Everything is mysterious and perpetually in motion—that’s what João Maria Gusmão (b.1979) and Pedro Paiva’s (b. 1977) works seem to be suggesting us. A central source of inspiration for the Portuguese artist duo are the surrealist writings of the little-known French author René Daumal (1908-1944), who bemoaned the loss of myth in modern society and devoted himself to the limits of conventional perception and the magic of things.
The title of the exhibition Tem gwef tem gwef dr rr rr is derived from one of his essays, itself a phrase, a strange sound he himself made during one of his experiences of the hereafter, with which he was wont to experiment.
As in Daumal’s work, who negated the boundaries between the mysterious and the rational in his writings, in Gusmão and Paiva’s films, photographs and sculptures knowledge overlaps with surreal, inexplicable apparitions that artistically visualise the impossible and phenomena that cannot actually be experienced. Interconnected in a kind of dreamscape, the exhibited works wittily challenge reason and call our system of knowledge into question.
João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva: Tem gwef tem gwef dr rr rr
10 September to 09 October 2011
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Grabbeplatz 4
D-40213 Düsseldorf
