Dialogue #03
Sara & André
(for Diogo Bolota, C’est quoi cette danse?)
Changing the subject
or... Theorem of friendship
Diogo Bolota insists that we write a text for the exhibition we helped him think up.
And... “Why not Us?” 1
Because he wrote a poem about (or for) each of the six paintings presented, which fit them perfectly. Why add anything else?
I understand, “when Cubism began to be known, Metzinger was all the talk. He explained Cubism, while Picasso never explained anything. It took a few years to realise that not talking was better than talking too much.” 2
That’s not it. I’m talking about the redundancy of imposing ourselves on their works and texts. They are self-sufficient and, in a way, more complete without our presence.
Yeah, I also think it’s better “that this transparency is maintained, and I don’t want the speech to prevail over the work.” 3
So, do we explain? Do we refuse? He says our presence is indispensable 😱 !
“Nobody likes a liar, but it’s harder not to like two liars.” 4
André, this isn’t about us!
“Once upon a time, an artist was talking to an art critic. He said – I’m preparing a retrospective at the Stedelijk, I’m going to release a book with Le Chêne. Oh, and then I have an article coming out in Art Press. — So, he talked about nothing but himself. But at a certain point, he realised and said to the critic — But I’m only talking about myself here, let’s talk about you for a moment — What did you think of my last exhibition?” 5
OK, forget it. Shall we try to write something about his work?
His work “is refreshingly unconcerned with creating the ultimate masterpiece, instead dedicating itself to investigating the different possibilities around a particular idea.” 6
That’s better, shall we briefly outline his biography?
“He’s not from Santa Maria da Feira, but he’s an artist and he’s from Lisbon. He’s glad he’s not from Santa Maria da Feira. Nor is he a designer, let alone a photographer. He never studied at ESAD, and if he had, it would never have been between 2008 and 2014, years of crisis. But that’s okay.” 7
Hmmm... too daft and totally out of context.
Okay, let’s try this: “Where do you come from? I come from a very old family that goes back thousands of years, to the time when my ancestors were single-celled beings. Through a long, slow process of evolution, I come from basic biology and am now complex biology.” 8
It’s better, but... can’t you say anything more concrete?
“I’m in favour of Flaubert’s maxim that what’s decisive is how you look at the person, not the person. A biography of Napoleon is not necessarily more interesting than that of a maid.” 9
OK. Shall we try to talk about the exhibition?
As we’ve said before, “The exhibition can be seen as a kind of journey, an opportunity to walk through an idea and bring it to life.” 10
Yes, but about this exhibition!
“Doing an exhibition with a living artist is like floating on the sea, sometimes calm, sometimes stormy, but there’s salt, fish, birds, the horizon, the sun, the moon, stars and it’s a symphony, to be played together.” 11
And what about the works?
“The exhibition is the work and the work is the exhibition.” 12 “Increasingly, the exhibition theme tends not to be the presentation of works of art, but the exhibition of the exhibition as a work of art.” 13
I agree, let’s try to talk about some concepts then. Diogo mentioned game, v...
“Isn’t art, in the words of Marcel Duchamp, ’a game between all men of all times’?” 14 “Rule one: all players are selfish and want to become important. Rule two: to BE important, you have to BE different. Rule three: to BE different, you have to be new. Rule four: to bring something new, you must know what’s already been done and do something else. Rule five: art history is the referee who counts the points.” 15
It wasn’t quite like that, but let’s continue: wind, skin, metamorphosis, limbs, chimaeras...
“There is one important thing that Zen masters and Fluxus masters have in common: the extreme difficulty of explaining to the outside world exactly what they are masters of.” 16
Right, but what about the imagery in the paintings? I’m talking about things like snakes, coat hangers, shadows, sausages, cakes, flags, trunks, seesaws, cabbages, volcanoes, cheeses, butterflies, orcas and worms.
“What can be shown cannot be said.” 17 Or, if you prefer, “the solution to the problem lies in the formulation of the problem itself.” 18
We have no choice but to write about why we are part of this, or maybe that’s unnecessary?
“The wise man obeys natural law, recognising himself as a part of the great order and purpose of the universe.” 19 ... “I’ve always believed in learning individually and collectively, by exchange, by osmosis. And in interacting with people you don’t know through music [one should read art here, not music], without having any agenda, any profit, anything to exchange other than a presence. It almost seems like a collective healing process to me.” 20
By the way, why the quotes?
