The Metaphysics of Beauty

The Metaphysics of Beauty exhibition receives the spectator with an opening room dedicated to subjective torments, to the domination of the principle of reason that everything wants to explain and to the will that, while bringing suffering, is also an affirmation of this physical world, the will as a Nietzschian yes to the phenomenological world to which our body has immediate access. Ben Vautier, an expressive figure in the Fluxus movement, resorts to the word to express his restlessness – “I want to be free but I can't” – while the solitary man is the theme of Gil Vicente’s large, black drawing and his heads, which like the wheel of Ixion revolve with perpetual thoughts. Painful reason is materialised in beautiful form by Artur Lescher’s sharply-pointed piece; the solitary torso carefully composed of pieces of wood by Luiz Hermano corroborates the affliction of individualization and fragmentation; and finally, Karin Lambrecht’s painting is gutted into overlapping anatomical shapes, very much in line with rational knowledge, which analyses bodies but fails to appease existential doubt. Everything in this room is matter split into parts.

The pieces installed in the next room and on the gallery patio draw us in by the impossibility of understanding them entirely by reason. One must let oneself into the wonder of flying with Eduardo Coimbra’s clouds and over Cao Guimarães’ ethereal landscapes in order to comprehend them intuitively. Light and the state of enlightenment appear in Laura Vinci’s huge chandelier, Lux. Meanwhile, in Shirley Paes Leme's installation, the artist reveals nuances of the light of real space by transforming it. And light is also the main raw material in the exuberant photographic series, Stockage, by Luzia Simons. Mareando, by Katia Maciel, both suspends by the beauty of the waves and points to the experience of contemplating the beautiful in nature. Abraham Palatnik's kinetic work silently reinforces the stillness of a harmony that hangs over this room as one. Here beauty flourishes without the mediation of words.

Balanced between uplifting contemplation of beauty and painful fidelity to the phenomenic world, Laura Vinci’s piece Branco closes the exhibition with a heavy spurt of water, washing away the intellectual discomfort of acquiring pleasure through contemplation of the beautiful in an era in which our relationship with art is above all cerebral.

The Metaphysics of Beauty
Kurator: Paula Braga

Künstler: Abraham Palatnik, Artur Lescher, Cao Guimaraes, Eduardo Coimbra, Gil Vicente, Karin Lambrecht, Katia Maciel, Laura Vinci, Luiz Hermano, Luzia Simons, Shirley Paes Leme