On the Rua da Plata, a single glass door indicates Lisbon’s photographic archives. Lost among the thriving businesses that surround it, the archives exhibitions are divided between contemporary work and photographs drawn from their archives. It is in this building, the only one of its kind in the city, where the José Maçãs de Carvalho exhibition is being held.
An exploration of the question of archives in light of contemporary art, this exhibition is a rhetorical construction by its author, who delved into his archives to present a diverse set of photographs taken during his travels.
Borrowing from the Surrealist tradition, José Maçãs de Carvalho combines images with sentence fragments like lines of automatic writing. Language also the place of memory, or at least a part of it. Forgotten memories are like gaps in our own archives. But here the photograph isn’t there to fill those gaps. In another dimension, the archives of a place, a country or a city can be used to remind us of what we have put aside.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
José Maçãs de Carvalho
Arquivo e Domicilio
January 23 – March 8, 2014
Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa – Fotográfico
Rua da Palma, 246
1100-394 Lisbon
Portugal
http://arquivomunicipal.cm-lisboa.pt/
Tel: 218 862 332
