Coming close the end of this exhibition season, I now propose, as I do every year, the project "In-Between III."
This is another group show in which I develop narratives around the concept of the multiple.
Engraving, photography, some sculpture, and other media, particularly those from design and applied arts, are the media that best embody a certain de-dramatization of the work of art as a physically unique entity. While photography, while capable of being serialized, maintains a more autonomous character, the so-called graphic work, as a multiple, offers great versatility, both in its origin or matrix: lithographs, etchings, or drypoint; woodcuts, silkscreens; (metal plate, wood, silkscreen, or others), usually in their final paper formats, and in its commercial mission, reaching a wider audience, many art lovers.
The graphic work that uses a single image that is then multiplied thus has, among its many functions, the very interesting one I would call the "democratized work." I enjoy multiples and don't consider them a lesser medium, as they require arduous workshop work, knowledge, and imagination. Great artists have at some point disseminated much of their work by producing multiples. Many art-loving collectors have been delighted to obtain a duly signed and hand-numbered piece by their chosen artist.
Likewise in the applied arts and design, and their ramifications within industry, serialization has been a constant throughout time. Major brands have produced valuable objects, often in collaboration with important visual artists (ceramics, glass, tapestries); Others, for example, took post-war German ceramics industries (over one hundred companies) in the 1960s and 1970s, uniting in a reindustrialization effort under the West Germany brand, mass-produced affordable, numbered pieces of modernist design for use and decoration in the homes of impoverished West German families. These pieces have become a source of demand for modern collectors.
In-Between III thus dedicates this edition to showcasing a core group of works by important national and international authors through graphic works and a few carefully selected objects in other media.


Pedro Oliveira