Oporto

farO apresenta nas Noites de Verão da Filho Único

Ernest Gusella, Connecticut Papoose, 1981

Analogue video transferred to digital, colour, sound, 50’

In Ernest’s stepping stones we count the city of Calgary, the motionless secrets of painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and New York City’s vibrant avant-garde scene of the sixties. Among giants and midgets, Gusella rubbed shoulders with grandparents of video-art Woody and Steina Vasulka, Shegeko Kubota and Nam June Paik, igniting a full-blown revolution in art. Since those mythical times he’s been living a double life, dividing his time between running The Social Studies Store with his video artist wife Tomiyo Sasaki, rummaging Southeast Asia fair trade to stock up the store, and keeping art punk with his weekly record issues powered by AI avant-la-lettre.

Gusella views art as an inter-religious summer camp, where traditional boundaries dissolve in audio-visual rituals. Armed with custom electronics and the talent of a mad violinist, he manipulates signals with virtuoso finesse. Drawing inspiration from the First Nation tribes of Dadaists and Surrealists, his work thrives on chaos, aristocratic nonsense, in a “paint me green and call me a pickle!” logic, that seeks to reveal profound truths about life, the universe, and everything else, i.e “Spiritual Advice by the Bullet”.

On Saturday we host a summer night to present one Gusella's seminal works, "Connecticut Papoose”. This odyssey through the subconscious was inspired by literary giants Tzara, Breton and Lautréamont. A long form of short performance, this opera transports through the labyrinthine corridors of the human psyche, challenging perceptions and evoking sub-visceral responses knowing that “an image that is repeated becomes an image that gets repeated in the mind.”

Free admission limited to room capacity. Please RSVP  to book your seat.

Left entrance of Igreja de Santa Isabel Campo de Ourique, Lisboa