Jarbas Lopes at CRAC Alsace

Artist: Jarbas Lopes

Exhibition title: eau

Curated by: Elfi Turpin

Venue: CRAC Alsace, Altkirch, France

Date: June 15 – September 17, 2017

Photography: Aurélien Mole, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, CRAC Alsace, A Gentil Carioca and Luisa Strina

e
a
u
Three letters making up the title of an exhibition. Three interchangeable letters in action, that also make up a word. e a u, eau. French for water. And it’s very much a question of water in this exhibition by Jarbas Lopes. Water is even there in person, sometimes descending the staircase. Sweeping away particles of exhibitions, humans, organisms, stories. Cleaning out the space and setting the art centre in movement, leaving it open to thinking as a group activity. Here Jarbas Lopes is a liana. He works together with the building. He is one with its thick walls, long corridors and high windows, with its inhabitants and its environment – with us. And we are many and varied. He thinks “with”, loosens us up, tests our conductivity, elasticity and resistance. With a hand in every pie he weaves the craziest interrelationships. And if this weaving draws on one of his favourite technologies – one that has allowed humans to make nets and bags and other containers, and people to relocate and live on the move – it also looks like a metaphor for intertwined thinking, for muddle almost. Lopes thinks with his hands. He fabricates objects – elastic paintings, shock paintings, circular paintings, oracular paintings, experimental drawings, unstable “practicable” sculptures, books – which involve acts of speculation, gestures that set up an imaginario capable of welcoming utopia in any and every form. c
r
a
c centre rhénan d’art contemporain, an acronym with the river Rhine running through it.

The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of Brazil in France.

It is realized with the participation of Comité de Développement et de Promotion de la Vannerie, Fayl-Billot.