Tiago Estrada “The Wall of Pleasure”
Rooster Gallery
This event has ended.
Tiago Estrada’s (b.1967) “The Wall of Pleasure,” follows the artist’s previous research regarding language and its use, but it is also a deeper reflection on one’s true freedom and expression.
The main problem behind language, regardless of the idiom, lies behind the fact that a language is no more than a constructed system of communication, and its understanding derives from one’s apprehension of that pre-existent set of rules or archetype system.
At “The Wall of Pleasure” Estrada’s research deviates from his previous body of work, though. Formerly concerned with trying to understand how to corrupt language in its written form - by retaining a visual formality, which was, in fact, void of linguistic value - Estrada now tries to find a truly apprehensible universal language, not guided by any set of grammatical rules or even mental inhibitions.
The exhibition is titled after an installation, which occupies the gallery’s ground floor. In it, through the use of repetitive onomatopoeia written on the walls, Tiago Estrada isolates the notion of scream, particularly the one associated with sexual intercourse in Western culture.
Traditionally seen as an expression of the self freed from external constraints, Estrada proves that they are not as free as one might assume. If for Foucault pleasure is a fundamental right of the post-industrial society, the impossibility of achieving this pleasurable self is directly associated with the divergence between Freud and Reich. One will understand that the power of orgasm was replaced by analysis, thus becoming complacent with the consumerist society in which pleasure is also conditioned and denied.
The installation also integrates sound through a sound piece composed by Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (b.1959) and António Rafael (b.1971), in collaboration with Estrada, further enhancing the notion that those primordial guttural sounds, breathing and percussion are themselves as conditioned and limited as a pre-established architected language.
"The Wall of Pleasure" also comprises the launch of a limited edition vinyl record - which includes the sound piece and three original drawings - and a live performance by Adolfo Luxúria Canibal and António Rafael on April 20th at Rooster Gallery.
Tiago Estrada is represented by Rooster Gallery, graduated in painting at the School of Fine Arts of Oporto, completed an MFA in Painting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is represented at MoMA Archives, Drawing Center’s Digital Archive Online, Culturgest (Lisbon), Colecção ECO (Marvão).
Adolfo Luxúria Canibal is a founding member and lead singer of Mão Morta, a published poet, lawyer by trade, and an agitator.
António Rafael joined Mão Morta in 1990 and is the band's keyboard and guitar player.
Their concerts and avant-garde performative interventions became legendary, as if Isidore Ducasse met Hugo Ball and Guy Débord on stage.
Media
Schedule
from March 21, 2013 to April 21, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-03-21 from 18:00 to 20:00