2022 - Are artworks contemporary | Presented by Madragoa Gallery, Lisbon (PRT)
Art artworks contemporary ?
Artists: Tamina Amadyar, Athanasios Argianas, Tatjana Danneberg, Pablo Echaurren, Alice Guittard, Ana Jotta, Renato Leotta, Shuang Li, Dianna Molzan, Carrie Moyer, Joanna Piotrowska, Tadáskía, Belén Uriel, Yuli Yamagata
The exhibition ironically takes its title from Bernard Rudofsky's Are clothes modern? an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1944-45, and a book published in 1947. Rudofsky’s intention was to interrogate the relationship between people and their clothing in his contemporary moment, assessing what worked across cultures, what had become unnecessary and what needed to change along with the pace of modernity. In a passage of his essay, Rudofsky looks at the layers of man clothing as a tree, revealing the internal structure of a composition that we normally look at from the surface.
Are artworks contemporary? ignites a dialogue between the works of artists from different generations and backgrounds, with the aim of looking at the different pieces as products of a layering of materials, gestures, references and personal narratives that come from experiences tangential to those of the visual arts, and are brought back to the visual level. Although present, they are so embedded in the art itself that they disappear, often in compositions that exist between figuration and abstraction and that invite the viewer to dive in to discover more, reflecting the contemporaneity of the human being that created them.
Lisbon, Portugal
Madragoa
17 May – 9 September 2022