Now it is Light

This group exhibition takes cue from an astronomer turned mining geologist’s earthly pursuit for radiant matter in a cavernous space, conveying a range of national and international artists including Amélie Bouvier, Haris Epaminonda, Ester Fleckner, Ana Manso, Ana Mazzei, Pedro A.H. Paixão, Coco Piccard, Andreia Santana, Jeronimo Voss and Davide Zucco, many presented for their first time in Portugal.

Now it is Light looks to alchemical effusion as astronomical strive over the planetary substratum, emerging as earthly records placed under commodity and asset mediation. While remaining earthbound the exhibition explores moving image, drawing and installation that investigate light as it recoils, reflects, refracts, diffracts and pierces through seemingly unaffected, yet captured by the imperative of capital in a vertical scheme of geocosmic time.

Borrowing its title from the poet and curator Frank O’Hara to emphasize wordly and material processes, Now it is Light fictionalizes the world’s glare as as narrative substance to interrogate the pulsating encounter between astronomical observation and extraction economies. Engaging artistic practices that approach the geocosm as a moving agent, Now it is Light is a space of inanimate worldings, of metals, minerals and stars whose magnitude is only relatively perceived.

An accompanying presentation of artistic research and archival materials will assemble references from planetary surveys. A forthcoming publication will feature a visual essay by Coco Piccard, and a curatorial foreword in essay form casting the emerging reciprocity between artistic and archival contributions.

Now is it Light is curated by Sofia Lemos with the support of EGEAC / Galerias Municipais Young Curators Program.

Read more about Pedro A.H. Paixão