Mero Espaço: Waltercio Caldas

Any exhibition of Waltercio Caldas (1946) brings new expectations. In the case of Mero Espaço, it is no different, although his work is always renewed over the years. The exhibition, which will open at the Albuquerque Contemporânea Galeria de Arte, on May 28th, at 6pm, proposes to the viewer the construction of a narrative based on the dialogue between each of the works in a given space.

In this new montage, the artist from Rio abolishes the notions of drawing, painting, sculpture and object. Although paintings and drawings are something new in his career, for him, all works have a three-dimensional character and invite the viewer to establish relationships between objects, whether they are made on canvas, paper or in structures made of steel, glass, wood, mirrors and cotton threads.

“Actually, I'm not a painter, I'm not a sculptor, nor am I a draftsman, all these categories have a certain difficulty in sticking to my work, precisely because the work is not about each one of them, but about the relationship between them and what is possible to do when dealing with art”, says the artist. “This is my focus.”

In this sense, the set gains its own temporal dimension, abandoning the idea of “the artist's most recent production” to establish a continuum of his work over more than five decades of activity. For the artist, the exhibition is not the end of the work, but a fundamental characteristic of the work itself.

Waltercio explains his proposal: “I actually build a relationship between the parts that is as important for the exhibition as the parts themselves. That is: I have a diversity of materials that range from drawings, drawings with reliefs, objects that go into sculpture, to paintings. And the relationship between these various procedures is an important aspect for people’s visits.”

As always in his work, the notions of time and space are explored with his own language and formal rigor. Several works, from a three-dimensional perspective, exalt temporality, suggesting movements and displacements in space and provoking tensions, another fundamental mark of his artistic journey.

Waltercio also highlights the need to be present in front of the works, so that the viewer can absorb the construction of the proposed narrative, a fact that, in Mero Espaço, is greatly emphasized. “The exhibition only happens if you are physically present, it is not reproduced, it is not transformed into a video or mobile phone image. It proposes a physical relationship between people and the objects they will see”, points out the artist.

In this sense, the body in front of the works, in a specific narrative construct, brings again the idea of time in space, a “presentification” of the artistic experience without mediations. With this proposition, Waltercio Caldas, once again, questions artistic activity itself and invites the viewer to question themselves about their being in the world.