Curated by Giuseppe Ottavianelli
Critical essay by Miguel Moore
±Mais Menos± is an art project by Portuguese visual artist Miguel Januário (b. 1981) that began in 2005. Offering a critical reflection on contemporary societies, the work of Januário conducts a clinical dissection of reality conceptually reduced in its opposites: more/less, positive/negative, black/white. Under the ±Mais Menos± banner, the artist has produced work in a variety of media – from video to sculptural installations, from painting to performance. Besides numerous public art interventions in several countries, the project has also been showcased in solo and group exhibitions: Vera Cortês Gallery (Lisbon, 2010), MACE–Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas (Elvas, 2011, 2014), Underdogs Gallery (Lisbon, 2013, 2014, 2015), Caixa Cultural (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasilia, 2014), Museu do Côa (Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 2015), Centro de Arte Contemporânea Graça Morais (Bragança, 2015), MUDE–Museu do Design e da Moda (Lisbon, 2016), MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Rome, 2016), and leading art festivals and events such as Walk & Talk Festival (São Miguel, Azores, 2011), Guimarães European Capital of Culture (Guimarães, 2012), La Tour Paris 13 (Paris, 2013), Nuart Festival (Stavanger, 2014), and Forgotten Project (Rome, 2016). The artistic research of Januário has also been the subject of two TED talks, at TEDxLuanda (Luanda, 2014) and TEDxPorto (Porto, 2015).
Wunderkammern presented for the first time the Portuguese artist Miguel Januário, with the solo show “State of Minds”. Developed from the project ±Mais Menos±, the exhibition focused on the social, political and economic current situation, developing problematic aspects such as the ideological crisis affecting liberal democracies and their guiding principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity; the role of the media and their mission; the tragic refugee crises which was sadly juxtaposed to the brutality of a paradoxical system that increasingly demands open markets and closed borders. The exhibition was presented in four interconnected segments, representing current themes of great relevance for the artist: politics, media, borders and thought. Each theme had been developed to occupy a different room of the gallery through multiple supports – from participatory installations, where viewers had an active role to provocative pieces realized with torn electoral posters and molded plastic to his famous, sacrilegious “streetments”.
INSTITUTIONAL PATRONAGE
Municipio Roma V
IPSAR
CULTURAL PARTNER
IED – Istituto Europeo di Design
