Francisco Tropa: [I love you]

ⒶMO-TE [I love you] is the largest monographic exhibition by Francisco Tropa (Lisboa, 1968) to have ever been staged within a Portuguese institution. Known for his complex body of work, which combines in surprising ways a broad range of mediums (sculpture, drawing, performance, etching, photography and film) and references (among which are figures from ancient and modern times, the arts, science and literature), the artist over the last thirty years has built his own world prone to musings stoked by different traditions of sculpture, literature and mythology. These considerations are frequently founded on metaphysical questions, or anthropological and philosophical themes, more precisely on nature, the origin and final purpose of art, and the creative act. 

The exhibition does not claim to be any kind of retrospective, despite being assembled based on projects the artist completed in each decade of his career, understood to be key moments in his practice: the “prototypes” that were produced mostly in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, presented on the mezzanine floor of Serralves Library, A Assembleia de Euclides / The Assembly of Euclid, which occupied him for much of the 2000s and O Enigma de RM/The RM Enigma, his most recent work. The exhibition should be seen as a kind of great “machine ”, in which along its course the visitor is systematically confronted with some of the artist’s fundamental concerns, namely the way artworks are legitimised, perceived, analysed and shared (should they be subject to a “reading”? Should we judge them on what supposedly makes them topical, the appearance of contemporaneity?). The repetition of form, the reappearance of elements, the recurrence of specific references (to the history of art – ancient, modern and contemporary –, to antiquity, and mythology) asks us to question our own notions of originality and creativity. Francisco Tropa has embraced the recourse to repetition, and the reutilisation of elements from past works, rather than seek the new. The artist is more interested in continuing to add to an object, a motif or point of reference with which he consistently works – “I only come up with something new if I can’t make use of something I’ve already worked with; repeating objects in different situations only serves to enrich them” – and in exploring associations triggered by how we were exposed to them in the past. At the same time, the profusion of references ensures each piece is polyphonic saying a variety of different things simultaneously. Intentionally paradoxical, this multiplicity of possible interpretations – this “controlled noise”, as Tropa calls it – at some point results in an infinite capacity for “readings” of the work, its interpretation founded on more or less endless, explicit, erudite citations it inventorises and/or summons. The point being: make it so that all the viewer can do is “simply” look.  

ⒶMO-TE, besides being a machine for making echoes, referrals, resonances and reverberations, is a spectacle which questions and explores the actual exhibition format itself; because it presents projects which end up being exhibitions within the exhibition; because it emphasises the importance of the contexts in which the objects are presented in order for it to have its expected reading; because, beginning with the title, it places visitors dead centre in an experience where they are the true protagonists. A fitting riposte to the grand statement which provides the exhibition’s title could well be a phrase we normally associate with amours fous, but which in this case, is an utterly appropriate commentary on the starring role granted the spectator: “Without you, I am nothing!”       

ⒶMO-TE, organized by the Serralves Museum, is curated by Ricardo Nicolau and coordinated by Giovana Gabriel. The exhibition is a collaboration with the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, which shall be presenting simultaneously another side to the work of Francisco Tropa.

In recognition of the importance of the performative in Tropa’s practice, a presentation of the works A Marca do Seio / The Mark of the Breast and O Transe do Ciclista / The Cyclist’s Trance will take place every Tuesday (4 pm), Thursday (11 am), Friday (11 am) and Saturday (4 pm) for the entirety of the exhibition’s run. Besides this, during the weekend of November 9th and 10th, there will be a programme of performances put together by the museum’s Performative Arts Service in close collaboration with the artist, which shall take over a number of different spaces at Serralves, such as the Auditorium and Atrium (see the full programme below). This “marathon” of activities shall also include a talk in Serralves Library on the 9th (scheduled for 4.30 pm) in which Francisco Tropa, Ricardo Nicolau (exhibition curator), Célia Bernasconi (curator of Tropa’s exhibition at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco), Simone Menegoi (essayist, and a long-time performer of Francisco Tropa’s work, also author of a number of texts for the exhibition catalogue which take an in-depth look at particular projects of his) and Kathleen Campagnolo (responsible for the management of Tropa’s archive during the preparatory stage of the exhibition, and for texts about most of the works featured in the book) will discuss the artist’s practice, and the vision behind the different exhibitions taking place in Porto and Monaco. 

PROGRAMME OF PERFORMANCES

November 7th:

10 pm – 12 midnight, Serralves Auditorium: Scripta

10.30 pm – 11 pm, Museum Galleries: A Marca do Seio (The Mark of the Breast) and O Transe do Ciclista (The Cyclist’s Trance)

November 9th:

12 noon – 1 pm and 6 pm – 7 pm, Museum Atrium: Gigante, 

November 10th: 

12 noon – 1 pm and 3 pm – 7 pm, Museum Atrium: Gigante 

3 pm – 7 pm, Museum Atrium: Scripta

Scripta and Gigante are performed by Ana Isabel Castro, Sofia Kafol, Paulo Pinto and Dori Nigro.

A Marca do Seio and O Transe do Ciclista are performed by Cristiana Rocha, Daniela Cruz, Jorge Gonçalves and Guilherme de Sousa.

The performances accompanying the exhibition by Francisco Tropa were, in consultation with the artist, programmed and produced by Serralves’ Performative Arts Service.  

“Amo-te” ("I love you") written with a circle around the A - a direct reference to one of the most well-known anarchist symbols - is inscribed on the facade of the António Arroio Art School in Lisbon. Today, the phrase with its added inflection, is one of the most visible synonyms for the values that the teaching and student communities easily (and proudly) identify with. But that was not always the case: the inscription was originally conceived by a group of students in the late 1970s and early 1980s who engaged in various activities outside the official school programs. Informally led by Pedro Vasconcelos (son of filmmaker António Pedro Vasconcelos), the group spray-painted “Amo-te," with the circled A on walls inside the school. Additionally, one night, Pedro Vasconcelos - who lived five minutes from António Arroio at the time - is said to have painted the phrase, with the same symbol, on the school's facade. This action was accompanied and documented by two other group members, Miguel Cavaco and José de Almeida. Considered illegal by the school's board, the authors were threatened with disciplinary measures (threats that were not carried out thanks to the intervention of E.M. Melo e Castro, then a professor in the textile department). The graffiti was erased. Several years later, another student repainted the modified “Amo-te” on the facade. By then, the ethos of the school had undergone a change, thanks in large part to a unique initiative in the artistic pedagogy: the Atelier Livre (Open Studio). Spearheaded by the group of students responsible for “Amo-te” (and many other actions inside and outside the school) and teachers sympathetic to their desire to question the school's official curriculum - namely Pedro Morais and António Campos Rosado - the Atelier Livre was born out of the desire to create an alternative art education in Portugal.