Jose' Damasceno
dal 2/10/2014 al 22/11/2014
Segnalato da
2/10/2014
Jose' Damasceno
Holborn Library, London
Plot leads visitors on a journey through working spaces up into the former auditorium, once used for Hammer Horror double-bill film screenings. A project is commissioned and produced by Artangel.
Existing at first on the peripheries of vision of regular library users, Plot draws visitors deeper into the building on a disorienting journey.
Works are found in different parts of the working public space, co-habiting areas used for reading and research, and leading a series of linked encounters towards a former auditorium on the top floor, no longer in use. This journey is not unlike those we take in the reading of classic literature, to imagined lands and places of allegory and satire, shifting our perspective, transforming the familiar into something alien.
Inspired by the artist’s research into London’s architecture and social history, along with seemingly disparate influences that range from Jonathan Swift to Hammer Horror, under Damasceno’s interpretation, Holborn Library becomes the departure point for an excursion into a realm where two dimensions become three and one time is transposed onto another.
Plot is commissioned and produced by Artangel with the support of the José Damasceno Supporters’ Circle and The Henry Moore Foundation and in partnership with London Borough of Camden.
José Damasceno was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1968, where he continues to live and work.
The critic Gerardo Mosquera has described Damasceno's work as offering “a succession of adventures and surprises.” His versatile approach encompasses sculpture, drawing and collage, creating a rich interaction between these various methods which informs the scope of his installations. This diversity is often underpinned by Damasceno’s sharp and idiosyncratic sense of play, which is central to the experience of his work. His use of humour and eclecticism is also evocative of such wide-ranging influences as the Brazilian Neo-Concretists and the Surrealists.
Damasceno represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and he was also invited to create installations for various public spaces in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía, presented as the exhibition Coordenadas y Apariciones (2008).
Plot is the artist’s first major solo show in the UK, following his 2010 exhibition 'Integrated Circuit', which took place at the Thomas Dane Gallery.
International exhibitions of Damasceno’s work include those at the Centro Cultural São Paulo (2012), the Sydney Biennale (2007), the Project, New York (2007), the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2005), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004), and at Culturgest, Porto (2003).
Image: from Plot by José Damasceno, original photograph courtesy of Camden Local Studies and Archive Centre
Press contact:
Anna Larkin Head of Communications t: +44 (0)20 77131400 e: anna@artangel.org.uk
Holborn Library
32-38 Theobalds Road London WC1X 8PA
Opening Times:
10am – 7pm, Monday – Thursday
10am – 5pm, Friday
11am – 5pm, Saturday and Sunday
Entry: Admission is free.