Pedro Neves Marques

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What is my work about?

I am an artist and writer, working mostly with video, installation, and writing both theoretical essays and short story fiction. My videos tend to have a short duration and be abstract in tone, or medium length film essays. With the exhibition format I am interested, however, in the usage of appropriated material and in the creation of speculative narratives composed of objects, videos, and even the scenography of the exhibition. Some of my writings relate to specific artworks, while others circulate independently, creating layers of meaning and different temporalities in my practice. Throughout, there is an interest for ideas of ecology, in how they relate to natural ecosystems and energy resources, but also to socio-cultural ecosystems, that is, the dissemination and appropriation of political ideas. This means exploring ecology beyond its ?positive? environmentalism, and instead examine its influence in contemporary uses of technology, management systems, and political struggles.

 

Artist Statement

s an artist and writer, I have found myself increasingly involved with issues of ecology, in the strict sense of nature and its uses, but also in how it translates into other technological and political spheres. My approach has been one of speculation and fictionalization of historical documents and events, often apparently disparate and contradictory, rather than a strict documentary approach. This is perhaps due to writing fiction—the book The Integration Process in attachment is an example of a recent publication, and I am currently finishing two new books, one set on North America, while the other in Brazil, where I have lived before moving to New York two years ago.

This is particularly evident in the recent piece What is repressed, in fact, is the full body as the foundation of this intense earth (2014), a three channel slideshow narrating different stories: a brief history of climate geo-engineering, exhibiting patents for the technology and tracing the companies involved in this new belief in the power of man over the Earth’s systems; images of 1920-30s aerial archaeology, which allowed, for the first time and under certain weather conditions, for the first photographs from above of lost civilizations (just as ours may come to be); and a collection of urban tribal tattoos from tattoo shops, as a stand-in for the circulation of cultural (and indigenous) signs under globalization.

The film-essay Where to sit at the dinner table?, along with the exhibition Environments, in collaboration with the artist Mariana Silva, at e-flux, New York (both 2013), followed a similar logic of narration and appropriation of apparently disparate imaginaries. Both created genealogies, simultaneously true and fictionalized, for the role of ecology in contemporary neoliberalism and its precarious forms of labor. Environments set up a narrative of videos and objects that took the spectator—who found himself immersed in a blue carpeted insulated environment disturbed only by the sound of coins trickling—from an animation on the 1972 report The Limits to Growth (which, through computation, predicted future limits to resources, food stocks, and population data) and examples of the “plastic utopia” from the period, to more contemporary issues of technology, politics, and representation, such as in the video Beams of Cathodic Rays Shooting about the consequences of austerity measures in south Europe. This exhibition has proven particularly important for me to understand the potential of using the ambient of a space as a dispositive as relevant as its individual contents (videos, replicas, documents, and writings).

Similarly, in the way of a sci-fi speculation, the film Where to sit at the dinner table? narrates a story of how economics has historically found its inspiration in different visions of nature. The film, however, builds its visual imaginary from cannibal rituals in Brazil, understood as an image for appropriation or trans-culturality going back to the first encounters between the natives and the Europeans. Again, the film was developed in parallel to the book The Forest and The School, to be published by Archive Books/Academy of Arts of the World in November of 2014, and for which I am planning a book launch in New York in early 2015. The book is an anthology of texts on this “cannibalistic” tradition in Brazil, and includes the first translation into English of writings in Portuguese, ranging from sixteenth century Jesuit chronicles to the recent cosmopolitical anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and even the Yanomami Davi Kopenawa. The book expands many issues, such as the attribution of legal rights to nature, land use, non-Western philosophy, and in overall the impact of indigenous thought on political ecology in the region.

At the moment, I am trying to produce two new and longer films: one that draws a parallel between the United Nations Environmental Program and the infrastructures that keep New York afloat and ready to face climate change; the other film tracing Brazil’s energy resources (oil, agricultural monoculture, dams, bio-patents) within a sci-fi narrative.

 

CV

Education

2009-10

MA in Art & Politics, Goldsmiths University of London, UK (with scholarship by Calouste Gulbenkian

Foundation).

