Quadrado Azul
dal 3/4/2013 al 24/5/2013
Segnalato da
3/4/2013
Quadrado Azul
Galeria Quadrado Azul, Porto
Gloom. A series of 10 vertical pictures, in b/w, which synthesize several recent incursions of the artist in Brittany, at the invitation of the Centre d'Art et de Recherche GwinZegal.
With Gloom, a solo exhibition by Paulo Nozolino, Galeria Quadrado Azul is
delighted to open the new space, located at Rua Reinaldo Ferreira, 20-A, in
Alvalade, Lisbon.
The show is formed of a series of 10 vertical pictures, in black and white,
which synthesize several recent incursions of the artist in Brittany, at the
invitation of the Centre d’Art et de Recherche GwinZegal. The word “Gloom”
defines a state of mind that can be associated with melancholy, sadness and
even with darkness. The photographs now revealed describe a territory left to
abandonment, an unfinished project, with no possible solution: it is history
interpreted in its catastrophic dimension. Mirrors of the universal decay,
these images, from which the human absented himself, describe the state of
putrefaction invading everything: a window, a fireplace, an urinal. A reflection
on the contemporary emptiness, the new exhibition of Paul Nozolino is also a
commentary on the proliferation of images in a society devastated by capital.
On the occasion of the exhibition Gloom by Paulo Nozolino, Paul Cottin,
director and founder of the Centre d’Art et de Recherche GwinZegal, will be
at Galeria Quadrado Azul to talk about the work of the photographer at the
Brittany region. The meeting will have the presence of Paulo Nozolino.
Paulo Nozolino was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1955. Lives and works
between Lisbon and Paris. He is one of the central figures of contemporary
photography. His journey begins in the 70’s in London where he went to live.
Then Paris, from the late 80s and throughout the 90s, was the basis for a
long series of travels across the Arab World, as well as Europe, after the fall
of the Berlin Wall. Books like Penumbra and Solo are good examples of his
political concerns with a changing society. He returned to Portugal in 2002,
after an anthological exhibition – Nada – at the Maison Européenne de la
Photographie in Paris. In 2005, Museu de Serralves, in Porto, invited him to
a new anthological – Far Cry – first time ever to show work by a Portuguese
photographer.
A frontal artist, Nozolino sees photography the same way he sees life, using
it to understand both the world and himself and taking it to the limits of his
quest, his answers and his experiences. There is no room for complacency in
his work. Destruction means destruction, death means death. Constant cycles
in his historical time ‘par excellence’, the Twentieth Century, and even more
alive in the present moment, as is stated in his most recent works, bone lonely
(Galeria Quadrado Azul, Lisbon/ Atelier des Forges, Rencontres d’Arles, France,
2009), Makulatur (Galeria Quadrado Azul, Lisbon, 2011) and Usura (BES Arte &
Finança, Lisbon, 2012).
Public recognition accompanies the artist’s work from the beginning.
Awards such as the Villa Médicis (1994), in France, or the Grande Prémio
Nacional de Fotografia (2006) and the Prémio Sociedade Portuguesa de
Autores (2013), in Portugal, are reflections of such notoriety.
Press
Susana Duarte
susanaduarte@quadradoazul.pt
Tel +351 91 092 72 83
Opening April 4, 10pm
Press conference April 2, 11am with the presence of Paulo Nozolino
Meeting with Paul Cottin April 6, 6pm
Galeria Quadrado Azul, Porto
Rua Miguel Bombarda, 578 4050-379 Porto, Portugal
tue - sat 15–19.30
Admission free