Condo London

CONDO London 2018

Madragoa, Lisbon 
Approx.
The Shop, 62 Kingly Street W1

For its participation at Condo 2018, hosted by Sadie Coles HQ at The Shop, Madragoa is delighted to present Approx., an exhibition that brings together works by Rodrigo Hernández, Renato Leotta, Gonçalo Preto, Buhlebezwe Siwani, and Belén Uriel.

The project reflects on the mutual relationship between subject and matter, revealing an immediate proximity in which the body, or its gesture, settles on the surface of the artwork. Traces of this attempt at recording human features, landscapes, objects or actions are impressed on the matter itself that, like a thin skin, adheres to the object of representation and immediately translates it into a new shape. These practices lead to a convergence of subject and media, even to an inversion, in which the material itself and the process of making become the actual subject of the work, otherwise invisible. It is the case of Renato Leotta’s TEMPO (Luna del ghiaccio) (2017), that captures in a photogram in silver gelatin print the image of the surface of the sea by immersing the photographic paper directly in the sea water during a night of a full moon. The photogram has been obtained without the use of any photographical instrument, but by means of transforming a whole specific landscape into a “camera obscura” and fixing an image, frozen in time, of the ephemeral vision that we would see if we opened our eyes underwater. The artist’s research is about testing reality without having a pre-existent answer and in a way allowing the natural landscape – time, water, paper, salt, light and gravity – to represent itself without additional structures.

In Buhlebezwe Siwani’s installation, amaKhobokha (2016), protagonist is a particular kind of green soap that in South Africa is used for many purposes: to cleanse one’s clothes but also one’s body and the digestive system. The bowls in which traces and residues of soap are accumulated are multi-functional objects, used only by young women to bathe, wash clothing, store food. The soap has solidified in the bowls look like a stain, an encrustation, that evokes by contrast the act of washing and purifying the body.

The glass sculpture Untitled (braço) (2017) by Belén Uriel comes from the recent project Descanso, in which the artist focussed on some constituent elements of furniture shaped to accommodate the human body and that, through their forms and curves, maintain a strong relationship with the body. The actual armrest served as a cast for the glass sculpture, that faithfully reproduces the object’s shape, including the traces of its use, and imperfections due to wear and consumption. An isolated element, detached from its usual context and function of physical support to the body, the armrest is converted into a fragile, transparent item which in turn needs a support.

The same lightness and transparency characterize Maxcanú (2015) by Rodrigo Hernández, a bas-relief work installed on the wall, halfway between sculpture and painting. Made of a thin milky white, modelled layer of crystal-clear polyurethane, the bust of Maxcanú discreetly protrudes in the space, where it is almost invisible. Inspired by traditional masks, in particular by death masks, typically obtained by a wax or plaster cast of a person’s face, the features of this bust are synthetic, almost geometric, and abstract, transforming it into the man’s prototype often present in the artist’s imagery.

Gonçalo Preto’s background in traditional painting techniques led him to experiment through interventions on the support – paper, board or canvas – by applying various layers of gesso and glue, or scraping the surface in order to obtain verisimilitude effects with the real subject. In the painting Peek-aboo (2018) showing the image of a head in a glass jar dipped in formalin, several types of visual effects coexist, like a superimposition of layers or filters. Every different material represented – the wall in the background, the translucent and curved surface of the jar, the light reflected on the glass, the density of the fluid, the mirrored image of the room – become a device for a more vivid and comprehensive view of reality.

Rodrigo Hernández (Mexico City, Mexico, 1983) lives and works between Lisbon and Mexico City. Recent solo exhibitions include: Plasma, Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; The Shakiest of Things, Kim?, Riga, 2017; I am nothing, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, 2016; Every forest madly in love with the moon has a highway crossing it from one side to the other, Kurimanzutto, Mexico City, 2016; El pequeño centro, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, 2015; What is the moon?, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2015; Go, gentle scorpio, Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca, 2014; A Sense of Possibility, Weingrüll, Karlsruhe, 2014. His works have been recently included in group shows at ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe; 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; MendesWoodDM, Brussels; ChertLüdde, Berlin; 12th Bienal Femsa Monterrey, Monterrey; 5th Moscow Bienal for Young Art, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel. Upcoming participations in 2018 include Lulu, Mexico City and SALTS, Basel.

