Solar opens 'Under the Sign of the Tyre', by Gustavo Sumpta, an exhibition and performance cycle

Gustavo Sumpta's work assumes various plastic forms, from sculpture to installation, through performative and videographic actions. The exhibition presented at Solar – from September 17 to November 5, 2022 – is constructed from several works, some of them large-scale pieces, that structure the physical and emotional space of the gallery.

The common point of Sumpta's work is in the way he unites two topics: air, present in the tyres and inner tubes, and the ground, on which these elements settle, allowing, by its circularity, movement to happen. His themes are associated with loss and resistance, with failure and its exactness, with foresight and its deceptive character.
This is the reason – using the words of Delfim Sardo, who signed the curatorial text – for the name of the exhibition: under the sign of the tyre, of pneuma, of the enormous weight resting on air...

The exhibition is promoted by Curtas Metragens CRL, responsible for the organization of  Curtas Vila do Conde – International Film Festival, in partnership with Circular – Performing Arts Festival, with the support of Vila do Conde City Council and Direção-Geral das Artes.


<< The idea of stretching a rope until its tension can be excessive and break is inseparable from its consequence: in the ricochet of its halves there is a hiss that foreshadows a whiplash, an impact that produces damage and a physical consequence on any target.
The same can be said of any device of uncertain balance, like a seesaw: every movement in a certain direction necessarily implies an opposite movement, and so on until the energy of the original movement is dissipated. [...]
In all these movements, in the flow of their causes and consequences, there is a correlation of forces, of tensions and refluxes guided by the verticality of gravity, by the attraction towards the ground. This tension towards the ground, which wears down all horizontal movement, is, at least for humans, the sign of the inevitability of the end, the announcement or permanent reminder that everything is drawn downwards and that finitude is the destiny of movement.
This is Gustavo Sumpta's raw material in the various plastic forms he develops, from sculpture to installation and the various actions he has been carrying out. >>
– Delfim Sardo

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· Opening
17.09.2022 · 16:00

· Regular hours
Seg—Sáb/Mon—Sat
14:00—18:30

· Guided tour
18.09.2022 · 17:45
inscrição / registration: solar@curtas.pt·

· Performances
Herdeiro Universal · 17.09.2022 · 17:00
Pó de Lâmpada · 24.09.2022 · 18:00
Amigo do meu amigo não é meu amigo · 5.11.2022 · 17:00

[free entrance]

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Gustavo Sumpta (Luanda, 1970) is a performer, visual artist and film actor.
As performer and author, he worked with the choreographer João Fiadeiro from 2002 to 2008, participating in Existência, Para onde vai a luz quando se apaga and Case Study.
As visual artist and performer, his recent performances include Herdeiro Universal (DAMAS, Lisbon, 2022), Denominação de Origem Controlada (BOCA Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, 2022), Luto (Galeria da Casa A. Molder, Lisbon, 2020), Sempre-em-Pé (Festival Temps D'Images, Centro Cultural das Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Lisbon, 2020), O Melhor Mundo Possível and Primeira lição de Voo (Summer Gardens, ZDB / Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 2022), Levantar o Mundo (Festival Cumplicidades, Culturgest, Lisbon; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, 2020; Anozero, Coimbra, 2017), Pó de Lampada (Pó de Lâmpada Festival Turbine Hall, Switzerland, 2015), among many others.
In cinema, he has worked with Ben Rivers and Gabriel Abrantes, João Botelho, João Nuno Pinto, Manuel Mozos, Luís Costa, Luís Galvão Teles, Pedro Magano, Pedro Costa, Tiago Guedes, Vasco Saltão, José Nascimento, Carlos Conceição, Rodrigo Areias, Paulo Abreu and Eduardo Brito, among others.