This sign is an act of love, 2022 Light, argon, iron 185 x 50 cm.
Article 1
Here it is declared that the artwork “This Sign is an Act of Love” is original and authentic.
Article 2
This work cannot be sold or bought. The transition of ownership can only take place by virtue of a full donation, without pecuniary or other counterparts.
Article 3
Ownership of this work only because it is held by a person or entity for a maximum period of 1 year.
Article 4
The owner undertakes to deliver the work to another person of his choice within the respective deadline, however, the new person to whom the work is delivered cannot have received it previously.
Article 5
Whoever offers this work, and whoever receives it, undertakes to notify the author, João Motta Guedes, at the time of its transition, and also undertakes to send a version of this document dated and signed by both parties.
Article 6
In addition to this edition that goes into circulation, there are two artist's proofs.
Article 7
Any damage caused to the work may result in its repair or payment for new work.
Article 8
This document has legal force and its failure to comply may imply due process of law.
BIO + CV
Biography
João Motta Guedes, explores concepts of freedom, vulnerability and violence, his artistic productions reflect on the meaning of feeling and being human.
His projects stem from the personal and academic experience that led him to complete his Degree in Law in 2018, and in 2020, the Master’s at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. In 2019, he decided to direct his academic research towards the intersection of the artistic discipline, and he was finishing his Masters in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon.
His artistic language, in various forms and plastic media, has an experimentalist nature. Through a poetic language, it seeks to question artistic creation as an act of freedom that responds to the problem of violence, both in the relationship with society and with each individual, leaving a comprehensive record of images that contain both symbolic and metaphorical meanings, at the waiting to be interpreted by each spectator.
Since 2018, he has been a researcher at the Foundation for Science and Technology in the project “COSMOS – COSMOPOLITISM: justice, democracy and citizenship without borders”.
Exposições individuais
Solo Exhibitions
>>> 2023 "Learning How To Live", Galeria NAVE (Lisbon, PT)
2023 "You Came To Start The Revolution", ZDB (Lisbon, PT)
Exposições Colectivas
Group Exhibitions
>>> 2023 "WANDERLUST", Artes Mota Galiza (Porto, PT)
2022 "(0/1) o zero e o um", MUHNAC National Museum of Natural History and Science, (Lisboa, PT)
2022, “Pára, Depára-te”, Fábrica do Braço de Prata, Lisbon (PT)
2022, “GABA”, Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisbon (PT)
2021, “BABEL”, Palacete Burnay Biblioteca de Alcântara, Lisbon (PT)
2021, “O Símbolo de uma Pandemia”, Cisterna da Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisbon (PT)
2020, “Como bebe uma flor”, Jardim das Amoreiras, Lisbon (PT)
2020, “Alunos da FBAUL”, Travessa da Ermida, Lisbon (PT)
2020, “Tendas”, Escola Manuel da Maia, Lisbon (PT)
2020, “Pop Up”, Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisbon (PT)
2019, “Coexistência e Negociação”, Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães, Cascais (PT)
Prémios
Awards
2020 PRÉMIO DE PINTURA DOS ALUNOS DA FBAUL, Travessa da Ermida, Lisbon (PT)
2020 1º PRÉMIO DE CURTA-METRAGEM SÉNIOR, Prémio Filo-Lisboa “ Quem sou eu neste novo mundo?”, Lisbon (PT)
Residências
Residencies
2021, “CHAPIM, Pousio”, Centro de Estudos de Novas Tendências Artísticas (CENTA), na Tapada da Tojeira, Vila Velha de Ródão (PT)
2020, “TENDAS, Base”, MArt Escola de Artes, Lisbon (PT)
Projectos
Projects
Desde 2018, é investigador da Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (PT)
2020 – 2022 Membro da Associação “Pousio Arte e Cultura” (PT)
Collections
Colecção da Universidade NOVA, Lisbon (PT)
Colecções
Obras
"YOU CAME TO START THE REVOLUTION", 2023 Installation view at 'segundas da Z' (ZDB, Lisbon) Photo by Bruno Lopes
"OPEN, OPEN, OPEN", 2023 iron structure, LED panels and electrical cables 150 x 150 x 15 cm
"You came to start the revolution", 2023 pork bone, vacuum packaging, chains and hooks variable dimensions
"You came to start the revolution", 2023 pork bone, vacuum packaging, chains and hooks variable dimensions
"Untitled (How small a thought it takes - after Wittgenstein and Steve Reich)", 2022 Engraving on marble, flowers variable dimensions The phrase used in the recording is a double quotation: firstly written by Wittgenstein in a collection of texts entitled “Culture and Valor” (1946); later, Steve Reich used this same phrase for a musical composition “Proverb” (1995). This work recovers the paradox proposed by Wittgenstein's phrase and presents it in a visual and plastic formulation. It is through its appearance on a tombstone with flowers that we are confronted with the power of what the quote hides, the (im)possibility of such a small thought being able to last a lifetime, referring to the ephemerality of life, ideas, moments, and the way we look at them.
