Dissection / Fundação EDP / Museu da Eletricidade
Vhils’ first solo exhibition with a major arts institution sought to (re)create a city within the city. Featuring an entirely new body of works with recourse to some of the artist’s signature techniques, the exhibition space was purposely built within the institution as a neutral setting conducive to reflection, with the objective of enabling the viewer to experience a transition and release from the urban chaos present outside. This was also achieved through a tunnel-like immersive video installation that acted as a connecting interface between the two settings and played with the city’s chaos and dissonance and threw it back at the viewer. Yet, far from wanting to establish a rigid distinction between the city and the exhibition space, Vhils sought to use them as complementary settings, an act that has become common in his practice, establishing conceptual and material links between them. These include a series of bas-relief murals created in the city, and a large-scale site-specific intervention with hand-carved posters in the institution’s outdoor area.
If the outdoor murals and pieces played directly with the city’s fabric and visual noise, the indoor pieces were intentionally displayed with clarity and free of interferences, inviting the viewer to reflect on the present-day human condition in the scope of our urban societies. The rooms forming the interior structure of the exhibition space showcased an assortment of works in various media, including sculptural pieces in styrofoam, acid-etched metal pieces and compositions, hand-carved and laser-cut pieces with posters and wooden doors, large acid-eaten screen prints, and video.
Dissection
solo exhibition
Fundação EDP | Museu da Eletricidade, Lisbon, Portugal
04 July – 05 October 2014