MANUEL FURTADO DOS SANTOS – NO©
We have the pleasure to exhibit NO © by Manuel Furtado dos Santos.
Press Release
“NO©”has copyrights
Manuel Furtado dos Santos is the responsible artist for the next show at Amoreiras Space
“NO©” is the most recent exhibition of Edge Arts – Contemporary Art and will open on 26th September, running until 21st November. Manuel Furtado dos Santos did a MA at Installation, at the Central Saint Martins – University of Arts.
Reflecting about intellectual propriety and copyrights the two installations are placed separately, one is at the Atrium of Amoreiras Space and the other is at The Medeiros e Almeida Foundation. “NO©” offers a nostalgic perspective of a certain type of technology, defined by digitals. The show is an investigation about the 20th century analogical origins of Science and it invites visitors enter on a journey to find out about archaic inventions from our ancestors’ time. Those inventions, which had a brief text description and a diagram/print, had never been copyrighted and its own rights, given by their patents, had already expired. For that reason, the artist appropriates these inventions and adds them mixed and painting techniques, light, canvas and digital work in order to represent our analogical ancestry.
“This investigation lead me to conclude that our digital existence (all we post on the internet) is an permanent tattoo that hunts us. Everything that has been done on that world made of modern Gods and Heroes transcends that permanence, it almost touches the eternity. Nowadays likely before, everything we do becomes definitely part of what we are and it will only vanish when the last memories of ourselves disappear.” Says Manuel Furtado dos Santos.
The exhibition is composed by several pieces, such as printed images that are overlapped by layers of ink and varnish or installations of abstract elements that reflect the supreme power of technology. The artist’s work demonstrates a contrast between the timeless dimension of previous creators, and the frenetic records that follow the vertiginous evolution of today’s technology.
Biography
Manuel Furtado dos Santos
Manuel Furtado dos Santos did a BA in Sculpture at the Coventry University, in 2005, and a MA in Installation at the Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, in London (2007). He also studied at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon’s University and at the Institute Superior Técnico. Currently, he continues developing teaching activities on theoretical and practical level, at Arte Ilimitada Fine Art School.
The artist shows regularly in Portugal (he was represented by Sopro Gallery between the years of 2008 and 2012), England and recently outside of Europe through the collective and itinerant show called “Never Mind the Space Between Us” (Peking in July 2013 and soon Rio Janeiro). The most relevant previous shows are: “Elementa” (Sopro Gallery, 2011),”White Garden” (Pavilhão 28, 2010),”Pós-“(Sopro Gallery, 2009),”Retorno” (Arte Contempo, 2008), “Central Saint Martins’ MA Show” (London, 2007), “11.472” (Barge House, London, 2007), “Fresh Meat” (Coventry, 2006) and “voiD”(Birmingham, 2005).
The author has been developing large scale projects, either to private or public spaces, not only in painting area (Warwick Science Park, 2005), but also in sculpture, photography and also architectonical interventions. Works and lives in Lisbon in a space refurbished by himself since January 2013.