"I'm gonna live anyhow", 2022 Pigmented print on 260gr photo paper 60 x 80 cm.
"Untitled (Human Condition), 2022 Mein Kampf burned, drowned, hanged, bitten, covered in acid, stabbed, stepped on, shot at, kicked and punched variable dimensions This work witnesses the destruction of an object that represents evil. It is proof of violence over violence, and it raises multiple paradoxical questions: How to destroy an idea? Is it legitimate to destroy someone who personifies destruction? At the same time it confronts them with the inviolability of the human condition and human rights.
"Freedom Song", 2022 Pigmented print on 260gr photo paper 60 x 80 cm.
“Monument To Kafka”, 2022 Ferro, 15,000 pages of court cases involving human rights violations, stone, dust, anvil Dimensions 200 x 50 x 50 cm. The installation is constituted through a symbolic legal compendium composed of cases that involved human rights violations that reached the ECtHR. These are stacked in order to build a tower where an anvil is placed on top. However, there is a hidden iron structure that guarantees the integrity of the form. From the outset, the question arises of how the shape of the paper tower is sustained, considering not only its height and fragility but also the weight of the anvil placed on top. Allegorical questions arise: how can the structure (legal, social, human) sustain itself? To what extent is the system accessible and effective? Is the idea of justice a fragile and subjective construction? These questions, among others, reveal a Kafkaesque construction that could provoke the perception of an image that is both miraculous and absurd, but that raises the confrontation with a representation of the guardian.
"Child-Adult forever playing", 2021 Chessboard, toys, Lego, coins, pills, bottle caps, lighter, mini gun, mini knife, dice, bathtub lid 40 x 40 cm. This work intends to approach an idea of growth and the difficulties that arise with it. Based on the game of chess, on one side of the board the “black” pieces represent adulthood, on the other side, the “white” pieces represent childhood. The theme of innocence and conflict present in growth is manifested through the representation of different worlds and their confrontation. On the other hand, the identity of the two players is diluted as the game progresses, since as each player makes his move, the pieces on the board mix, causing uncertainty about who is playing against whom.
"Heart in the Stars", 2021 Video, color, sound, 1'10, 1080p, 50fps. Heart in the Stars is a film that results from the search and need for freedom in times of cholera. The film was made in the context of the Chapim artist residency in Vila Velha de Ródão and explores a poetic territory of escape that gains intensity not only through the time we live in but also through a physical and emotional landscape. The fact that the character is naked is metaphorical of a feeling of total weightlessness. The race beyond the horizon line could symbolize a permanent escape, this infinite line is allegorical of a race that does not end.
"Who Owns Whom?", 2021 stone, chain, collar variable dimensions The object in question presents itself not only as a critical symbol of the present time but also as a metaphor of individual impotence in the face of the limitation of freedom. The weight of the stone is allegorical of an inner feeling of anguish, however, this piece could represent both the reduced freedom as an existential weight that is transported, culminating in the impossibility of broad movement in life. The design of the chain may reveal a strange but familiar shape, its length is 2 meters, the minimum recommended distance to keep between each of us. The collar indicates the relationship of this transportable weight with who uses the object, alluding to a possible idea in this work - Who owns whom? Will the weight of the stone we carry be stronger than our ability to move?
“A Pill A Day Keeps The Doctor Away”, 2021 Collage of medicines, corn 40 x 15 cm. Another impossible object that with satirical humor is constituted as a metaphor of dependence and the necessity of life.
"Writing the infinite poem", 2019 Engraving ink, glue, crayon and oil paint on burnt paper (...) 11 meters x 30 cm. Writing the infinite poem seeks to be a visual reflection on the insertion in the space of the gesture of writing as a form of painting and drawing. Referring to the reading of an indecipherable code that can only be understood visually, the dimensions of the work are allegorical to an endless act of making (poiesis) and writing, which is representative of the artist's work and a search for endless freedom.
"Flight into the blue", 2019 Pigmented print on paper 60 x 70 cm. The photograph represents a flight, a journey, a discovery into the potentially blue unknown.
