João Penalva

Trondheim kunstmuseum is proud to present the first exhibition of João Penalva’s work in Norway. The exhibition will feature recent works, including his major installation Men Asleep (2012), shown for the first time in a European institutional setting, and the new work People On Air (2014).

A recurring theme in Penalva’s work is the exhibition as a medium and its suggestive potential. Carefully selected objects and photographs are presented with captions and narrative texts, which soon make the viewer wary of their authenticity, and ultimately the authenticity of what is being displayed. This is achieved by subtle means, usually in the accompanying texts. The generous use of anecdote in the description of an object’s provenance can gradually become implausible, as in the text accompanying Monument (2011), or threaten to occlude the depicted object as in the series Display Stands (2011).

The objects in Penalva’s works are often the equipment used in different kinds of presentations: display stands, photographic apparatus, theatre costumes and light projectors. In other works the subjects seem to have stumbled into the framework of display: furniture, people in found photographs and, in one work in the exhibition, an early 20th-century photograph of a pig shown as a 16mm film.

Men Asleep (2012) is a double slide projection of found photographs of men who have fallen asleep in public, at family gatherings or among friends. A loud soundtrack of rain and thunder accompanies these quiet images, which the viewer is invited to see while lounging on worn sofas and armchairs. Most of the photographs have a dated air and seem to have been taken either in a spirit of fondness or friendly mockery. “… every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably,” Walter Benjamin wrote in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” It is as if Penalva has snatched his images and objects from the brink of that disappearing, and woven new narratives around them to save them.

João Penalva lives and works in London. He represented Portugal in the XXIII Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, 1996; and in the XLIX Biennale di Venezia, 2001. He has also exhibited in the Berlin Biennale 2, 2001; and the Biennale of Sydney, 2002. Solo institutional exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre, London, and Tramway, Glasgow, 2000; The Power Plant, Toronto, 2003; Serralves Museum, Oporto, and Ludwig Museum Budapest, 2005; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2006; Lunds Konsthall, Lund, 2010; Centro de Arte Moderna, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 2011.

A selection of Penalva’s films will be screened at Nova Cinema, Trondheim:

17 November, 6pm

The Roar of Lions (2007), The White Nightingale (2005), and 336 PEK (336 Rivers) (1998)

24 November, 6pm

Kitsune (The Spirit of the Fox) (2001) and The Bell-Ringer (2005)

On the occasion of João Penalva’s exhibition, Trondheim kunstmuseum will publish a book designed by the artist.