Study group
PhotoFidalga
“... – Poetry is Image taking over words.
- Poetry is Image taking over the Soul.”
“...I believe the name impoverished the image..”
Manoel de Barros
For those for whom photography is a compulsive and evolving practice.
For those for whom photography is a challenge found, an answer.
For those for whom photography is a record of their creativity, conjuring differences.
For those artists – all of them – who, in Lisbon, unconditionally follow Photofidalga@Palácio, as Lourenço Egreja once said.
I do not know how many fidalgos and fidalgas I met in September last year, who had traveled and stayed in Lisbon for a few weeks for the Photofidalga@Palácio event. Their cohesion, safeguarding of identities was contagious; an attitude of fruition and professional seriousness all together in one space loaded with history and actuality ad simultaneum… The enthusiasm and dedication of the artists was clearly shown in the solidity and coherence of the works displayed. That is to say, by catering for the diverse range of languages corresponding to the 61 authors, a unit was formed. This unit lies in the communion of ideals, this kind of spirit of convergence that is enriched, precisely, through the heterogeneity of ideas, acts and works.
The box containing the 61 photographs travelled north. It reached the land of Porto, where the Douro River and the sea meet; the streets are meandered in urban textures that betray differences and similarities ... To this set, 4 more images designed specifically for this roaming were added.
The photographs are spread over different rooms in the house, where the
Quase Gallery resides. A restored house, centenary architecture that is experienced daily by users and visitors. This space, which is also belongs to TODOS (Space T), is a project/institution where cultural and educational activities take place, relative to what I imagine must be the Ateliê Fidalga …
The disparity of the iconographic (+ semantic) content featured in the 65 photographs proposes a kind of journey. Admittedly, this journey is more of a walk, a pilgrimage through creative imagination, generating intuition, bare conceptuality or through the assumption of unique referentialities. Utopias become fragments of paper where records were printed, with definition and rigor. The very breath of the viewer, when contemplating this display, perceives intervals of being, among fabricated or natural landscapes, figurations – perhaps the fruit of appropriation; dramatized self-portraits, animal metaphors, Mannerist flora minutiae…, records of bi or tri-dimensional works, still lifes (constructed), something like trompe l’oeil which is a no-man’s (and everyone’s) land, between the painting, the drawing… The themes, though differentiated, are susceptible to being categorized, as I mentioned, noting the conception of anthropological-cultural rootedness, since the artist is a person.
The world fragmented into relics of similar measure, meaning that all are entitled to oneself and to others, in a conversation of cultures.
by Maria de Fátima Lambert / Porto, September 2010
Text held for the PhotoFidalga exhibition in Quase Galeria, Porto, Portugal
http://issuu.com/leonelmorais/docs/photofidalga_itiner_ncia_quase_galeria/5
PhotoFidalga, 2009 / 2010
Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa, Lisboa, Portugal
Quase Galeria, Porto, Portugal
Modern Art Center Kulanshi, Astana, Cazaquistão
Photography group exhibition from the carpe diem expression, with the participation of all artists from Ateliê Fidalga.
PhotoFidalga, 2009 / 2010
Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa, Lisboa, Portugal
Quase Galeria, Porto, Portugal
Modern Art Center Kulanshi, Astana, Cazaquistão
Photography group exhibition from the carpe diem expression, with the participation of all artists from Ateliê Fidalga.
PhotoFidalga, 2009 / 2010
Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa, Lisboa, Portugal
Quase Galeria, Porto, Portugal
Modern Art Center Kulanshi, Astana, Cazaquistão
Photography group exhibition from the carpe diem expression, with the participation of all artists from Ateliê Fidalga.