“Biblioteca” is artist Horácio Frutuoso’s response to the proposal to create an installation based on Helena Almeida’s video “A Experiência do Lugar II” (part of the PLMJ Foundation Collection).
In the video, Helena Almeida kneels in her studio and moves around the space, filling it with a series of unchoreographed, spontaneous gestures and improvising her relationship with objects that can be found in any artist’s studio. This journey resembles a pilgrimage or procession, where a series of symbols are displayed in an honorific parade.
Horácio Frutuoso sees it as an act of worship, or gratitude, to the studio—the artist’s most important space, the place where not everyone enters, where works are created and revealed or destroyed for the first time.
Frutuoso tells us about his special interest in this relationship between creation and death: “Because I had a religious upbringing (although I no longer practice or believe), I pay special attention to the gestures and rituals associated with them, which inevitably also resemble art.” Wondering what other spaces might resemble these places, he thought of a library. A library as a repository of books, an attempt to preserve, hierarchical organization, rituals, silence, books that are forgotten, those that are most requested until the pages come loose. “Biblioteca” is presented at Estufa Fria in Lisbon, a repository of species and forms, itself also an archive.
Horácio Frutuoso designs three acrylic objects in three colors: crystal/transparent, opaque black, and translucent gray, by association with the purity of colors/neutrality and aesthetics of Helena Almeida.
Produção