Renato Leotta (Turin, Italy, 1982) lives and works in Turin. Recent solo exhibitions include Amicizia ıat Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; Intuition at Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, 2017; Wer ist noch Osterreichisch? at Kunst Meran, Merano, 2017, Aventura at Madragoa, Lisbon, 2016, Piccola Patria at Galleria Fonti, Naples, 2015; MUSEO (Cavalli e Cavalle, Cavalli, Cavalli) at Cripta 747, Turin, 2015; Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Wilson Project and Museo Nazionale E. Sanna, Sassari, 2013. His works have been recently included in group shows at MADRE, Naples; MUT, Mutina For Art, Fiorano Modenese; Neue aachner Kustverein, Aachen; La Galerie, Noisy Le Sec, Paris; La Criée Centre d’Art Contemporain, Rennes; BOZAR, Palais des Beaux-Art, Bruxelles; Peep-Hole, Milan; Macro, Rome; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Galerie National d’Art, Nancy. Upcoming participations in 2018 include MASP, Sao Paulo and MANIFESTA 12, Palermo.

Gonçalo Preto (Lisbon, Portugal, 1991) lives and works in Lisbon. He studied Product Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon, In 2012 he studied at the Kassel Kunsthochschule, Kassel, Germany and completed his education studying Drawing and Painting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, USA. He recently had his first solo show at Madragoa, Lisbon, in March 2016. His group exhibitions include: Blue, The Switch Gallery, Lisbon, 2016; Babel, Miguel Justino Contemporary Art, Lisbon, 2016; 4, Cidadela Art District, Cascais, 2015; Spring Show, Academy of Art University, San Francisco, 2015; Spring Show, Academy of Art University, San Francisco, 2014; Means to an End, Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin, 2013; Not Exklusiv, Rundgang, Kassel Kunsthochschule, Kassel, 2012.

Buhlebezwe Siwani (Joannesburg, South Africa, 1987) completed her BAFA (Hons) at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg in 2011 and her MFA at the Michealis School of Fine Arts in 2015. She has exhibited at the Michaelis Galleries in Cape Town, a sitespecific exhibition in collaboration with APEX Art, New York City, in 13th Avenue, Alexandra township, Commune 1, and Stevenson in Cape Town. More recent exhibitions include the Kalmar Art Museum in Sweden, The Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, and the Bienal de Coimbra, 2017. The collective iQhiya, of which Buhlebezwe Siwani is part, participated in Documenta 14, Kassel, in 2017.

Belén Uriel (Madrid, Spain, 1974) lives and works between Lisbon and London. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: Descanso, Madragoa, Lisbon; Topázio, Gabinete, Lisbon, 2017; segunda-feira, Culturgest, Lisbon, 2016; Sand, Paper, Scissors, Projektraum, Museum, Wiesbaden, 2016; Lama no sapato, Parkour, Lisbon, 2014; Pedra, papel e tesoura, Pavilhão Branco Museu da Cidade, Lisbon, 2013; Useful household objects under 10$, Montehermoso Cultural Centre, Vitoria, 2012. Her works have been recently included in group shows at MUSAC, León; Muxart-Espai d’Art i Creació Contemporanis, Martorell; Cerdanyola Art Museum, Barcelona; Drawing Biennial 2015, Drawing Room, London, 2015. She is the 2018 recipient of the Audemars Piguet Award for ARCOmadrid, where she will be presenting a new production in a dedicated booth.

Koppe Astner, Glasgow
Josh Faught, Kris Lemsalu
viewing room, 62 Kingly Street London W1

For the third iteration of Condo London, Koppe Astner, Glasgow are delighted to present works by Josh Faught and Kris Lemsalu.

Confating personal and collective histories in response to the history of textiles, Faught’s work hinges on investigating notions of support, transition and the passage of time, with a specifc interest in the emergence of two-sided, reversible weave structures from the 19th century. Faught’s work considers how objects perform in both functional and narrative capacities as both text and textiles, extending narratives around anxious decoration, displaced social codes, and material constructions of the self.

Lemsalu’s sculptures, installations and performances fuse the animal kingdom with humankind, nature with the artifcial, male with female, beauty with repulsion, lightness with gravity, and life with death. Her broad range of materials include ceramic, porcelain, found objects, fur, leather and wool. The precious and delicate are placed alongside the readymade and disposable, presenting characters that seem to have emerged from a dark yet playful world. Lemsalu‘s installations reinterpret her personal travels, adventures and relationships with an open door for us to enter.