FRIEZE New York
05.05.2021
09.05.2021

A 16 mm black and white film (consisting of a fixed shot of the remains of fourteenth century wall within a Lisbon shopping mall) is projected on a bronze astronaut’s helmet visor – a replica of those worn by the crew of the Apollo 11 mission, and an evocation of Armstrong’s first words as they landed on the visible side of the Moon. Here, the fascination with the Moon, the celestial body that stands the closest to our cosmic desire for conquest, is akin to the nostalgia of the ruin reflected on the mirrors of the modern building to reconcile the two times in an installation that is also a gesture of continuity.  Like in previous works by the artists, the manipulation of time, and the juxtaposing of stories and fictions, is applied to transform meanings and sow these intercommunicating, anachronical connections like seeds. In that sense, although the black helmet corresponds to an industrially manufactured contemporary object, it is replicated without resorting to mechanical or digital means, as it also heralds a precedent in Pavaõ’s formal options: the manuality of sculpture  . It is curious to think of these ancestral techniques (such as bronze casting, already employed in Egypt) and materials (…) which are associated with the manufacturing of the first human utensils and which, in th which, in this context, point to another layer to this possible trajectory towards a return to the future.

Carolina Trigueiros