Curator | Sofia Nunes
Fernando José Pereira comments
Purity vs. Contamination
Some notes from the text “Grids” by Rosalind Krauss

15 May  | 17h30-18h30  | atrium |free entrance

Sinopse

In her text “Grids” Rosalind Krauss discusses the permanence / prominence of the structural figure of the grid in artistic production during much of the 20th century. This is, above all, one of the great conceptual figures of the last century: the conquest by art of an autonomy in relation to nature and the real. From the secularization of artistic practice to the previously dominant (religious) spirituality. But is it really like this? The author proves that the rise of the grid to the dominant figure has also transformed it into a kind of new possibility for a deeply material spirituality, a kind of new myth, this time, modernist. It is therefore a search for purity very present in all dominant artistic production in much of the 2oth century. The question that remains and needs to be explored is: how to deal with this purported purity after the enlargement brought by contemporary art, mainly after its return to the real and a posture of voluntary acceptance of all the contaminations?

Biography

Fernando José Pereira is a visual artist and professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, where he is the Director of the Doctoral Course in Plastic Arts. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Pontevedra in 2001. As an Integrated Researcher of the Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society he has worked in the areas related to the study of the relations between artistic practices and political thinking and the relationship of art with nature. He participates regularly in conferences and has texts in specialized publications. Since the beginning of the 1990s he has been exhibiting his work in the country and abroad (Museu de Serralves, CCB, MNAC, CGAC Santiago de Compostela, Transmediale, Berlin, etc.) and has participated at various Biennials (Ibero-American of Lima, Sharjah, UAE, etc.). Currently prepares the participation in the exhibition “La gran maquina” in the Trepat Museum of Tàrrega, Catalunya, Spain.