In the piece The Golden Record (All and Everything), a solar system cast in bronze moves endlessly to the sound of 16 voices. The forced rotation of this monumental disk reveals an invisible object, a ninth planet that collides in its course with mathematically aligned stars and draws an eccentric orbit at the surface of the screen. While in Solar Watch, a metal sundial bends a video projection to the presence of its gnomon (the stick of a Solar Watch); the course of the sun is determined by a shadow, governed by time, as if time symbolized a gravitational force and the star was attracted by it. Both video installations exhibit recurrent traits of Alexandre Estrela’s practice, exhibiting an experimental redistribution of references: from connotations in the titles, unorthodox readings of scientific phenomena and obscure examples of art history; to the images, often sleeping within SD cards for long periods of time, until Estrela sets them in motion making the subject of the picture once more autonomous and concrete matter.
Artist’s Bio
Recent solo exhibitions include Métal Hurlant at Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris; Lua Cão (with João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva), a project initiated in 2017 by Galeria Zé Dos Bois in Lisbon, that traveled to the Kunstverein München, and concluded at La Casa Encendida, Madrid in 2018; Knife in the Water, 2018, at Travesía Cuatro, Madrid; Ouro Mouro, 2018, at the Quetzal Art Centre, Vidigueira, Portugal; Baklite, 2017, at CAV Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra, Portugal; Cápsulas de silencio, 2016, within the Fisuras Program, at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; Roda Lume, 2016, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp, M HKA, Belgium; Meio Concreto, 2013, at Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal; Um homem entre quatro paredes, 2013, at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; The Sunspot Circle, 2013, at The Flat Time House, London, UK, among others.Alexandre Estrela is represented by Galería Travesía Cuatro, Madrid. Some of his future shows, taking place in 2019, are: Um Mês Acordado at Indipendenza, Rome; The Powers of Emotion at Centre Pompidou.
Gallery name: Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Address: Oslo Plads 1, Copenhagen
Opening hours: Tue, Fri 12:00 - 18:00, Thu 12:00 - 21:00, Sun 10:00 - 21:00
Open: 30.08.2019 - 17.11.2019