João Maria GUSMAO

Nationality: Portuguese

Over the last twenty years, João Maria Gusmão (Lisbon, 1979) has developed an enigmatic and complex set of practices and meta-practices ranging from experimental film to photography, encompassing sculpture and drawing, and extending to literature, exhibition curating and publishing. Gusmão’s research stands at the crossroads between a metaphysical reflection on the aesthetics of photography and early cinema, a conceptual examination of the analogue medium, the revival of certain Modernist experiments within literature and particular currents in contemporary philosophy (transcendental materialism and speculative realism). His installations are evocative of a non-diegetic experiment in the moving image organized not as a replacement of the world but as a spectral and mnemonic manifestation of its removal. Hinging on a “mental experience” of time/image, his work attempts to stimulate a remote awareness in the observer both in discursive terms, reflecting on the conditions of visibility (the essence of image/theory), and in the phenomenological experience in general (duration/description), questioning our modes of existence and the representation of the world. JMG has expanded his work as an artist collaborating with different artists, curators and publishers on various contemporary art platforms. His long, multidisciplinary and prolific collaboration with Pedro Paiva (from 2001 to 2018) was particularly notable for their highly composite 16mm film footage shown in immersive installations using various projection devices. In the words of Chris Fitzpatrick, JMG+PP are artists dedicated to “charting a line of naturalist inquiry in the abyss—peripatetically assaying its contents through biological and technical comparisons, philosophical demonstrations, psychological illustrations, and para-scientific observations (often with considerable overlap).” Based on periods of cinematographic production and the use of alternative cinematic techniques, these creations were combined in themed exhibitions which, as a whole, comprise the conceptual and poetic corpus of their joint work (Eflúvio Magnético [Magnetic Effluvium] 2003-06; Abissologia [Abyssology] 2008-12; Papagaio [Parrot] 2014-16; Avantesma Fantasma, 2016-19).

7 MOVIES IN DISTRIBUTION

  PAPAGAIO (DJAMBI)
2014 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 43' 00 / 178 €
distribution: 16mm
  PIPE + UNDER A CAR + DONKEY + MOTORCYCLE, BIKE AND HUMAN DOTS + TRIANGLES AND SQUARES
2011-2014 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 10' 00 / 74 €
distribution: 16mm
  VENTRILOQUISM + DARWIN'S APPLE, NEWTON'S MONKEY + BREAD, TEA AND BAO GAME + WATER MILL + COWFISH
2009-2012 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 12' 22 / 94 €
distribution: 16mm
  GETTING INTO BED + DREAM OF A RAY FISH + WAVE + WHEELS + THE HORSE OF THE PROPHET
2011 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 12' 52 / 94 €
distribution: 16mm
  METEORITIC + TURTLE + THE INITIATE + POT SMALLER THAN POT + FRIED EGG
2008-2011 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 17' 00 / 94 €
distribution: 16mm
  EYE ECLIPSE + 3 SUNS + SOLAR, THE BLINDMAN EATING A PAPAYA + HEAT RAY
2007-2011 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 8' 32 / 74 €
distribution: 16mm
  TARCISO'S ANALOGY + HAND, SMALLER THAN HAND + HAIRY STONE + FRUIT POLYHEDRON
2009 / 35mm / color / silent / single screen / 10' 00 / 74 €
distribution: 16mm