Break a leg: Manuel Caldeira

We are pleased to announce Break a Leg, Manuel Caldeira's first solo exhibition in the gallery. It is also the first time that the artist publicly presents his painting work. The opening will take place on September 19th, with free admission and extended hours between 2 pm-8 pm, respecting the indications of the DGS to control the epidemic Covid-19.

The exhibition presents the result of Manuel Caldeira's most recent research in Painting. This medium, although treated by Manuel Caldeira on several occasions in the past, had never been the object of a solo show until today.

The selection of paintings presented reflects the pictorial concerns that Manuel Caldeira has deepened in recent years and arise from the drawing exhibitions - Red as Scarlet White as Snow, presented in 2019 at Giefarte and Spettacolo, 2017, at Galeria João Esteves de Oliveira, both in Lisbon. But also from a series of sculptures wisely constructed of precarious equilibriums using a combination of unusual materials, which resulted in a pertinent dialogue with the exhibition space of the EDP Foundation, in 2015, the year in which Manuel Caldeira was a finalist for the EDP New Artists Award.

The process of construction of the paintings we present reveals the artist's well-known interest in minimal forms, in the creation of illusory and scenic spaces using material economy and the wise use of vibrant color, or as João Pinharanda mentions in a text of his authorship (reproduced in the exhibition catalog Red as Scarlet White as Snow, Giefarte, 2015) about the artist's work:

"a desire for construction and architecture that manifests itself both in drawing and sculpture, both in the evocation and simulation of plants, elevations and models, and in the simulation and evocation of choreographies of the gesture and the body, which is exposed in the tension between the object, the body and its abstractions, between the games of lines, colors and their spaces, which is born of the doubt between form and background generated by the cutout, which invests its effectiveness in the fragile balance between symmetry and dissimetry, between filling and emptying.“

Break a Leg, was the title chosen by the artist for this exhibition. The expression, which began to be heard in the 16th century, is still used today as a vote addressed to actors to wish them good luck, especially on opening days of new shows.