Rita Sobral Campos
15 Mar - 11 May 2013
Neon Medieval - Rita Sobral Campos, Galerie Andreas Huber, 15.3.2013 - 11.5.2013, Vienna, Installation view, Photo: Georg Petermichl
RITA SOBRAL CAMPOS
Neon Medieval
15 March - 11 May 2013
The exhibition “Neon Medieval,” which can be seen at the Galerie Andreas Huber starting on March 14, shows new works by the young artist Rita Sobral Campos.
The films and sculptures, prepared especially for “Neon Medieval,” represent a moment in the narrative that Sobral Campos has conceived around Frederik: that moment in which Frederik enlists the advice of five mutually conflicting heresies. Each of these heresies, as well as Frederik himself, is presented in animations using short texts, and given visual form by various shapes and symbols. Wooden sculptures, so-called foot soldiers, serve to represent and characterize each teaching.
Inspired and enthused by the figures of Friedrich II and medieval culture, Sobral Campos spins a new story. She transforms the historical, transferring it into a fiction with no defined time frame. Like most of her works, the work exhibited here is based on a complex narrative that draws on a broad philosophical and historical context. Current discussion plays a role as well, such as references to physics or the neurosciences. The six 16mm films and four wooden sculptures in the exhibition “Neon Medieval” are a manifestation of one step of this narration. The work will be developed further and in its next presentation will end up at another point and in another form.
Installations, sculptures, drawings, animations, texts, books: in her multimedia projects and obsessive research, Rita Sobral Campos finds the possibilities to present her work in various media. The exhibits here, accompanied by short texts and glossaries, are reminiscent of science fiction or pseudo-scientific fantasy.
In her last project, “For the Madman the Neighbor is Himself,” which was two years in the making, she charted the “Cephalic Wars” and their protagonist Mr. Leader. Newsreels and short documentaries, a journal by Mr. Leader, and academic studies are simultaneously both the invention and the analysis of the same event. “In some ways it is a meditation on fate and free will,” writes the editor of the project’s book. “For the Madman the Neighbor is Himself,” which is the culmination of these examinations, has been published by Sputnik Press.
Full of references to current political developments, philosophical strains, and historical and mythological characters, Sobral Campos’s works take on the appearance of a multi-branched network–in which humorous details are revealed to attentive viewers.
Rita Sobral Campos, born in 1982, lives and works in New York City.
Neon Medieval
15 March - 11 May 2013
The exhibition “Neon Medieval,” which can be seen at the Galerie Andreas Huber starting on March 14, shows new works by the young artist Rita Sobral Campos.
The films and sculptures, prepared especially for “Neon Medieval,” represent a moment in the narrative that Sobral Campos has conceived around Frederik: that moment in which Frederik enlists the advice of five mutually conflicting heresies. Each of these heresies, as well as Frederik himself, is presented in animations using short texts, and given visual form by various shapes and symbols. Wooden sculptures, so-called foot soldiers, serve to represent and characterize each teaching.
Inspired and enthused by the figures of Friedrich II and medieval culture, Sobral Campos spins a new story. She transforms the historical, transferring it into a fiction with no defined time frame. Like most of her works, the work exhibited here is based on a complex narrative that draws on a broad philosophical and historical context. Current discussion plays a role as well, such as references to physics or the neurosciences. The six 16mm films and four wooden sculptures in the exhibition “Neon Medieval” are a manifestation of one step of this narration. The work will be developed further and in its next presentation will end up at another point and in another form.
Installations, sculptures, drawings, animations, texts, books: in her multimedia projects and obsessive research, Rita Sobral Campos finds the possibilities to present her work in various media. The exhibits here, accompanied by short texts and glossaries, are reminiscent of science fiction or pseudo-scientific fantasy.
In her last project, “For the Madman the Neighbor is Himself,” which was two years in the making, she charted the “Cephalic Wars” and their protagonist Mr. Leader. Newsreels and short documentaries, a journal by Mr. Leader, and academic studies are simultaneously both the invention and the analysis of the same event. “In some ways it is a meditation on fate and free will,” writes the editor of the project’s book. “For the Madman the Neighbor is Himself,” which is the culmination of these examinations, has been published by Sputnik Press.
Full of references to current political developments, philosophical strains, and historical and mythological characters, Sobral Campos’s works take on the appearance of a multi-branched network–in which humorous details are revealed to attentive viewers.
Rita Sobral Campos, born in 1982, lives and works in New York City.