Francisco Moreira da Costa is one of Brazil’s few daguerrotypists and is the only to use the original technique developed by Daguerre.
At l’Ateliêda Imagem in Rio de Janeiro, he is exhibiting his original daguerrotypes and the whole world that surrounds the dozen small copper plates, which are shown on a part of the wall. From some of the elements in his studio-laboratory, in which, sometimes for hours, he tries to obtain an image. He photographs them, and, for the first time, the prints achieved are from the digitalization of his daguerrotypes. The artist thus prolongs the unique images of his metal plates in the form of photographic prints, which he chose to print on metallic paper to conjure the mirror-like effect so specific to daguerreotypes.
His muses, objects whose images he tries to capture (without having control over it, chance playing a big part in the daguerrotype photographic process), are primarily dated objects. Francisco Moreira da Costa photographs oil lamps, basketry, but also roots, fruits and vegetables coming from his country. Like this, he produces images which are situated very far from the Carioca quotidian, restless and urban, and are a reminder , at a time when temporality and the immediate rule, of the slowness of the process that he uses.
In front of the images of Tempo Improvável, we are conscious of time stretched, the long durations required to pose and the necessary work time to obtain one image. Until the time the eye needs to be able to capture the image on a daguerrotype, which is not entirely obvious at first glance, the viewer is placed in another temporality, at a slower pace, a distant time.
Tempo Improvável
Through November 19, 2016
Ave Pasteur, 453
Urca, Rio de Janeiro
RJ, 22290-240, Brésil
