Lisbon Blog

Until the 22^nd of January 2012, Chiado Museum in Lisbon exhibits the video- art Marquise, 2007 by the French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. The exhibition is an interesting glance at the visual creation by Gonzalez-Foerster, artist who has been distinguished herself for having a sophisticated view to permanent changes in perceptions of space.

The work is a video, recorded on the ground floor of the Pavilion, at the First Biennial of Sao Paulo (1951), which was designed by the famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Through it, the artist ventures into the transmutation of perceptions in memory, leading to a simple reflection of how spaces are recalled, and if what its was considered modern it is still modern today. These simple questions make us think about the superposition our eyes as time goes on and how it is shaping our perceptions. The video is presented in DVD, English spoken and lasts 5 minutes.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster was born in 1965 in Strasbourg, France. She studied fine arts at École de Beaux Arts de Grenoble, right after that she studied at the École du Magasin, at the National Center of Contemporary Art in the city and finally at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts in Paris. Her work has been developed mainly through the use of film photography; she also has interesting facilities and has entered in the net-art, architecture and fashion.

In her works, Gonzalez-Foerster takes places that evoke emotions to create a connection with the viewer and move him to think about the past, with a look from the present.

Her first works were done inspired on the 90′s. In them she is identified with the vision of space and evocations, especially in her installation “chambers”, or small rooms, in which she applies faded marks that suggest a situation that happened and remains only the memory of those strokes. Memory, presence and space are the permanent concerns of aesthetic representation.

Today with a mature work, Gonzalez-Foerster has become a benchmark for the European art scene. Her work The Immaterial (1985), presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has contributed to this. This work caused a stir by sparking intellectual discussions about new media to represent ideas, since the presentation included the philosopher Jacques Derrida and instead of paintings or sculptures was an open space where the viewer could move between letters and texts.

Her career is full of milestones, in 2001; she won the RATP competition with a project for the refurbishment of the subway Monee Nouvelle station, the following year her work was awarded with the Marcel Duchamp Award. She has participated in Documenta 11 (2002), the Bienal de Sao Paulo 27 (2006) and Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007).

For more information http://www.museudochiado-ipmuseus.pt/en/node/1189

Nancy Guzman

One solution to ease the end-of-the-year stress is to spend some days in apartments in Lisbon and focus on the good landscapes; the city has to offer during January. So come and enjoy this intriguing work by Gonzalez-Foerster.

Contact Me 

Translated by: Hans
Contact Me