Selected Exhibitions

Espaços Deslocados, Futuros Suspensos

Curated by Luiz Guilherme Vergara and Suspended spaces.

Artists : Luiza Baldan, Analu Cunha, Marcel Dinahet, Maïder Fortuné, Lamia Joreige, Valérie Jouve, Jan Kopp, Daniel Lê, João Modé, André Parente, Françoise Parfait, Eric Valette, Luciano Vinhosa.

Suspended spaces is a project proposed by a collective of artists whose work has been based since 2007 on spaces which are suspended due to political, economical, and historical conflicts.What remains of these fragile spaces of modernity, this question makes necessary our artistic gaze.The first place was the ghost city of Famagusta in Cyprus, then the site of the international fair of Tripoli in Lebanon, a project conceived by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, which remained uncompleted. The construction started in 1962 and was never finished due to the beginning of the civil war in 1975.  Images of the Tripoli Fair can be seen in several art works in the exhibition.

Suspended spaces is a research project which organizes residencies, exhibitions, and produces artworks and publications. Suspended spaces doesn’t target places. In each one of the phases (Cyprus, Lebanon, Brazil), we were invited to share with our host, the experience of places, which were particularly fragile, marked by conflicts, with difficult and precarious conditions of life. Our starting point was the idea that these uneasy conditions creates a context in which experience and thoughts become an interesting matter for contemporary creation and views on the complexe world we live in today. Yet our position is anything but melancholic.

In Brazil the collective of artists was invited by Luiz Guilherme Vergara to interact with and encounter a building, a space, the MAC, and the way it is inscribed in the urban fabric of Niteroi. Brazilian artists whose work echo in many ways our concerns, were also invited to participate.

In Lebanon like in Niteroi, the aim is not to focus on the architecture of  Niemeyer, but rather on the relation between an idea of modernity carried by a universalist thought and desire and a socio-historical context. More specifically, L.G. Vergara invited us to consider MAC without separating it from Maquinho, which is right above the museum and to develop a relation with the inhabitants  of  Morro do Palaçio.

These encounters led to artistic proposals that reflect on our experience, while accepting the potential fragility and breaches in the works that are still at an early stage.

The exhibition presents works about the Niemeyer site in Tripoli as well as new artistic projects specially realized during the residency in Niteroi.

Views of Palacio (video, 17 min, in Portuguese, 2014)
With Gabriele, Telto, Jefferson, Guilherme, Diego, Leonardo, Douglas, Leonardo A, Fernanda, Roberto, Leonardo S., Ryan, Mariana, Rayani, Celma Alves, Maria Da Penha Souza

This video realized during a short residency in Niteroi, explores notions of landscape, perception and belonging, through brief encounters with a few residents of Palacio, the favella facing the Museu de Arte Contemporânea, built by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

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The River (video 4 min, in English 2013)
The River begins the second chapter of the ongoing series Under-Writing Beirut, which takes its title from the area and dry river defining the eastern edge of Beirut. This video explores the notions of suspended space, landscape and exile through a place that is now difficult to access.