José Barrias Etc...

Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Lisbon

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"This is one of the forms used by J.B. to characterize your work. His path, in fact, is made up of a series of exhibitions that constitute cycles or nuclei that have a closed character and which, although they may be made up of independent elements, present themselves as a unit. Like a writer, J. B. also "publishes", he makes his exhibitions public. These, like novellas, are complete works most often in installation form and have their own internal logic. As short stories they will leave behind studies, projects, notes, but not necessarily other works.

The premise of this initiative is that these various exhibitions form a larger work: like titles of a book they relate to each other, inform each other, to form a unified image. this is the bet that lies at the origin of the exhibition “etc…“. Covering the period from 1973 to 1995, the exhibition begins with the "quase romance" cycle. In this first chapter of the work we immediately find many of the characteristics that will remain constant along the path of Josè Barrias: the interest in Baroque theatricality, the relationship with literature, the presence of the past so melancholy that together with the autobiographical reflection, make part of the network of meaning that structures this singular work…"

Jorge Molder

Rui Sanches