In 1981, he made his debuts in two International Stone Sculpture Symposia, one in Évora, coordinated by this master of sculpture, and another in the Italian capital of marble, Verona (“Omaggio a Giulietta”). His first solo exhibition was held at Galeria Módulo in 1984. Some of Cutileiro’s influence can be seen in Manuel Rosa’s early work, in particular through the direct carving of limestone and the technical-aesthetic consequences of this process, evident in the cutting marks, as well as the roughness of the stone, that are left visible. Indeed, the confinement of themes – with a certain classicism, in figures of men and animals – to an unfinished or preformed condition, is one of the marks of his early work. Through this, the artist calls into question the condition of the sculpture, along with the work of the sculptor, as a constant reworking and construction process in relation to time (duration, change, permanence), matter (resistance, plasticity, statics, dynamics…) and space. This inquiry into sculpture’s temporal becoming remains evident through the visible signs of the assembly process on the surface of some pieces (sutures, joints), or through the organic character of others (the matrical shape of the circle or the gourd, for example).

Manuel Rosa was awarded the Prémio de Aquisição at the Vila Nova de Cerveira Biennale (1985), where he presented a stone sculpture recreating the form of a “Portico” and exhibited at Módulo – Centro Difusor de Arte in 1986 and 1987. In 1989, he was part of a Portuguese delegation at the 20th São Paulo Biennale. In the 1990s, while continuing to participate in various national and international art exhibitions, Rosa took a more analytical line in his investigations. He began expanding his work by examining, enlarging and conveying, in a different scale or using materials other than stone, certain peculiarities or details of shapes with an industrial origin (though sometimes keeping the human body as a background) – technical parts and components of machinery and gears. Sometimes petrifying these forms (literally transposing them into stone), or glossing their shapes into a wider spectrum of materials (clay, glass, iron), he thus composed a vocabulary of signs investing and drawing out the interior space (elementary forms or components of technical objects like wrought iron handles interacting with the light – Galeria Porta 33, 1996). In other works, the objects present a threatening syncretism with vanitas – skulls with bulbous ends of gas masks, transposed into the patina of bronze. A recurring theme in his work is the move away from the traditional European notion of monument, both in terms of its formal rhetoric (distinction, counterposition in space) and its mnemonic or historical functionality (narrative, celebration). Rosa thus came to focus on simple, asymmetric, disruptive and oblong forms, laid flat or suspended, which compromise and involve – rather than contradict – the surrounding space, refusing to confine them to a single, axial, vertical or centripetal condition. In 1997, for the collective exhibition Anatomias Contemporâneas [Contemporary Anatomies] (Fundição de Oeiras), the artist presented a hill made from casting sand. This “poor” industrial material, with its intense velvety black colour, allowed him to establish an organic link with the location of the former foundry, using it to shape his male torsos, preformed figures or works in transit between the formless and form. In the following year, as part of the vast programme of urban art for Expo '98, he created a monumental bronze sculpture, the dimensions of which are unique among his works. Homenagem a D. João II [Tribute to King João II] (Praça Príncipe Perfeito, Parque das Nações, Lisbon) interprets this heraldry freely and not without humour, with a tripod-style orbicular shape and undulating profile. Still maintaining an abstract and accidental appearance, the piece evokes a rudimentary zoomorphism at a distance. It is, indeed, vaguely reminiscent of the shape of a pelican – the bird of Christic resonance chosen by King João II as an emblem – due to the variation in treatment of the long uprights and the interrupted ring crowning the top, like an amputated or incomplete limb. Rosa thus established this large-scale outdoor sculpture as an optical-spatial device, the perception of which changes depending on the viewing distance, as well as the kinetics of the light casting shadows in different directions and of varying dimensions.

In 2004, the artist exhibited a set of container forms with the name Receptáculos [Receptacles] at Galeria Lino António of Escola António Arroio in Lisbon. The four large red clay containers, in human scale, with the marks of a basic anthropomorphism on their outer surfaces, evoke archaic ceramics and take up a question previously voiced through the anterior gourd, igloo, kiln or ogive forms already explored several times by the artist. This was one of the last occasions on which Manuel Rosa publicly presented his work as a sculptor. From the second half of the 2000s, he focused almost exclusively on his role as a graphic artist and editor for Assírio & Alvim publishing house, where he currently works as an editorial director. Though markedly different from his work as a sculptor, this role in the publishing industry is not disconnected from the aesthetic concerns he has always echoed, whether directly or indirectly. Rosa has remained in contact with the art world (through art publishing), finally (perhaps) anchoring himself in a literary and poetic universe which he has always appreciated.

Ana Filipa Candeias

May 2013