Artist: Daniel Albuquerque
Exhibition title: Oral
Venue: BFA, São Paulo, Brazil
Date: June 24 – August 23, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and BFA, São Paulo
Note: List of works can be found here
BFA São Paulo is pleased to present Oral, Daniel Albuquerque’s rst solo show at the gallery.
The artist recurs to different mediums to create sculptures that have a variety of textures, colors and temperatures, almost inviting the viewer to taste them to see if they are edible. The presence of the human touch and hand is visible, giving life to shapes that have a sexual nuance about them. This sensuality somehow is perceived in all the works. It is delicate and discreet, not obvious, but rather inviting and suggesting.
Daniel Albuquerque is interested in materials and techniques that reference various movements in the history of sculpture, although it’s not really the history of these materials themselves that are important in his work but what he can accomplish with them. Each artwork is never just a sculpture, as the artist intervenes in all of them with one or more layers of paint to suggest another level of interpretation of the objects. In this sense the juxtaposition of plaster, iron, ceramics, knitting and painting is designed to stimulate an interest and attraction to the works through various senses guiding the viewer down the rabbit hole of the artist desires and memories.
The works hang throughout the gallery space at different heights, avoiding the creation of a conventional horizon for the viewer, but suggesting different compositions and conversations. The different placements of the works in the space suggest the complexity of Albuquerque’s work, and also of his process. The installation references the several layers of meaning that his sculptures possess. As Daniel Albuquerque is interested in the dialogue and discussion of surfaces, the space and the installation of the artworks become another layer of surface interpretation.
