Alexandre da Cunha: Portal
Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
February 4 — April 30, 2020
ALEXANDRE DA CUNHA
GALERIA LUISA STRINA
Rua Padre João Manuel 755 Cerqueira César
01411-001 São Paulo SP
galerialuisastrina.com.br
Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
February 4 — April 30, 2020
Galeria Luisa Strina presents Portal, a solo show by the artist Alexandre da Cunha, the artist’s sixth in the gallery. Presented in the two exhibiting rooms, it is possible to say that da Cunha exhibits simultaneously two separate and distinct solo shows. In the main space, the artist shows sculptures based on the structure of room dividers made of several materials and objects, such as parachutes, cleaning mops or aluminum trays. In room 2, dating from 1987 and 1998, Alexandre da Cunha shows two series of drawings that highlight themes and concerns present in his earlier production.
Most works structured as folding screens are shown for the first time. There is only one piece from this new body of works that was already shown in 2017, in the artist’s exhibition at Pivô. “It was a kind of door that came to be, as a matter of fact, as an appropriation from the daily labor work in the iron industry; they are sheets of iron primarily used to cut small stencils shapes in order to make repairs and, after having holes dug into them, are discarded.”
This kind of involuntary aesthetics or found eloquence is one of the artist´s work main leitmotifs and is also present in the sculptures made of concrete mixers which dent marks were not made by the artist, but seen by him as a material expression of interest. In the work shown at Pivô, named Portal, another of Alexandre da Cunha’s leitmotif was highlighted: the aesthetics appropriation of the metal modernist sculpture, as in Anthony Caro, William Tucker or Phillip King. With the latter, Alexandre da Cunha had a show in 2018 (Duologue, The Royal Society of Sculptors, London).
In the exhibition Portal, Alexandre da Cunha´s set of works is shown aligned, some of the pieces fastened perpendicularly to the walls and, others, self-supporting on the floor, with no diagonals: one thing after the other. The pieces are made of materials that are placed together and composed with gaps or holes; allowing the viewer to see one work through another. “Many people talk about the environment created in my exhibitions, which is not something that I aim at, as I think of each piece as an individual one, I make sculptures, not installations”, he claims.
Another aspect in this new series is the idea of borders, divisions, frontiers, which was previously explored by the artist in different ways. This seems to reappear here in a special manner because of the inversion that Alexandre da Cunha proposes: instead of creating a series of works which would be recognizable because of the choice of the materials used, a more recurrent practice in his work; in the exhibition only the structure is repeated, as the materials and objects used in the making of the pieces are different. “I have decided to play with this friction between one kind of material ‘against’ the other. This is a group defined by the piece’s typology. They are sculptures that cut through the space”.
Once in the space, the new sculptures develop a dialogue with architecture. The two pieces made of aluminium trays evoke the modernist architecture adapted to tropical weather. At the end of the 40s, the French architect Jean Prouvé designed an easily reproducible modular home in order to solve the housing problem in the French colonies in Africa; two of his Maison Tropicale prototypes were built, one in Nigeria and one in Congo, but the utopic social impact design wasn’t produced in large scale. However, the idea of the pre-fabricated object that is transformed in work of art is still alive in Alexandre da Cunha’s silver dividing frames: light and airy, they are made of inverted patterns (from horizontal to vertical, from table or oven to an elegant group piled inside a white cube), its social function (ready-made plate, industrial kitchen) hidden so that the materials can support themselves vertically as a sculptural presence.
About the drawings, Alexandre da Cuhna clarifies that he was surprised when revisiting these two work groups: one of the groups that deliberately emphasizes the figurative and narrative drawing lines; the other consisting of drawn volumes, something that could be considered closer to the research for which he has become known for. What he is interested in sharing from this (re)discovery is the presence of themes and gestures in those drawings that continue to star in his work: eroticism, for example.
ALEXANDRE DA CUNHA
“My working process is based on my observation of objects. I have always been intrigued by the massive amount of stuff one needs to live and the roles of objects in our surroundings. I am interested in the processes of design, manufacture, and distribution of them among ourselves. A great deal of my work consists of forcing myself to learn about the structures of ordinary objects and the narratives behind them, their cultural uses and their implications in society. The method of transformation or play with their appearance often happens through very subtle alterations; I believe this process has more to do with timing than physical intervention, though. It is about creating a platform and allowing the viewer to see something familiar from a privileged point of view.” [Alexandre da Cunha, in an interview to Jochen Volz for the magazine Mousse, 2017]
Recent solo shows include: Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples (upcoming, 2020); Duologue – collaboration with Phillip King, The Royal Society of Sculptors, London, England (2018); Boom, Pivô, São Paulo (2017); Mornings, Office Baroque, Brussels (2017); Free Fall, Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2016); Amazons, CRG Gallery, New York (2015); Real, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2015).
Among Alexandre Da Cunha’s public intervention are works commissioned by Art on the Underground for Battersea Subway Station, Northern Line Extension, London (2021); for the Berkley Square, London (upcoming, 2020); by Samuels & Associates, Pierce Boston Collection, Boston (2017); MCA Chicago, part of the Plaza Project (2015), and Rochaverá Corporate Towers, in São Paulo (2015).
Important group shows include: Inaugural exhibition of The Box, Plymouth, UK (upcoming, 2020); Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, Buckinghamshire village of Fulmer, UK (2019); Abstracción Textil, Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá (2018); Soft Power, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2016); ‘Brazil, Beleza?! Contemporary Brazilian Sculpture’, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (2016); British Art Show 8, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2015); Cruzamentos –Contemporary Art in Brazil, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2014); ‘When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes’, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2013); Decorum: Tapis et tapisseres d’artistes, Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2013); 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012).
His work is part of the following collections: Tate Collection, England; Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil; CIFO Cisneros Collection, USA; Zabludowicz Collection, England; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; FAMA, Itu, Brazil.
GALERIA LUISA STRINA
Rua Padre João Manuel 755 Cerqueira César
01411-001 São Paulo SP
galerialuisastrina.com.br
