Ocula Conversation Jess Johnson: Worlds Within Worlds Geometric patterns, anthropomorphic characters, architectural spatial environments, and relics of the ancient world appear throughout Jess Johnson's artworks.Johnson's solo art-ventures began in drawing, but her long-term collaborative relationship with animator Simon Ward brings her drawings to life in videos and virtual reality. The animator has...
Ocula Conversation Melati Suryodarmo: Performance Art as Trigger In 2012, Melati Suryodarmo opened Studio Plesungan in her native Surakarta, also known as Solo, the historic royal capital of the Mataram Empire of Java in Indonesia. Suryodarmo had returned to Indonesia from Germany, where she studied Butoh and choreography with Butoh dancer and choreographer Anzu Furukawa, time-based media with avantgarde...
Ocula Report Lagos Biennial 2019: Stories from Africa’s most Populous City 15 Nov 2019 : Jareh Das for Ocula Under the direction of Folakunle Oshun, the second edition of the Lagos Biennial (26 October–23 November 2019) includes works by over 40 Lagos-based and international artists, architects, and collectives. Curated by architect Tosin Oshinowo, curator and producer Oyindamola Fakeye, and assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute of...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva live and work in Lisbon. Working in collaboration since 2001, their research driven practice is a poetic investigation of the metaphysical, encompassing moving image, installation, sculpture, and photography. Creating objects and scenarios that are equally cinematic, comedic, and enigmatic, together their works defy the rational, challenging our understanding of the known world.
Past solo exhibitions of their work include João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva: Peacock, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2017, The Sleeping Eskimo, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland, 2016, The Missing Hippopotamus, Kkv Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2015, Papagaio, HangarBicocca, Milan, 2014; travelled to Camden Arts Centre, London, 2015, and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2015, One month without filming, REDCAT, Los Angeles, 2015, Since you have eaten the horse, you can travel to Rome by donkey: on dwarf philosophy, Kunsternernes Hus, Oslo, 2012 and Passengers 1.7, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2008. In 2009, Gusmão and Paiva represented Portugal at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Additionally, their work was included the The Encyclopedic Palace, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the International Art Exhibition at the 55th Venice Biennale, 2013, the 8th Gwangju Biennale, 2010, Manifesta 7, 2008, the 6th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, 2007, and the 27th Bienal de Sao Paulo, 2006.
Related Press Mad, magical and mesmerising: Gusmão + Paiva's labyrinth of silent films The Guardian : 4 February 2015 What a peculiar world the Portuguese artists João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva inhabit. Populated by birds, fish and animals, cyclists, smokers and donkey-riders, it is a place of abstractions and illusions, the everyday and the impossible.