2007

BA in Visual Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Solo Shows

2013

Environments, with Mariana Silva, e-flux, New York, USA.

2012

“The Chosen Ones”, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal.

The Integration Process, Parkour, Lisbon, Portugal.

2011

When’s the End of Celebration?, Galeria Umberto di Marino, Naples, Italy.

The Integration Process, A Certain Lack of Coeherence, Porto, Portugal.

2010

A Curtain of Smoke/ Marble and Glass, with André Romão, EDP Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal.

On the Invisibility of Performance and the Resonance of Lives, Etc Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.

2009

The Wandering Chief (1880 – 1891), Avenida 211, Lisbon, Portugal.

2008

Imagética Abreviada, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal.

Group Shows and Screenings

2014

Screening of the film Where to sit at the dinner table?, The Pipe Factory, Glasgow, Scotland.

Screening of the film Where to sit at the dinner table?, www.vdrome.org , web.

Indie Film Festival: Moving Image, curated by João Laia, Lisbon, Portugal.

Postcodes, curated by Gabi Lima, Pedro Wirz and Anamauê, Casa do Povo, São Paulo, Brazil.

12th Cuenca Biennial: Ir para Volver, curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti and Manuela Moscoso, Cuenca, Ecuador.

In Practice, Sculpture Center, New York, USA.

2013

Screening of the film Where to sit at the dinner table?, Doc Lisbon International Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal.

Contra-Escambos, curated by Beto Shwafaty/Leandro Cardoso, Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte/ Edifício Fonte, Recife, Brazil.

Quarter-System, curated by Manuela Moscoso, Museo Universidad de Navarra, Spain.

2012

Resonance and Repetition, curated by Rivet, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts/ Goethe Institut New York, NYC, USA.

Art & Research Grants, Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain.

Se tudo é humano tudo é perigoso, curated by Marta Mestre, SPArtes Art Fair, São Paulo, Brazil.

2011

Fronteiras, curated by Carolina Rito, Galeria NovaOgiva, Óbidos, Portugal.

2010

On the Invisibility of Performance and the Resonance of Lives, The Office: Salon Populaire, Berlin, Germany.

The Poetics of Life, Gallerie Dana Charkasi, Vienna, Austria.

Constructing History: the future life of the past, curated by Kunsthalle Lissabon, Monastery of Christ, Tomar, Portugal.

Deambulações em torno dos desenhos de Pancho Guedes, curated by Nuno Faria+Pedro Ressano Garcia, Vilamoura, Portugal.

Have a look! Have a Look!, FormContent, London, UK.

The Horizon Line is Here, curated by Lorenzo Bruni, Galeria Umberto di Marino, Naples, Italy.

2009

A camel is a horse designed by a committee, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy.

Democracy Amongst Tyrants, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal.

2008

A river ain’t too much to love, Spike Island, UK.

The Escape Route’s Design, with Mariana Silva, Sparwasser HQ, Berlin, Germany.

2007

Bes Revelation 2007, Serralves Museum for Contemporary Art, Oporto, Portugal.

Antes que a produção cesse, Avenida 211, Lisbon, Portugal.

Artist Residencies

 2010

Sommerakademie, coordinated by the art critic Jan Verwoert, Paul Klee Zentrum, Bern, Switzerland.

2009

Advanced Course in Visual Arts of Fondazione Antonio Ratti, coordinated by the visual artist Walid Raad, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy.

Grants and Prizes

 2013-14

Academy of the Arts of the World grant for the publication of the book The Forest and the School, published

by Archive Books, co-published by the Academy of the Arts of the World, forthcoming 2014

2011-12

Art & Research grant from Centro Cultural Monterhermoso, Vitoria, Spain.

Artistic Creation grant from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal.

2009-10

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship for MA in Art & Politics at Goldsmiths University of London, UK.

2007

Bes Revelation 2007, young artist prize and group exhibition at Serralves Museum for Contemporary Art, Oporto, Portugal.

