Pedro Calapez

Portuguese contemporary artist

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Double Nature

Galerie Seippel - Cologne

01/03/2019 - 01/06/2019

[EN]

The land of drawing and painting

“Nobody has ever done beauty. We can just create favorable or sublime circumstances for what, sometimes, can linger at home: an altar, fruits, a flame-. The rest is not in our hands. And the thing itself, which, uncontrollable, arises from the hands of a man, is like the eros of Socrates, is a daimon, is between God and man, is not even beautiful, but it is nothing but love of beauty and nothing but the desire for it.”- Rilke in «Auguste Rodin»

Just two notes on some concepts in this Rilke text:

“For Socrates, Eros is the love of something: it is the love of beauty. Like all demons, it is an intermediary between men and gods, between mortal and immortal. He brings “to heaven the prayers and sacrifices of men” and relates “to men the orders of the gods and the reribuition of the sacrifices they have offered them”.”[1]

“The Greeks called that distant voice within us, that higher source of inspiration and enlightenment, a person’s daimon.”[2]

Looking for that daimon, that special voice, may be one of the tasks that accompanies the artist during is working life.

To play with the tip of a spatula on the simple surface of the canvas produces the first patches of what could be a painting. There are no ideas, no projects. Only the scratching of a scratching material on a surface that accepts it. It all starts like this. Ideas come up as we look at the density of the visual field. A painting is not for me a form of design for other designs or elaborate developments. Its structure arises from the very act of making even when I had previously thought about a certain object or objective.

In this exhibition are presented different series of works. But why do I call them series? Because there are formal and conceptual aspects that determine their organization into groups.

What happens is that in the practice of painting certain gestures and ideas continue every time we take on a new white canvas before us.

Painting has always to do with representation even if it is not recognizable as such. And eventually it could never be considered as representing someone or something in its literal sense. Representation arises at the moment a fact is created: a surface in which a situation happens, and it depended on a gesture that grabbed a thought, that only arose or become to being, because that gesture was made. The painting as a drawing, or a sculpture, a video or any other means man invented to re-elaborate what his eyes continue seeing, the painting I was saying, poses a statement and a question: “I am here” and “why am I here? »

[1] Éros, disponível em https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ros
[2] The Nature of the Daimon, disponível em  https://www.alchemylab.com/daimon.htm

 

[PT]

A terra do desenho e da pintura

“Nunca ninguém alguma vez fez a beleza. Pode-se apenas criar as circunstâncias favoráveis ou sublimes para aquilo que por vezes se pode demorar em nós: um altar, alguns frutos, uma chama-. O resto não está na nossa mão. E a coisa ela-própria, que, incoercível, surge das mãos dum homem, é como o eros de Sócrates, é um daimon, encontra-se entre Deus e o homem, não é mesmo bela, mas ela não é senão amor da beleza e nada mais que o desejo por ela.” – Rilke in « Auguste Rodin »

“Personne n’a jamais fait de la beauté. On peut tout juste créer des circonstances favorables ou sublimes pour ce qui, parfois, peut s’attarder chez nous: un autel, des fruits, une flamme -. Le reste n’est pas en notre pouvoir. Et la chose elle-même , qui, incoercible, surgit des mains d’un homme, est comme l’eros de Socrate, c’est un daimon, elle se trouve entre Dieu et l’homme, n’est elle-même pas belle, mais elle n’est qu’amour de la beauté et rien que désir d’elle.” – Rilke in « Auguste Rodin »

Brincar com a espátula na simples superfície da tela produz as primeiras manchas do que poderá vir a ser uma pintura. Não há ideias, não existem projectos. Apenas o roçar dum material numa superfície que o aceita. Tudo começa assim. As ideias vão surgindo ao olharmos o adensamento do campo visual. A pintura não é para mim uma forma de projecto. A sua estrutura surge do próprio acto de fazer mesmo que se tenha previamente pensado num determinado objecto ou objectivo.

Nesta exposição apresentam-se distintas séries de trabalhos.  Mas porque lhes chamo séries? Apenas porque existem aspectos formais e conceptuais que determinam a sua organização em grupos. O que se passa é que na prática da pintura certos gestos e ideias continuam-se cada vez que tomamos uma nova tela.

A pintura tem sempre a ver com representação mesmo que esta não seja imediatamente reconhecível. E eventualmente nunca o será no seu sentido literal. A representação surge no momento que se criou um facto: uma superfície em que uma situação acontece e ela dependeu de um gesto que agarrou um pensamento que só surgiu porque se fez esse gesto. A pintura – como um desenho, uma escultura um vídeo ou qualquer outro meio que o homem inventou para re-elaborar o que os seus olhos continuam a ver – a pintura, como eu estava a dizer, coloca uma afirmação e uma pergunta: « estou aqui » e « porque estou aqui? »

Pedro Calapez

Pedro Calapez, Lisbon based artist, began taking part in exhibitions in the seventies (and hasn't stopped since...) About Pedro

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