Superfície is pleased to present Película, a solo show by artist Vera Chaves Barcellos. Through a selection of twelve works, the exhibition provides an overview of his artistic career, bringing together well-known works and others less seen by the public. With text by Veronica Stigger, the title refers to the De Película series, which metonymically discusses photography and cinema, in a frank conversation with conceptual art.

Film also concerns the skin: film is a very thin layer of skin, but it is also a small skin, pointing towards the body, so central in the work of Vera Chaves Barcellos. Film is also the layer through which the artist ensures that the body (the skin) is not perceived in its entirety. There is always a veil that covers the image, as in L’Intervallo Perduto [Homage to Gillo Dorfles] (1977-1995); or it is blurred, as in Godiva’s Daughter (1994); or gets confused with his reflection in the glass, as in Mannequins of Dusseldorf (1978). When there is no such veil, there is another device that prevents the body from being seen in its entirety: the portrait taken of the back (and not the face), as in Portraits (1992-93); or, another example, the body seen in fragments, as in the series Epidermic Scapes (1977).

The exhibition occupies two floors of the gallery and mainly features the artist’s photographic production, whether in the form of political engagement or the development of an experimental idea. Constantly flirting with conceptual art, Película is a curatorial section of the artist’s production, in which important works from her career come together with those that were not properly appreciated by the public. The exhibition is scheduled to open on November 11, 2023 and will remain on view until February 2024.

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Check out the exhibition’s catalog  [PT]

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Epidermic Scapes, 1977/2023
Photographic enlargement from the printing of the skin
100 x 121 cm