Published Books, Essays and Short Stories

2014

The Forest and the School, ed. Pedro Neves Marques, Berlin/Cologne: Archive Books/ Academy of the Arts of the World (forthcoming)

The Liberator (short story), in Halmos  #3, New York (forthcoming)

Curating Without a Concept (essay), in Réalités du Commissariat d’Exposition , ed. Estelle Nabeyrat et al,

Paris: L’École nationale supérieure de beaux-arts de Paris (forthcoming)

The Jurupixuna (short story), in Tristes Tropiques  exhi. catalog, São Paulo: Itaú Cultural.

Whose Limits? (essay) in Ment Journal  #5, Berlin.

2013

Every Participant’s Dream of Violence, in Mute Magazine , London.

Neoliberalismo Maoista em Portugal, in Uninómade , Brazil

2012

1972, in A Circular , London.

The Integration Process (short-stories book), Berlin/ Lisbon: Atlas Projectos.

The Anonymous Life of Patek Philippe (short story) in www.rivet-rivet.net

 Curatorial Business (essay) in Ment Journal , Berlin.

2010

Anti-Totem (essay) in Anti-Totem  exhi. catalogue, Galeria Quadrum, Lisbon.

2009

The Escape Route’s Design (artist book and essay) with Mariana Silva, in e-flux Journal , New York.

The Wandering Chief (1880 – 1891) (artist book), self-published, Lisbon.

Talks and Readings

2012

The Anonymous Life of Patek Philippe, reading at Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, USA.

Curatorial Business, talk (with Federica Bueti) at Triple Canopy, New York, USA.

Where to Sit at the Dinner Table?, talk at RongWrong, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

2010

Esferas de Influência: Ontologia Antropofágica, Periférica, Maravilhosa, talk at The Barber Shop, Lisbon, Portugal.

Curating

 2011-12

Agency, with Margarida Mendes and Mariana Silva, program of events at The Barber Shop, Lisbon, Portugal, including Benedict Seymor (Mute Magazine), UNIPOP, Teresa Nobre (Creative Commons Portugal), Agency, Temporary Services, and texts by Marina Vishmidt, and Michael Hardt. See http://www.thisisthebarbershop-agencia.com /

2011

Guest curator at The Barber Shop, Lisbon, Portugal, with program of talks including Caterina Riva (FormContent, London/Artspace, Auckland), Daniel Maclean, UNIPOP, Scottish Artists Union, Anselm Franke (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Filipa Ramos & António Contador, Agency, and Temporary Services. See http://www.thisisthebarbershop-agencia.com/agencia2011.html

 2010

Anti-Totem, with André Romão, Galeria Quadrum, Lisbon, Portugal.

2009

Estates-General, co-curated, Arte Contempo, Lisbon, Portugal, including the shows Republic or the People’s Theatre, History of the Future, Khubla Khan, and Anton Vidokle: Exhibition as School, Lisbon, Portugal. See http://estadosgeraisinfo.blogspot.com/

Bibliography

 2014

Where to sit at the dinner table?, a conversation with Paulo Tavares, www.vdrome.org , 2014

Postcodes, Art review by Eva Kenny, in Flash Art, summer 2014

2013

Environments, art review by Arie Bouman, in Metropolis M, Dec/Jan 2013

Environments, art review by Jason Waite, in Art in America, December 2013

Comer e Poder: Um artigo sobre Where to sit at the dinner table?, by Sofia Nunes, in www.artecapital.net , 09.12.2013

2011

Postmodernism is expiring: a conversation with Pedro Neves Marques, by Nicoletta Daldanise, in www.moonbow.it , November 2011

Divorare Culture: Due Portoghesi a Napoli, art review by Diana Gianquitto, in Artribune, November 2011 2009

A Universalism for Everyone, article by Brian Kuan Wood, in e-flux journal #7.

Where to sit at the dinner table? (video excerpt), 2013. Digital cinema/high definition video, 28 min. 30 sec., color, stereo sound, Portuguese and English spoken (subtitled).

 

The Limits to Growth, 2013. Computer animation, 6 minutes, color, no sound, loop. video excerpt. This piece is always exhibited alongside the inflatable pieces “Relax” (2013).

 

Beams of Cathodic Rays Shooting (video excerpt), 2013, with Mariana Silva. HD video, 8 min. 10 sec., color, sound.

 

Hoods Up!, 2012. HD video, 6 min. 25 sec., color, no sound, loop.