Exhibition “The Sum of the Parts” by Cruzes + Vargas = 3
Patent from May 14 to June 30
Inauguration: May 14, 5:00 PM
Hours: Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 18:00
Place: LAC – Laboratório de Actividades Criativas
Free entry
Synopsis
“The whole is greater than the mere sum of its parts.”
Cruzes + Vargas = 3 is an artistic project in which it is possible to identify unfoldings of this proposition. The collaboration between Ricardo Cruzes, artist, and Rui Vargas, architect, results in plastic forms structured by four hands, not easily detecting where the trace of one ends and the creative streak of the other begins. They do not, however, totally erase the marks of confrontation and awareness of the difference in knowledge, experience, methodologies and professional paths of each, formulating an important metaphor of the meeting of cultures, by proving the constructive fruitfulness of the tension between two (or more) individual parts, which results in a third element, an “other”, with its own characteristics and innovative meanings, greater than the addition A + B. With the Algarve sea in the landscape, in particular the view that the city of Lagos (once the Islamic Zawaia) offers and opens to the (real and imaginary) journey, and with the influences that Vargas brings from his regular professional contact with people from the Middle East – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai -, visible in motifs patterns and colors, reminiscent of Bedouin women’s tapestries, Cruzes and Vargas find in the historical connection between Arab-Islamic and Portuguese cultures narrative substance to explore, compose and communicate the creative potential inherent in artistic collaboration and intercultural dialogue. The crossing of Vargas’ experience in the field of Architecture and his knowledge of traditional and modern Islamic architecture, and Cruzes’ mastery of different artistic principles, materials and techniques, is evident in the conceptions of volume and space perceived in his pieces, at the level of shapes – with the figure of the cube, three-dimensional, planimetric and negative, deserving emphasis -, of the places and environments that the pieces occupy – such as the beach, which confers new sensorial and semantic dimensions to the artistic object at the same time as it accentuates its ephemerality -, the observation angles created by the photographic register – which produces horizontal and vertical coordinates -, or even at the level of performance – with the presence of a human, female body, hidden by black niqab, which at times accentuates the ephemeral character of the plastic installation and at others contributes to intensify the conflict between tradition and freedom, between real and ideal.
But in spite of and before any interpretation, in the work of Cruzes + Vargas one feels first the intuition, the play of imagination and the pleasure of experimentation, the creative energy that comes from dialogue, polyphony, and the path they make between ideas.
Biography
Cruzes
Academic Qualifications: 1998 – Degree in Painting-Design-Vertent, by ARCA-EUAC; Escola Universitária das Artes de Coimbra 1999 – Course on software for Graphic Design – Macintosh – by FLAG Lisbon 2001 – Course on Web Design by ETIC – Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação de Lisboa.
Experience: Conception, management and production of creative projects encompassing the multidisciplines of design, since 1998; Guest speaker at the National Archaeological Museum for the implementation of the Museum’s site, awarded by UNESCO in 2002. Creative direction in Web | Design | New Media projects; Intensification of artistic/plastic activity since 2005 with public demonstrations from 2006 on.
Vargas
Rui Miguel Vargas was born in Faro 1976 and graduated in 2000 from ISMAT. During his studies he also attended the Milan Polytechnic Institute for a period of 2 years. He created the studio ORV Arquitectura in Faro in partnership with Osvaldo Sousa which was extinguished in 2011 and founded the AAP (Associated Architects Partnership) which he coordinates with his partners and currently has offices in Portugal and Kuwait which he coordinates with his partners. Currently with offices in Almancil, Lisbon and Kuwait where he does most of his work in Kuwait and recently in Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai. His work as an architect has been published in specialized magazines and exhibitions
