EXHIBITION (GROUP SHOW)

END OF STORY (NEON SIGN, 2012)

FADE TO BLACK (NEON SIGN, 2012)

15th FEBRUARY TO 26th APRIL

CARPE DIEM ARTE E PESQUISA

 

 

Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa will host in February – together with five other artist’s projects – the project of Tim Etchells, Artist of the City 2014.

Etchells work shifts from performance to visual art and fiction and concerns itself with questions of contemporary identity and urban experience, our relation to fiction and the media, as well as with the limits of representation, especially in respect of language. Working across different media and contexts opens up new possibilities and allows him to approach the ideas by different routes, shifting perspective on the themes and experiences under investigation. In the last 6 years Etchells has created a body of work in neon and LED exploring contradictory aspects of language in playful and poetic ways.

 “I’m drawn both to the speed, clarity and vividness with which language communicates narrative, image and ideas, and at the same time to its amazing propensity to create a rich field of uncertainty and ambiguity.”

 Infiltrating galleries, street corners, shop windows, rooftops and other locations the sign works Etchells has made spell out simple-but-intriguing phrases, messages and instructions in neon and LED. Appearing to address the viewer directly through these works, he is interested to create moments of thoughtfulness and playful encounter in different settings of gallery and street, the work is public but private at the same time, trying to draw each person that encounters it into a space of intimate reflection.

For Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa in February, Etchells has chosen two existing neon pieces from 2012 – End of story and Fade to black – and installed them in locations in the building.

Carpe Diem challenges artists to work with – and about – the Palace Pombal regarding all its characteristics and specificities. In this context, Tim Etchells may develop his artistic project in two different ways, both of them concerned with spirit of the palace: in one hand, and after a personal contact with the space,  the artist may conceive and execute a piece of art in Carpe Diem, working in residency; in the other, the piece can be an adaptation of his pre-existing work, integrated  in the space and,  therefore giving a new perspective with the instalation.