The Last First Decade

Ellipse Foundation Art Centre, Cascais

Unlike the historiographer's approach, which struggles to free itself from its discursive rigidity, the exhibition format is based on the polysemy of the artworks. To some extent, this is a double exhibition: something presented but not visible (the avant-garde movements whose concepts structure the show) and something visible but whose structure fuses (the work produced in the last decade). Including works by Adel  Abdessemed, Eija-Liisa  Ahtila, Olaf Breuning, Pedro  Cabrita Reis, Sophie  Calle, Rui  Chafes, David  Claerbout, Tatjana  Doll, Jimmie  Durham...

comunicato stampa

curated by Alexandre Melo, Ivo André Braz

Including works by:
Ignasi  Aballí, Adel  Abdessemed, Eija-Liisa  Ahtila, Slater  Bradley, Olaf  Breuning, Pedro  Cabrita Reis, Sophie  Calle, Rui  Chafes, David  Claerbout, Tatjana  Doll, Jimmie  Durham, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Olafur  Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset , Rodney  Graham, Mona  Hatoum, Kiluanji Kia  Henda, Candida  Höfer, Roni  Horn, Pierre  Huyghe, Angel  Ihosvanny, José  Iraola, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva , Zoe  Leonard, Glenn  Ligon, Sarah  Lucas, Ryan  McGinley, Aleksandra  Mir, Muntean/Rosenblum , Nick  Oberthaler, João  Onofre, Catherine  Opie, Gabriel  Orozco, Raymond  Pettibon, Jack  Pierson, Richard  Prince, Gonzalo  Puch, Julião  Sarmento, Collier  Schorr, Steven  Shearer, Andreas  Slominski, Dash  Snow, Hiroshi  Sugimoto, João  Tabarra, Wolfgang Tillmans, João Pedro  Vale, Adriana  Varejão Júlia Ventura, Yonamine

The Ellipse Foundation Contemporary Art Collection is pleased to announce its new exhibition, The Last First Decade.

Almost 100 years after the advent of the historical avant-garde, the exhibition The Last First Decade proposes revisiting it through the art of the first decade of the 21st century. The idea, however, is not to trace a genealogical line linking the avant-garde to the art of today or to suppose a direct and immediate influence. Unlike the historiographer's approach, which struggles to free itself from its discursive rigidity, the exhibition format is based on the polysemy of the artworks. To some extent, this is a double exhibition: something presented but not visible (the avant-garde movements whose concepts structure the show) and something visible but whose structure fuses (the work produced in the last decade). Based on this paradox—between a past which saw itself as a construct of the future and a present which considers itself as actuality—The Last First Decade replicates the way in which the avant-garde idea runs through contemporary art via return and departure, anticipation and retrospection.

Taking the self-criticism intrinsic to modernity to a state of paroxysm, the historical avant-garde represented the founding moment of contemporary art, placing at the centre of this the connection between art and life. In the mid-20th century, the neo-avant-garde (re)appropriated the avant-garde legacy by means of a relationship of trauma, of reinscription in the symbolic order. At the start of the 21st century, in the face of a contemporaneity that seems to invert the avant-garde dream—with the change from ethics to aesthetics replaced by a globalized aestheticisation—we are faced with the political question of how art can continue to connect to reality. In this context, the art of the last 10 years, when faced with some of the fundamental concepts bequeathed by the avant-garde, emerges as a re-opening in the symbolic order that identifies its cracks. The exhibition The Last First Decade accentuates the paradoxes created by this confrontation and challenges the observer to interprete them in his own way.

Image:Collier Schorr, "Traitor," 2001–2004. Gelatin silver print, 130,3 x 106 cm (framed). Copyright: the artist. Photo by: DMF.

Opening: Saturday, 30 April, 7 pm

Ellipse Foundation Contemporary
Alameda das Fisgas, 79 - Cascais, Portugal
Opening hours are 11 am to 6 pm, from Friday to Sunday

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Ellipse Foundation Art Centre

IN ARCHIVIO [3]

The Last First Decade
dal 29/4/2011 al 17/12/2011