of the conversations I had with the staff of the gallery, while the bulk is based on extended dialogue with Trabulo and Vermoortel.
The drawing is difficult to read and photograph, and forces the viewer to take some time walking up the stairs. Some of the text can only be read while descending the stairs, other while sitting on a step and so on.
Ana Kun, Commentary, graphite, 2019
Ana Kun is invited to intervene in the exhibition one week after it opened. As an artist and a political activist she views the site as a place for action. Normally she doesn’t believe in grand gestures, and instead tries to understand how a change of voice, timbre or rhythm may have a political impact. In this case she considers that her task is to construct a fictitious setting for the entire exhibition. Through a wall drawing, that follows the artist’s steps and thinking, an antechamber has been generated. What occurs next takes place in the here and now.
Pieternel Vermoortel
(extract from the exhibition map)
In preparation for the work I’ve viewed the videos and installations in the show several times and took notes in a sketchbook which will be used for the upcoming reader.
