Abandonment that seems refusal (2013) - Rui Chafes (1966)
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Modern Collection, Lisbon, Portugal
Rui Chafes graduated in Sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in Lisbon (1984-89)....
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Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Modern Collection, Lisbon, Portugal
Rui Chafes graduated in Sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in Lisbon (1984-89). He held his first solo exhibitions at the Gallery Leo (actual Gallery Filomena Soares), in 1986 and 1987, an at the Espaço Poligrupo Renascença in 1988. These define an initial phase marked by the creation of installations in which he used various materials, such as logs, poles, platex strips, wooden and plastic sticks; he would later abandon these in favour of black coated iron, which helps to emphasize the physical, industrial and alchemical sensation produced by his work.
Between 1990 and 1992, he studied with Gerhard Merz, at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, contacting extensively with a series of theoretical, literary and artistic references - German Romanticism, the Middle Ages, Late Gothic - that will play an important role in the structuring of Chafesâ activity and interests: the role of light, color, weight, the balance of forms, their relationship with nature, the surrounding space and Men. During his stay in Germany, he translated the Fragments of Novalis to Portuguese, which he published together with drawings of his own. Some of the exhibitions held at different institutions were also accompanied by the publication of books, which include essays by Chafes and others. These texts make it possibly to explore the meaning of artistic practice for the artist as a profoundly redemptive practice and a catalyst of thought.
Different references are placed in a common lineage: Andrej Tarkowsky, Friedrich Hölderlin, Rainer Marie Rilke, Nietzsche, Beckett, among others, are gathered in a book entitled Würzburg Bolton Landing (Lisbon, 1995), for the occasion of an exhibition held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1995 with the same name. Other examples of Chafes' prolific publications are Harmonia [Harmony], Durante o Fim [During the End], Um Sopro [A Breath] and O Silêncio de ... [The Silence of...].
Rui Chafes' enigmatic works are often placed in romantic gardens (Sintra), palaces and churches. They thus operate in a territory suspended in time, in a landscape that appeals to a different order and condition than that of the created object, between chaos and the rigor of revelation, between the in and outside of an irrational, individual and transcendental existence. In a 1998 text entitled âTalvezâ [Perhaps], Rui Chafes explains his vocation: âAs a sculptor, and having been born in 1966 (the year of Rubliov Andrej, Andrej Tarkowsky, and of Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar), I live with the awareness that we must continue to carry the flame, as Joseph Beuys had wished, he who, the year before, had taught a dead hare for three hours how to look at images.â
In 1995, Rui Chafes represented Portugal at the Venice Biennial (with José Pedro Croft, Pedro Cabrita Reis) and in 2004 he was present at the Sao Paulo Biennial with his project Eating Your Heart Out, a collaboration with Vera Mantero. His career is built from outstanding exhibitions held in both national and international institutions; additionally his works are part of important public and private collections.
Pedro Faro
May 2010
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Rui Chafes graduated in Sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in Lisbon (1984-89). He held his first solo exhibitions at the Gallery Leo (actual Gallery Filomena Soares), in 1986 and 1987, an at the Espaço Poligrupo Renascença in 1988. These define an initial phase marked by the creation of installations in which he used various materials, such as logs, poles, platex strips, wooden and plastic sticks; he would later abandon these in favour of black coated iron, which helps to emphasize the physical, industrial and alchemical sensation produced by his work.
Between 1990 and 1992, he studied with Gerhard Merz, at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, contacting extensively with a series of theoretical, literary and artistic references - German Romanticism, the Middle Ages, Late Gothic - that will play an important role in the structuring of Chafesâ activity and interests: the role of light, color, weight, the balance of forms, their relationship with nature, the surrounding space and Men. During his stay in Germany, he translated the Fragments of Novalis to Portuguese, which he published together with drawings of his own. Some of the exhibitions held at different institutions were also accompanied by the publication of books, which include essays by Chafes and others. These texts make it possibly to explore the meaning of artistic practice for the artist as a profoundly redemptive practice and a catalyst of thought.
Different references are placed in a common lineage: Andrej Tarkowsky, Friedrich Hölderlin, Rainer Marie Rilke, Nietzsche, Beckett, among others, are gathered in a book entitled Würzburg Bolton Landing (Lisbon, 1995), for the occasion of an exhibition held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1995 with the same name. Other examples of Chafes' prolific publications are Harmonia [Harmony], Durante o Fim [During the End], Um Sopro [A Breath] and O Silêncio de ... [The Silence of...].
Rui Chafes' enigmatic works are often placed in romantic gardens (Sintra), palaces and churches. They thus operate in a territory suspended in time, in a landscape that appeals to a different order and condition than that of the created object, between chaos and the rigor of revelation, between the in and outside of an irrational, individual and transcendental existence. In a 1998 text entitled âTalvezâ [Perhaps], Rui Chafes explains his vocation: âAs a sculptor, and having been born in 1966 (the year of Rubliov Andrej, Andrej Tarkowsky, and of Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar), I live with the awareness that we must continue to carry the flame, as Joseph Beuys had wished, he who, the year before, had taught a dead hare for three hours how to look at images.â
In 1995, Rui Chafes represented Portugal at the Venice Biennial (with José Pedro Croft, Pedro Cabrita Reis) and in 2004 he was present at the Sao Paulo Biennial with his project Eating Your Heart Out, a collaboration with Vera Mantero. His career is built from outstanding exhibitions held in both national and international institutions; additionally his works are part of important public and private collections.
Pedro Faro
May 2010
Read less
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