NICK MAUSS: INTRICATE OTHERS

For his first solo exhibition in Portugal, New York-based artist Nick Mauss (b. 1980) has produced new work in response to an extended encounter with the Serralves Villa. Installed within and against the unique architectural and decorative elements, the exhibition proceeds in the form of an unfolding scenography set within the grand, formerly domestic spaces of the architecture, now emptied of their multiple functions and so turned, in absence, into a monument. For instance, the Villa’s Art Deco façade belies its anachronistic and juxtaposed interior, with all its nineteenth-century bourgeois arrangement of space and social choreography. This dramaturgical dimension, in which display and design were paramount, is now given over to the visitor as spectator, Mauss’ exhibition inciting a disordering of psychological and physical circulation. The constellation of works and models for unrealized spaces are situated throughout the building, at key points of tension, enacting a play of repetition, remembering and intensification. 

‘Intricate Others’ resonates with histories of exhibition design and display, affect and decoration, as well as gendered divisions between fine or applied arts, while proposing the choreography of space as an indirect mode of address. Mauss treats the entirety of the building as a set where artworks are thought of as visible forms that perform with the presence of live bodies.

The exhibition, organized by Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, is curated by João Ribas, Senior Curator of the Museum and Deputy Director.

Image: Nick Mauss - Untitled Study 2016, Marker and pen on paper, Coll. Courtesy of the artista. Related Activities OPENING: 22 JUN (THU), 21H00, FREE ENTRANCE Support