ERNESTO DE SOUSA
EXERCISES OF POETIC COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER AESTHETIC OPERATORS
VA, Edited by Lilou Vidal

Ernesto de Sousa (1921–1988) was a major and multifaceted figure from the Portuguese avant-garde—artist, poet, critic, essayist, curator, editor, filmmaker, and a promoter of experimental ideas and artistic expressions.
Reflecting questions of hierarchy, authorship, and the complexity of framing or dividing within the multiple and complementary practices of Ernesto de Sousa—whose motto “Your Body is My Body, My Body is Your Body” serves as a poetic manifesto—this publication explores the various aspects of his oeuvre (visual, poetical, and theoretical) and his outstanding inventiveness of concepts.

The volume brings together a selection of works, unpublished archives and their translations, and theoretical texts by Ernesto de Sousa, including the first complete translation in English of «Orality, the future of art?» (1968). Richly illustrated, the book reunites an introductory text by Lilou Vidal, two new essays by Paula Parente Pinto and by José Miranda Justo along with a text by Hugo Canoilas.

There was a time when bread was sacred; and in a general sense, all fabricated objects deserved the respect that resulted from (for the conscience of those who used them) concretely diving into their own motivations. Human gestures, like aesthetic objects, were inseparable from their relevant functions. Naturalism prompted us to look at natural and fabricated objects with a vision that was cosmic and indifferent at the same time. The objects, today, object. In the future, objects and gestures will perhaps clothe themselves once again in their lost dignity. The word love, a bit of bread, the letter A will stop being mortal accidents of daily life. Desacralized, they will once again be as decisive as the tiniest brushstroke the painter made on his canvas. And each of these brushstrokes will reveal the structure of the world. Life can then be compared to a vast work of art. Everything will be absolutely aesthetic.
Ernesto de Sousa

Contributors: Hugo Canoilas, Ernesto de Sousa, Tobi Maier, José Miranda Justo, Paula Parente Pinto, Lilou Vidal.

Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition of the centenary of his birth, Ernesto de Sousa, Exercises of Poetic Communication with Other Aesthetic Operators curated by Lilou Vidal at Galerias Municipais in Lisbon (27/11/2021 - 27/02/2022), this monographic book pays tribute to the kaleidoscopic vision of Ernesto de Sousa through an intergenerational, transhistorical dialogic approach, accompanied by an opuscule with works by the participating artists:
José de Almada Negreiros, Oficina Arara, Pedro Barateiro, Isabel Carvalho, Salomé Lamas, Hanne Lippard, Sarah Margnetti, Franklin Vilas Boas Neto, Rosa Ramalho, Nils Alix-Tabeling, Nora Turato, Treffen in Guincho*, Ricardo Valentim.

* Filipe André Alves, Hugo Canoilas, Clothilde, Vasco Futscher, Sophia Hörmann, Fernando Mesquita, Thea Möller, Nikolai Nekh, Sofia Montanha, Pedro Diniz Reis, Maddison Rowe, Andreia Santana, Anna Schachinger.


17x24 cm
320 pag (PR-ENG)
first edition
300 copies

with annex opuscule
40 pag (PR-ENG)
300 copies

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