Rui Freire – Fine Art Gallery presents The Broken Ear, the latest exhibition by Manuel Caldeira (b. 1979, Portugal), whose sculptural practice has been gaining recognition for its investigation into materiality, the symbolism of objects, and their cultural resonances. In this exhibition, the artist expands his research on form and reference, materializing a sculptural vocabulary in which ceramics assert themselves as a speculative field for exploring time, memory, and processes of appropriation.
The exhibition title, inspired by The Broken Ear (1937) from The Adventures of Tintin, suggests a play of displacements and duplications: between the matrix and the copy, the trace and the reconstruction, the real and the simulated. The ear, as both an organic structure and a visual sign, becomes a metaphor for listening and transmission, but also for failure, loss, and fragmentation. Exploring the tensions between presence and absence, Caldeira offers a reading in which the sculptural object operates as both an archaeological remnant and a contemporary commentary.
His approach to ceramics rejects decorative neutrality, investing in textures and patinas that activate an imaginary space between the primitive and the postmodern. The surfaces, treated with tactile precision and subtle tonalities, oscillate between raw physicality and a finish that evokes ethnographic objects or archaeological finds. The result is a collection of pieces that, while evoking ritual artifacts, also deconstruct traditional narratives surrounding their origin and value.
The spatial arrangement of the sculptures reinforces their performative presence, creating a mise-en-scène where objects engage in dialogue with one another and with the viewer. Their grouping accentuates the interplay between singularity and multiplicity, the auratic and the reproducible, highlighting the inherent ambiguity of their inscription within the contemporary art circuit.
With The Broken Ear, Manuel Caldeira offers a speculative reflection on the status of the object, activating its symbolic charge and opening the way for new interpretations of memory, appropriation, and displacement.
Opening hours:
From Tuesday to Saturday
from 11 am to 1 pm ( by appointment only)
from 2 pm to 7 pm
