André GOMES (1951)

With a degree in philosophy from the University of Lisbon, André Gomes (Lisbon, 1951) has systematically used the medium of photography as privileged territory to question the subject, and the construction of its identity and position in the world. André Gomes uses an ontological approach based as much on the exploration of a private and self-referential universe, as on a vast web of encounters external to it.

André Gomes moves away from using photography as an instrument to capture a moment, and from the idea of the image as a single moment taken from reality. His method is to collect everyday objects and to cut, collage, and juxtapose these already existing images to create a fragmented and fictional narrative that is intentionally left open, and which frequently represents the artist himself. From literature to religion, cinema to theatre, advertising to video or painting, Gomes’ discourse passes through these many languages and becomes a device of multiplicity where the images are not just defined by literal registers. Rather, they belong to a further unifying order, one of tensions that emerge from the confrontation between each element and the underlying commentary, which is sometimes sharp and ironical. If, in the 1970s, his photographic compositions were built from a negotiation between images, then by end of the 1980s these concerns were enlarged by positioning, side by side, the allegorical evocation of a historical and religious past, and a possible equivalent for it today.

The Verbum et Cineres series of 1991, is set against the background of a televised war between order and chaos. In it mythological and religious narratives blend together with buildings and people, animals and objects, in a sequence of tragic images that contain excess as well as austerity (with references to the shroud and an attempt at reconciliation between the East and the West). The same mood is also present in A Invenção da Cruz (Invention of the Cross) displayed at the Museu de História Natural (Museum of Natural History) in 1992. This work consists of several panels in the format of a great altarpiece, relating to the Crucifixion. Here we discover a tension between the human suffering (in the tortured, erotic tension of the bodies) of the two convicts and the sacrificial serenity of Christ embracing the cross.

André Gomes expresses a continuous concern in all of his exhibits with the installation of his works. The images unveil many paths that interact with that of the viewer. With the work A Carreira de um Libertino (The Career of a Libertine) a dichotomous dialogue is recreated between the private sphere, where fantasies are discovered in mirror reflections, and the baroque expression of a world made into a stage of contradictions.

In Iluminações (Illuminations), of 1996, the proximity to the literary world is evinced. As we can see in this photograph, which belongs to the collection of the Centro de Arte Moderna Azeredo Perdigão, André Gomes manipulates (using a mounting process) objects, images, and memories from various sources (from the private snapshot to cinema, advertising, or the history of art) and reveals the method of his work by leaving the tools of his interference visible. He recreates in the following works a daily life populated by iconic figures, and projects them as progressively purified images.

In the series No Círculo de Formas (Circle of Forms) of 2000, and Rotação (Rotation) and Quase (Almost) of 2003, the gaze is engaged in the pure discovery of forms. There are no more suspended moments preserved from an identifiable reality, but a stripped stage set, which captivates the eye as if it reordered the visible world. One line structures that enigmatic architecture. Circular, it sustains undefined limits, or it projects itself, in volume, in an abstract presence reinforced by light. Through light and shadow, transparency and opacity, texture and reflection, the photograph moves away from the subject matter in order to provide a space to quietly meditate on it.

From a paper folded in on itself and photographed from several different angles, André Gomes creates a perceptual game that emphasises the real and the illusory, proximity and distance, the exterior and the interior, that which is open and closed, the visible and the ideal. Gomes uses a profusion of elements that seem to repeat and reveal themselves to the gaze of the viewer.

ANA RUIVO