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NUNO ALEXANDRE FERREIRA

STATEMENT

The artistic career of Nuno Alexandre Ferreira has evolved in such a way that, most of the time, he was the one who motivated his artistic reflections and concerns, the preferred icon of his images. So much so that one of the subjects he is most preoccupied with is the personality cult, the popularity or passion inspired by some people in the media. So, there are a number of works where this artist puts himself in the situation of these popular figures to recreate and honour them, also perhaps to bring them closer and make them more vulnerable, or to imitate them, as a real possibility to reach the marvellous Mt. Olympus of fame.
(...)

Along these lines we find the photographs “Kurt (you know you are right)”, 2004 e “Joe (little)”, 2004, in which he portrays himself as Kurt Cobain, the rock star who died of an overdose or as Joe Dallessandro, the famous fetish actor of Warhol’s films, to whom, by the way, Ferreira bears a striking physical resemblance - to choose between these two personalities (like in the case of Madonna, or Kate Moss), is quite symptomatic of our purpose - owing to their meaning, aesthetics, their intrinsic beauty and the paradoxical way they carry out their role in society - these modern heroes - these men fetishes, with their ambiguous, strange and perverse erotic fascination, have a strong sense of homoeroticism, clearly showing the qualities of what is queer.
(...)

Works done for publicity are an essential part of the iconographic repertoire of Nuno Alexandre, to the point that he transforms himself into the model Kate Moss and recreates the ad for a perfume for men called “Obsession” made by the fashion house Calvin Klein. The famous ambiguity of the photograph itself depicing a boy-girl, who with his/her back turned to the spectator, offers himself/herself up to the possible obsessions of the spectator, are taken up and embodied by Ferreira, who in “Obsession (for men)”, 2000, is prepared to create all kinds of obsessions in men.

This piece clearly shows the full range of the potential for upsetting and destabilising masculine roles, which, on the other hand was always the intent of the work of Nuno Alexandre (I am reminded of “Crying game”, 1998, with the artist himself crying on-screen or in the video “Bride”, 2001, where like a dervish monk dressed in a wedding gown, he dances on a knitted bedspread, perhaps part of the trousseau). A kind of masculinity which, he now examines, making use of gay pornography, material that is widely used in the daily life of millions of people all over the world, but loaded with symbols of morality, rejected, denigrated and stigmatised by gay orthodoxy. And precisely for this reason, it is of utmost interest to queer art and culture, in the sense that it offers possibilities without taking into account the transgression of genders, identities, narratives, sexualities, spaces, bodies and in short, their affections. An ideological and cultural space so marked and so controversial that it has invariably become material that is tempting to reconstruct and to be reviewed in art. Nuno Alexandre Ferreira is well aware of it, and for this reason “A Luta”, 2004, “Ecstasy”, 2005, and “Trip”, 2005, arise from the manipulation of pornographic material. They are works whose magic resides in the action in slow motion and the repetition of a very brief moment of the film which here takes on an unusual and surprising artistic beauty. These nude men at play in what appears to be dressing rooms in “A Luta”, or washing a car with their bodies in “Trip”, or close-ups of the faces of men, somewhere between religious, sexual or chemically induced ecstasy are also so deeply moving as to be devastating, and are right on the mark as a reflection on masculinity, camaraderie or desire between men.
(...)

Xosé Buxán Bran
parts of the text published in the catalogue from the exhibition “Radicais Libres”, Auditorio de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela , Spain , 2005.

Nasceu em Torres Vedras em 1973. Vive e trabalha em Lisboa.

FORMAÇÃO:
Curso de Sociologia, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa.

BOLSAS:
2002 AcecaLesArts, (residência), Estrasburgo, França.
2004 Bolseiro do Centro Nacional de Cultura, Lisboa.

EXPOSIÇÕES INDIVIDUAIS:
2005 Colecção, alterarte, Universidade de Vigo, Campus de Ourense, Espanha. (cat.)
2005 Tu sabes que tens razão, Maus Hábitos, Porto, Portugal.
2003 Brevemente, projecto para ecrãs publicitários, Lisboa, Portugal.
2002 Os Hipólitos, Lugar Comum, Oeiras, Portugal.
2001 Strike The Pose, Módulo-Centro Difusor de Arte, Porto, Portugal.

EXPOSIÇÕES COLECTIVAS :
2005 Radicais Livres, Auditorio de Galiza, Santiago de Compostela, Espanha. (cat.)
2004 Quartel - Arte Trabalho Revolução, Salão Olímpico, Porto, Portugal.
2004 Abanque, Loja Mousse, Lisboa, Portugal.
2003 Made in the World of Art, Sarajevo Winter Festival 2003, Sarajevo , Bósnia.
2002 Os Quatro Elementos, Museu da Pedra, Cantanhede, Portugal. (cat.)
2002 Arte-Público, Culturgest, Lisboa, Portugal. 2002 Expect The World - moi non
        plus (video screening), Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Alemanha e Museu de
         Arte Contemporânea do Chiado, Lisboa, Portugal.
2002 1+1+1+1+1... I Wanna Be Your Dog, Galerie Stimultania, Estrasburgo, França.
2002 Arte-Público, Biblioteca do Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto e
         Culturgest, Lisboa, Portugal.
2001 1+1+1+1+1... Pique Nique, Sintra Museu de Arte Moderna, Sintra, Portugal.
2001 URBANLAB.bienal da Maia-shortcut, antiga fábrica da FIMAI, Maia, Portugal.
2001 Arte-Público, Jornal "Público", 10 de Fevereiro de 2001
2000 Sister Spaces, Galeria ZDB/Southern Exposure, São Francisco, E.U.A.
2000 Festival W.A.Y.-Who Are You?, Frágil-Lux, Lisboa, Portugal.
2000 Things We Do, OutArt2000, Arthouse, Dublin, Irlanda. (cat.)
2000 Alquimias, Convento de S. Francisco, Coimbra, Portugal. (cat.)
2000 Try To Be More Accommodating(We Love Our Audience), W.C.container,
         Artes em Partes, Porto, Portugal.
2000 NonStopOpening-Lisboa, Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisboa, Portugal.
1999 After-Eight, Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisboa, Portugal.
1999 Visioni di Futuro, Bienal de Jovens Criadores da Europa e do Mediterrâneo,
         Roma, Itália. (cat.)
1998 Jovens Criadores 98, Aveiro, Portugal. (cat.)

COMISSARIADOS:
2000 NonStopOpening – Lisboa, Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisboa, Portugal.
2002 Under Surveillance/Sob Vigilância, Festival de Imagem de Oeiras, Lugar Comum, Oeiras, Portugal.  

LINKS:

http://www.anamnese.pt

http://www.vicplanou.uvigo.es