SUSANA GAUDÊNCIO

Born in Lisbon, Portugal, 1977

Presented by CARLOS CARVALHO ARTE CONTEMPORÂNEA

For Susana Gaudêncio drawing is a key strategic element in the development of her work and a vehicle for experiments, action, and conceptualisation. The “Época de Estranheza em Frente ao Mundo” of 2012, which was presented at the Museo do Chiado of Lisbon in 2014 after the publication of a book of the same name, retrieves an expression from the philosopher Odo Marquand that is quoted by the architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales in “Terrain Vague” (Wasteland) to define the current situation. It includes a series of drawings that have been gathered under the epigraph “Manifesto” accompanied by the video animation in loop “Vortex” and a table that refers to the typical meeting room where the strategies that make us uniform are negotiated and defined. Susana Gaudêncio takes a closer look at matters such as surprise and approaches her artistic practice as a platform on which to find new possibilities for questioning utopia as a critical device that is eminently political.