“We Were Born in Different Poems”, Group Show

ALBUQUERQUE MENDES

ALLANN SEABRA

ANDREA FIAMENGHI

DYLAN SILVA

DIOGO NOGUEIRA

JARBAS LOPES

JOAO PAULO BALSINI

MARIA JOSE OLIVEIRA

MARIA JOSE PALLA

MILENA OLIVEIRA

NUNO RAMALHO

 

Introductory Text

RICARDO RAMOS GONÇALVES

 

“We Were Born in Different Poems” *

 

We live in times marked by increasingly evident fissures. This ideological polarization not only occupies the space of institutionalized politics, but has also infiltrated everyday life, through hidden affections and discourses.

The borders — geographic, symbolic, cultural — which, at the beginning of the century, seemed to be disappearing — are now rising due to a renewed force of exclusion, driven by controlling and protective mechanisms. Far removed from the time of the crusades, our times are inundated with cultural and identity wars, marked by fanaticism of rigid beliefs, in which dialogue is only encouraged through hatred and violence.

Faced with a scenario of acute fragmentation, it becomes imperative that our gaze focus on the subjective dimensions that art, in an ontological way, can salvage — whether through empathy and the ability to understand others, or simply to highlight the creative and fruitful power that resides in each of us.

It is precisely for this reason that we discern the linear recognition and rigor that, although mapped by distinct histories and geographies, lives within these plausible encounters, revealing the virtue of a shared human history.

The verse by the Brazilian poet Paulo Leminski (1944–1989), for which this exhibition is named, then appears as a proposal of displacement: from the logic of separation to the ethics of gathering
in a common space.

That same commonality, to cite Jean-Luc Nancy’s premise, which is no longer a maxim, but rather a fragile and urgent construction — is not about what we share because we are identical, but rather what we risk by coexisting while distinct.

Against the backdrop of silence that carries centuries of exacerbated violence — marked by the colonial relationship — this exhibition space proposes itself as a territory in suspense, where the works do not illustrate discourses, but establish regimes of sensitivity capable of reconfiguring the visible, the thinkable and the sayable.

We are faced with an art that, after all, does not redeem, but destabilizes — and it is this movement that makes it possible to hear what was silenced, to embody what was denied by hegemonic voices and weave unlikely bonds of communion.

Let’s go back to the beginning: in the same space, two galleries, two territories of origin and the intersection of artists and practices in harmony not built by inflexibility, but rather through a proposal for fraternity.

We talk about a radical coexistence, where sharing is insisted upon — a poetic and political gesture which, returning to Leminski, brings us to inhabit the same stanza, the same class, the same
verse and the same sentence.

With works by Albuquerque Mendes, Allann Seabra, Andrea Fiamenghi, Dylan Silva, Diogo Nogueira, Jarbas Lopes, John Paulo Balsini, Maria Jose Oliveira, Maria José Palla, Milena Oliveira and Nuno Ramalho, this collective exhibition is situated within the rubric of community-building. The same stone raft, where different orientations, aesthetics and themes come together. From the figurative scope recognizable in most of the works — to the work closest to techne, to gesture and handling of the subjects, this exhibition is not curated for contrast or confrontation between creative powers, but for the possibilities these encounters suggest.

They are, after all, different languages that do not seek to resolve the tensions of our time, but rather to inhabit them. Sometimes with subtlety, sometimes with friction, languages respond directly to the complexity that permeates us. Without a pre-defined route, we are invited to circulate this plateau: from the communing figures of Diogo Nogueira to the rhythmic scores of Allann Seabra; from the poetic evocations of Maria José Oliveira to the symbolic rituals that echo in the works of Nuno Ramalho and Andrea Fiamenghi; from the meditative figures of João Paulo Balsini and Dylan Silva and the impetus from the self-portraits of Maria José Palla and the expressionist universe of Albuquerque Mendes, until we reach the meticulous work of Milena Oliveira and Jarbas Lopes — works that, in addition to an implicit critique of the vulgarization of consumption, deliver on the artisanal level.

Each piece, in its uniqueness, contributes to the construction of a common lexicon. We are not looking for a unifying center here, but rather the affirmation of multiple margins that intertwine. In this space of creative tension, aesthetics do not cancel each other out: they listen to each other.

Art becomes political not by representing the world, but by redistributing its implications in feelings and thoughts. It is in this sharing — fragmentary, porous and vibrant — which outlines the possibility of sharing a moment yet to be envisioned. And maybe, as Leminski suggests, this is the true vocation of the poem: to make language a place that is habitable for all.

Text by Ricardo Ramos Gonçalves

Translation David Moscovich

 

 

* “we were born in different poems
fate wanted us to find each other
in the same stanza and the same class
in the same verse and the same phrase”

                                 PAULO LEMINSKI