Variações sobre um [não] tema" presents around thirty-five drawings by architect and professor David Leite Viana, curated by Francesco Cancelliere.
The drawings probe the undefined territory between the techniques of architectural representation — perspective in particular — and the articulation, complexity and depth of three-dimensional space. This exploration, carried out through two-dimensional draftsmanship and dissociated from any functional programme or design brief, reveals the potential of drawing as a tool for investigating space itself.
References to the forms of architectural and urban space, and to the constructive elements that the history of architecture has layered across built cities and the drawn imagination, lend David Viana's drawings a familiar and recognisable appearance — even though the constructions and landscapes depicted belong entirely to the realm of invention. His graphic exploration thus quickly becomes an experience of investigating imagined forms and landscapes, whose semblance of reality rests as much on the memory of actual spaces as on the reference to techniques and styles consecrated in the history of art and drawing — from Piranesian representations to auteur comics.
As part of this initiative, the historical and graphic approach to the works on display will be discussed in a public conversation on 22 July at 6 pm, in the auditorium of the Secção Regional Norte. The conversation will bring together Joana Vieira da Silva (DAMG–UPT), João Pedro Xavier (FAUP), Gonçalo Canto Moniz (FCTUC) and David Leite Viana (DAMG–UPT), and will be moderated by Francesco Cancelliere.