It is with great pleasure that we announce Estonteante, the second solo show by Ana Pérez-Quiroga at the gallery ! 

OPENING
Thursday , June 06 | 19  – 22 H
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DURATION
26.03 – 25.05.2024

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How do you talk about love as a woman? Why is it that when women theorize or act creatively on the concept of love, which is so latent and transversal to human life, they are more difficult to take seriously? Historically, in a world dominated by male power, based on the ownership of the public and intellectual spheres, narratives about multiple aspects of life, including love and the nature of relationships, have always been controlled. Theorists such as Plato and Aristotle shaped the Western understanding of love, imposing their own experiences and beliefs, without women's perspectives being considered. Ana Pérez-Quiroga, an artist active in the movements that have fought for gender equality since the 19th century, through theoretical and practical research, once again reaffirms the exploration of the concept of sentimental love from a feminist perspective. In this sense, she defends the urgency of women taking on the role of creators and talking about love from their own experience and autonomy. This reorganization of roles is crucial to expanding the understanding of love in contemporary times and deconstructing the heteronormative discourses that perpetuate gender violence against women and the LGBTQIA+ community.

Estonteante, the title of the neon that names the exhibition, is an ode to love, proposing a vision that points to forms of affection that promote equity and freedom. This bemusement is the result of the intoxication of emotions when we fall in love with another, with all the hope and fantasy that this can represent. It is a lovely way, a performance sculpture for making soap bubbles, makes explicit the playful root, the transformative power of love and the magical interaction in discovering the other. This idea of encounter and duplicity, present in the subtle dialogues between the various works in the exhibition, suggests complementarity and a desire to merge. You are her and she is you, You are here to risk your heart or Espelho meu are also reflections of the open surrender to risk and the unknown. Mover para fora #1, #2 and #3, a fabric that can be either sky or sea, surrounds and permeates the gallery space, summoning and leading the viewer into this sensitive, private and generous universe. On the other hand, the presence of language and the written word, characteristic of all Pérez-Quiroga's artistic work, seems to be a way of reaching out to the other, opening space for effabulation and the creation of new narratives; after all, Love is a knot made of two intertwined freedoms [O amor é um nó feito de duas liberdades entrelaçadas]. By revisiting an exhibition of hers, twenty years later, Pérez-Quiroga celebrates love and its salvific and redemptive power, aspiring to a new place: the manifestation of the feminine and the forces that shape and influence our experiences of love.

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ANA PÉREZ-QUIROGA

Estonteante
06.06 – 07.09.2024
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Text : Carolina Quintela
Photography : Bruno Lopes 
Video : João Silva
Installation and art handling : Pedro Canoilas