Ideological Cubism
Carlos Amorales

SCHEDULE

Two daily sessions with a 5-minute break between movies. From Wednesday to Saturday.

3:00pm – Amsterdam, 2013 – 20min.
3:25pm – El Hombre Que Hizo Todas Las Cosas Prohibidas, 2014 – 40min.
4:10pm – El No Me Mires, 2015 – 50min.

5:00pm – Amsterdam, 2013 – 20min.
5:25pm – El Hombre Que Hizo Todas Las Cosas Prohibidas, 2014 – 40min.
6:10pm – El No Me Mires, 2015 – 50min.

Hangar presents, for the first time in Portugal, three films by Carlos Amorales. The trilogy, began in 2013 with Amsterdam, followed by El Hombre Que Hizo Todas Las Cosas Prohibidas (The Man Who Did All the Prohibited Things), from 2014 and culminated in 2015 with El No Me Mires (The Eye-Me-Not).

The cycle “Ideological Cubism – Carlos Amorales, a trilogy” is part of one of the programmatic lines of the Hangar – Art and Politics, whose focus is on the possibilities of art as a critical activity.
Throughout this trilogy, suggestions start from the forms of silent film evolving towards color, reflecting on the political importance of the word, on linguistic signs and the political reach of art. Crossing references as disparate as Roberto Bolaño’s novel “Estrella Distante” to the set and costume designs of Kazimir Malevich, Carlos Amorales also revisits political and artistic events in Chile, where he recorded the second film of the trilogy.

Immersing himself in a myth of the Inuit people, which the protagonist becomes invisible in the eyes of European merchants, the artist makes an inquiry on the paradigms of political art. In doing so, he allows himself to use his own symbolic language, that which supports his films and serves as a script for the actors, thus opening the poetic possibilities of narrative.

‘Ideological Cubism’ is also the manifesto created by Carlos Amorales, Elsa-Louise Manceaux and Philipe Eustachon, which promises the possibility of thinking multiple political perspectives simultaneously, and at the same time reaffirms the need to rethink anarchy for the possibilities it holds in creating meaning both inside and outside art.

Programme supported by Direção Geral das Artes/Governo de Portugal and inserted in Lisboa Capital Ibero-americana de Cultura 2017

©Carlos Amorales, El No me Mires, 2015, vídeo HD, color, sound, 49 min.

Biography

Carlos Amorales was born in Mexico City in 1970. He traveled to Amsterdam in 1992 to study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and then at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (1996–97). He has completed residencies with Atelier Calder, Saché, France (2012); Mac/Val, Val-de-Marne, France (2011); and the Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship, Washington, D.C. (2010). Since 2008 Amorales has been a tutor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and member of the Mexican National System of Art Creators.

Amorales’s practice encompasses animation, drawing, installation, video, and performance; he also collaborates with professional animators, composers, designers, musicians—and even wrestlers. Having matured under the influence of both Mexican and European cultures, Amorales frequently explores the commonalities and disparities of the two milieus by juxtaposing their distinctive vocabularies. His work is also deeply personal—reflective of emotional introversion and at times obscure, it journeys into a dark world of fantasy, blurring the line between the real and the imagined.

Amorales has had solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina (2006); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008); Kunsthalle Fredericianum, Kassel, Germany (2009); Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2010); Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Oaxaca (2011); and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2013).

His work was also included in the Venice Biennale (2003); Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2005); Performa, New York (2007); Havana Biennial (2009); and Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013).

Carlos Amorales lives and works in Mexico City.