Fernanda Fragateiro

Presented now by CCB, the exhibition Em Bruto: Relações Comoventes is the result of an invitation to the artist from Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia de Léon, Spain, where the project was on view for the first time in 2022.

This large installation acquires new forms and relationships with architecture each time it is presented. Starting from a complex structure of beams, trestles, and joists that summon notions of spatial reconstruction and reconfiguration, the structure, now redesigned by Fernanda Fragateiro for the space on Floor 0 of the CCB, displays discreetly inscribed titles of works that focus on and are signed by architects who have served as important references in the artist’s work. The physical web created is thus also a web of reflections on architecture, the city, space, and modernity.

For this reason, the exhibition includes a reading room in which spectators can consult the books referred to in the installation, and an introductory room that serves as a propaedeutic for the new piece, composed of a set of elements the artist has come to call Materials Lab.

Here, on a series of tables/boxes, this open series of pieces brings together materials from a wide range of sources (some the product of intense research, others found), including books, articles, chromatic maps, remains of materials used in other works, photographs, and manuscripts that serve to relate her creative process. Their presence creates a map of Fernanda Fragateiro’s aesthetic, political and philosophical concerns, while also revealing clues for the interpretation of her work and making the relationship we establish with it more complex.

Throughout the exhibition halls, the public is thus confronted with the process, motivations, and sculptural outcome of the artist’s work, being able to establish their own judgements and interpretations.

Production: Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia de Léon and Centro Cultural de Belém

Curated by Alfredo Puente.

Exhibition on view until September 10, 2023.