DIALOGUE(S) WITH A UNIVERSONAUTA is a curatorial exercise by Helena Mendes Pereira which gathers the artworks of Volker Schnüttgen (born in 1961) and Domingos Loureiro (born in 1977).
More than an exhibition, DIALOGUE(S) WITH A UNIVERSONAUTA is a curatorial meeting and exercise of the conceptual transferability between the artworks of Volker Schnüttgen and Domingos Loureiro, between their sculptures and painting (respectively). The connection which these bring from nature and the ones they establish with a thinking process on Mankind awaken the urge to escape forward, to the cosmos of our delusion, going back to the childhood dream of being an astronaut and being able to float in the universe as we watch life on Earth with the distance of the wise.
The name of the exhibition comes from one of António Costa Pinheiro’s artworks (1932-2015), the precursor of integrating a set of leading practices which marked the context of the artistic rupture of the 1960s and 1970s. Costa Pinheiro’s words and irreverence provided the motto for the match between these two artists which results in the emergence of the work of Art’s prop-wood and combines the dimensions of video and performance with the dimension of possibilities of paintwork.
In DIALOGUE(S) WITH A UNIVERSONAUTA, Volker Schnüttgen’s Habitat – an artist who integrates the works of Art of the dstgroup – takes place in a set made of oak wood sculptural objects which pour the fine arts identity of an artist who, since 1993, has chosen Sintra as a permanent place of residence. Each sculpture of Habitat has an inner universe to be discovered by the spectator, as if the trees’ breath and soul contained the path of what we desire and don’t desire. They could be talking sculptures or it could be nature questioning, but it’s rather the multidisciplinarity of the artistic production that makes the object integrate a screen and a speaker which act as a virtual stage for dancing. Besides Habitat, the German sculptor presents a set of pieces from the series Sete livros sobre a natureza de uma árvore (Seven books on the nature of a tree) which were produced in an artistic residence in the Arts Centre of Caldas da Rainha in 2018.
In turn, Domingos Loureiro presents four series of works – Blind Lanscape, Landscape_Body_Landscape, Manmade Landscape and Building Utopia – and also the work Visible, non visible landscape, which doesn’t belong to any of the series and crosses the stages Blind and Manmade Landscapes. The exhibited works correspond to an anthological perspective of his journey and they represent the different stages of his career, yet most of the artistic works result from recent production or from unfinished processes.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Volker Schnüttgen (born in 1961) was born in Attendorn, Germany and got a degree in sculpture and engraving in the Arts University of Bremen in 1986. Since then he has taken part in several collective and individual exhibitions, as well as in artistic residences and symposia in a curricular geography which takes us from Germany to Portugal, passing through Spain, France, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Iran or Mozambique, being represented in more than thirty works in open spaces. In 2008 he concluded the Master’s Degree in multimedia art in the Faculty of Fine Arts – University of Porto, where he taught sculpture from 2010 to 2016.
Domingos Loureiro (born in 1977) was born in Valongo and has a PhD in Art and Design from the University of Porto. He combines his activitiy as a visual artist with the one as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts – University of Porto, in the Department of Visual Arts – Painting. He holds several positions and roles connected to the Academy and he is the author and editor of many scientific and academic documents. An awarded artist, he has already exhibited in many countries, such as Portugal, Spain, France, England, Belgium, Italy, USA, Brazil, Japan, Germany, Canada and Holland.
