Lisbon-born artist and curator João Maria Gusmão explores para-scientific, philosophical, and literary concepts through experimental film and immersive multimedia installations. He gained international acclaim for his enduring collaborative practice with Portuguese artist Pedro Paiva.
Read MoreGusmão studied painting at the University of Lisbon's Faculty of Fine Arts (FBAUL) from 1997 to 2002. There he met Pedro Paiva, who would become his long-term artistic collaborator. The two began working together in 2001 and have since developed sculptures, photographs, installations, films, and writing in a distinct aesthetic which the artists describe as 'poetic-philosophical fiction', reflecting their shared interest in science fiction, early cinema, metaphysics, and magical realism.
Influenced by analogue aesthetics and the work of early film pioneers including Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey, Gusmão and Paiva prolifically produced short films in 16mm and 35mm that experimented with the language of cinematography. The artists explored filmic elements such as duration, repetition, and movement while weaving in personal or para-scientific narratives – subjects could range from the artists' cat Mimi, to geopolitical examinations of former Portuguese colonies, or theories such as Alfred Jarry's Pataphysics.
For their exhibition Onça Geométrica (Geometric Ounce) (2013), the artists presented an installation comprising five 16mm abstract geometric film projections alongside a series of photographs of seemingly ordinary objects rendered enigmatic through their titles – A analogia do buraco negro (The Black Hole) presents a pastry cut in half, while TV fantásma (TV Ghost) suggests a metaphysical presence in a domestic interior.
On Onça Geométrica, Pier Paolo Pancotto wrote for Artforum: '...they share that work's emotional tension, derived from a pervasive, metaphysically tinged atmosphere, a sense of being suspended in time and space... [The photographs] seem suspended between the real and imaginary worlds, offering viewers glimpses of details of daily life that, removed from their original context, lose their conventional meanings to take on completely different ones, attesting, once again, to the variety of interpretations that the artists' work encourages.'
Gusmão and Paiva gained widespread recognition as an artistic duo, exhibiting in Portugal and internationally including the São Paulo Biennial (2006), Manifesta (2008), Venice Biennale (2009, 2013), and the Gwangju Biennale (2010).
Since 2018, Gusmão has continued to engage with concepts of transcendental materialism and speculative realism while examining the use of analogue media in his independent practice through experimental installations, publishing, and curation.
His artistic and curatorial practice presents a metaphysical reflection on the aesthetics of photography and early cinema, experimenting with the moving image as a method of questioning our concept of reality and modes of existence and representing the world.
Alongside his artistic practice, Gusmão has curated exhibitions featuring the work of other artists. From 2014 to 2016 he co-curated a number of projects with Pedro Paiva in Portugal, Italy, and Germany. Since 2019, Gusmão has both co-curated and independently curated exhibitions in Portugal and the US, including Eugène Frey: Variations (2020) at the New National Museum of Monaco (NMNM), where he was invited by Celia Bernasconi to develop the show along with her.
João Maria Gusmão has presented in solo and group exhibitions internationally since the early 2000s.
Solo exhibitions from recent years include: ALVORADA, Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf (2022); Lusque-Fusque Arrebol, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2022); _Día Eléctrico _(with Alexandre Estrela), Travesía Cuatro, Mexico City (2021); TERÇOLHO, Fundação de Serralves, Porto (2021) (with Pedro Paiva); Variations – Eugène Frey's Light Set Projections presented by João Maria Gusmão, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Paloma (2020); A Pele do Fantasma seguido d'A Sueca, Colecção Maria e Armando Cabral, Lisbon (2019) (with Pedro Paiva and Gonçalo Pena).
Group exhibitions together with Pedro Paiva include: Ensaio para uma comunidade: retrato de uma coleção em construção (take 1), Fundação EDP, Lisbon (2021); Ways of Seeing Abstraction, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin (2021); O Canto do Bode, Casa da Cultura da Comporta, Comporta, Portugal (participation and museography) (2021); Matéria Luminal, Museu Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2021); Presente Contínuo: Adquisiçoes recentes da coleçao Norlinda e José Lima, Centro de art oliva, São João da Madeira (2020); Good Vibrations, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2020); Le Cours des Choses, Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux (2020); A Terceira Margem, Bienal de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal (2019); La plage, Galleria Zero..., Milan, Italy (2019).
Misong Kim | Ocula | 2022
