GIL HEITOR CORTESÃOIf I had a magic carpet

Composed by eight paintings, most of them previously unseen, the exhibition “If I had a magic carpet” develops around a notion of emptyness, that can be not only Sartre's "néant" or Kierkegaard's "angst" (anguish, despair), but also a reflection on the state of art itself, especially concerning its aporias, paradoxes and contradictions. The nothingness of art would then be this place where we meet – it was Marcel Duchamp who, at a symposium (Philadelphia Museum College of Art, March 1961) said: "The great artist of tomorrow will go underground". And it is there, where everything happens, in this void, the we expect a change in the parcels of the problem: if nothing is done, the focus that illuminates the scene will eventually go out. And then: darkness.

Gil Heitor Cortesão (Lisbon 1967) lives and works in Lisbon. He graduated in Painting by the Faculty of Fine-Arts Lisbon in 1990. Among his most recent solo exhibitions are “Late Night Shopping” (Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, 2017), “Second Nature” (Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, 2015) and “Out of Season” (Carvon 12, Dubai, 2015). His work was also shown recently in group shows at institutions such as Fundação PLMJ, Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (Lisbon, 2017), Oliva Creative Factory (São João da Madeira, 2016), Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas (Elvas, 2016), Galeria Laurence Bernard (Geneva, 2015), Centro de Arte Moderna da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon, 2015), Colecção de Arte Contemporânea Arquipélago (São Miguel, Azores, 2015), a AA Contemporary Art Collection (Coimbra, 2015) or Centro Cibeles (Madrid, 2015), to name just a few. His work is represented in the following institutional collections: Fundação ARCO (Madrid), CAM/JAP – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), EDP – Electricidade de Portugal (Lisbon), Colecção Fundação de Serralves (Porto), Colecção António Cachola (Campo Maior), Colecção Associação Industrial Portuguesa (Lisbon), Colecção Fundação Ilídio Pinho (Porto), Colecção PLMJ (Lisbon), Museu da Cidade (Lisbon), Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean – Mudam (Luxemburg), Colección Navacerrada (Spain), Fundación Barrié (A Coruña).