Tarefas Infinitas: Quando a arte o livro se ilimitam/ Curator: Paulo Pires do Vale

"Title translation: Infinite tasks. When art and book unbind each other

After passing through Lisbon and Paris, the exhibition Infinite Tasks arrives in Brazil in August at the Sesc Research and Training Center and at the Guita and José Mindlin Brasiliana Library.

How does the book put art to the test and how does art put the book to the test? The exhibition Infinite Tasks , which opens on August 8, proposes a reflection on the theme, referring to the infinite dialogue that art and books have been engaged in for centuries.

The first edition took place in 2012 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, curated by professor, essayist, curator and president of the International Association of Art Critics of Portugal, Paulo Pires do Vale . The starting point was the collections of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the Art Library , institutions that perpetuate the work of its founder, the Armenian-born businessman and philanthropist Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), as a collector. Throughout his life, he sought out, researched and acquired exceptional works of art and books, both for their informative content and for their beauty and artistic creativity. In 2015, the exhibition gained a French version, shown in Paris.

Infinite Tasks is not limited to a discussion about books, but about works of art in which books have played a decisive role, with one intention: to investigate what a book is and what it is capable of. The title of the exhibition uses the concept coined by Edmund Husserl in the conference Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie (The crisis of European humanity and philosophy), given in May 1935, to define humanity after the beginning of philosophy.

The exhibition and the book that accompanies it encompass a reflection on the limits – which are constantly challenged and reconfigured – of art and the book to come. Paulo Pires do Vale the exhibition curator is the author of the Preface and of the five essays in the same number of the exhibition sections: With infinity in your hands; The fracture and the explosion: coming in / going out; Infinite line: never-ending story; Everything exists to become part of a book; The fire and the book to come. The volume comprises also the following contributions: Brief notes on the book, by Gonçalo M. Tavares; The book, spiritual instrument by Mallarmé, translated by Michael Gibbs, and a facsimile version of Lenz by Rodney Graham, courtesy of the artist; and a bibliography selected by Ana Barata.

The starting points for this multiple journey, this ‘wandering’, as quoted by the exhibition curator, were the collections of the Gulbenkian Museum and the Art Library’s, institutions that carry on the task of collecting initiated by the founder, to which many other works were added from Portuguese and international collections, comprising books, sculpture, installation, painting and films."

Portugese