“I read somewhere”, said Elmyr, “that David Stein, the Englishman who painted some Chagalls and Picassos, and was immediately arrested, claimed that he got into the spirit and soul of the artist. If he was painting Chagall, he became Chagall. If he was painting Matisse, he became Matisse. Personally, I think that’s nonsense. Can someone get into the spirit and soul of the writer? Can someone become Hemingway? No, it’s a terribly vulgar and romantic explanation... although I’m sure the public will buy it. All I did was study — very, very carefully — each man’s work. And that was all.” 21 But “nevertheless, they are in us, those we have long forgotten, in us like a tendency, a weight on our destiny, a blood that runs in us and a gesture that goes back to the night of time.” 22
“We are inhabited by books and friends.” 23
Which brings us to the title of the text, the “famous friendship theorem ‘if any two individuals in a society have exactly one common friend, then there is one individual who is a friend of all the others’.” 24
Perfect, “I didn’t have to do anything — just yawn.” 25
Sara & André, 2024
“N.Ed.: The quotations, as well as their translation from the original languages into Portuguese, are the responsibility of the author.” 26 NT.: To preserve the fluidity of the original text, all quotations were translated into English from the Portuguese translations produced by the author.
1 Álvaro Lapa, “Uniões”, undated (in Sequências narrativas completas, Assírio & Alvim, Lisbon, 1994) (p.77)
2 Marcel Duchamp quoted by Victor Pinto da Fonseca, Interview – Ana Jotta, 2016
(in Artecapital - www.artecapital.net)
3 Diogo Bolota, Conversa (Eva Mendes - Diogo Bolota), 2023 (in Partida do fim, Giefarte / Documenta, Lisbon) (p.84)
4 Miguel Esteves Cardoso, Um dia de amor, 2020 (in Público, Lisbon) (14/02)
5 Ben, Vérités et points de vue - A à Z, 2010 (Les presses du réel, Dijon) (p.75)
6 Jessica Morgan, Choosing (A game for two curators), 2009 (in Jessica Mogan and Leslie Jones, John Baldessari
– Pure Beauty, Tate Modern, London) (p.22)
7 Unsigned, Exhibition Nasti de Plasti – Ruy Otero / João Azevedo, 2018 (Associação 289 - www.289.pt)
8 Unsigned, MDM: Bio-Arte-Factos, 2016
(in exhibition text of the homonymous exhibition by Marta de Menezes,
Zaratan Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon)
9 Sérgio Tréfaut (interviewed by Luís Miguel Oliveira), A odisseia de Sérgio Tréfaut, 2023
(in Ípsilon - Público, Lisbon) (13/01)
10 Jens Hoffmann, (Curating) From A to Z, 2014 (JRP | Ringier, Zurich) (p.32)
11 Ernesto Neto
(interviewed by Cristina Bechtler and Dora Imhof ), Museum of the Future, undated
(in Cristina Bechtler & Dora Imhof [eds.],
Museum of the Future, JRP | Ringier, Zurich, 2014) (p.166)
12 Hans Ulrich Obrist
(in conversation with Harald Szeemann),
Harald Szeemann, 1995
(in A Brief History of Curating, JRP | Ringier
/ Les presses du réel, Zurich / Dijon, 2014) (p.98)
13 Daniel Buren, Where are the artists?, 1972 (in e-flux - www.e-flux.com)
14 Nicolas Bourriaud, Postproduction, 2003 (Les presses du réel, Dijon) (p.11)
15 Ben, Sur l’ego (le jeu de la peinture, c’est facile), 1976 (in Vérités et points de vue - A à Z,
Les presses du réel, Dijon, 2010) (p.13)
16 Emmett Williams, untitled, undated
(in VV.AA., Charley 05, Deste Foundation, Athens)
17 Ludwig Wittgenstein quoted by unsigned,
Ana Beatriz, 2022 (in exhibition text from
the exhibition of the same name by Ana Vidigal, Balcony, Lisbon)
18 Ludwig Wittgenstein
quoted by José Maria Vieira Mendes (interviewed by Cristina Peres),
“Comunicar é isso mesmo: mal-entendidos “, 2017 (in Expresso online - http://expresso.sapo.pt)
19 Unsigned, Estoicismo, undated
(in Wikipedia - https://pt.wikipedia.org)
20 Jonathan Uliel Saldanha
quoted by Mariana Duarte, Um estrondo vital, 2020 (in Ípsilon - Público, Lisbon) (11/12)
21 Clifford Irving, Falso!, 1970 (Liber, Lisboa, 1976) (p.293)
22 Rainer Maria Rilke quoted by Bernardo Pinto
de Almeida, Admirável mundo novo, 2019
(in exhibition text - Miguel Branco, Naked Lunch, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon)
23 Daniel Pennac, Como um romance, 1992 (Edições Asa, Porto, 1995) (p.81)
24 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari quoting
Pierre Rosenstiehl and Jean Petitot, Rizoma, 1980 (Documenta, Lisbon, 2016) (p.42)
25 Miguel Esteves Cardoso, Acabou-se a mama, 2018 (in Público, Lisbon) (25/05)
26 Óscar Faria, All together, now, 2012
(in Bruno Pacheco, Mar e campo em três momentos, Casa das Histórias - Paula Rego, Cascais) (p.33)