The surge of life drive embedded in everyday objects is a constant in Edgard de Souza’s oeuvre and becomes evident in the series of spoons the artist have been developing. The objects were meticulously sculpted from wood logs and, here, they were cast in silver. In Colher lambe colher the silver comes to life with human features and, in a pair, seem to serve each other voluptuously. The size and material of the pieces bring the objects closer to those of daily use and has the potential to envelop the viewer – who could lead them to the mouth – in their malice.

The works from this series were conceived and developed through an investigation by Maurício Dias and Walter Riedweg on the archives, professional activity and personal life of the North American photographer, artist and activist, Charles Hovland (1954) that the pair met in the beginning of the 1990s.

In Arquivo fantasia [Fantasy Archive] (2017) Hovland’s black and white contact sheets were recreated into digital video animations. Each analog contact sheet was resized into a single sheet and transported onto a collective contact sheet with various models, showing the chemical process of the passage from negative to positive of each image on video. The result is presented in vertical videos where the audio reveals the photographer’s notes about his models read by himself. These notes, called “Log Book” by Hovland, catalog the date of the photo session, the sexual fantasy of each model and the value they paid for the execution of these images. This mixing of sound and vision makes for a new archival organization where the identity and gender of each model are substituted by each model’s fantasy.

WE THE ENEMY (2019) is a series comprised of 41 bronze sculptures based on representations of the devil drawn from art history: historical paintings that portray Satan in hell, drawings, illustrations, and sculptures that represent evil embodied. Each figure defies normative moral standards of beauty, respectability, and behavior. Among this army of demons, there are characters who suggest sexual perversion – as typified by traditional catholic imagery.

This series is composed of a set of photographs that show masked figures manipulating snakes. The images are reminiscent of gay fetish practices associated with “sexual deviations”. The title of the series reproduces the first lines of Inferno, Canto 1, from The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. The epic poem narrates an allegorical journey through what is essentially the medieval concept of hell.

Edgard takes his “imprecise” scribbles – as seen in his recent solo show – and inverts them into a combined construction using cotton thread on linen surfaces. In the current show, the “action drawing” is taken in a different way by creating friction between the spontaneous and the planned construction. The embroideries can be as erratic as scribbles – or punctual – as if they formed infections on the fabric. In both cases, they have in common the evidencing of the volume constructed from accumulation of material forming protuberances and thus breaking the bidimensional.

The Corpo Fechado series is comprised of a series of vintage whips cast in bronze and sculpted in such way that their motions appear as a frozen instant. These pieces are also part of the series of sculptural and photographic objects that relate to Corpo Fechado: The Devil’s Work. Like in the film, there is a reversal on the handling of the whip as these tools for punishment are inverted in these works, drawing near to BDSM practices where pleasure and pain converge, and where relations of power and submission are consensual.

For this series, Dora Longo Bahia collected images of signposts showing the presence of landmines in war zones. The title Perigo Minas [Danger Minas] plays with the danger of minefields and the expression “minas,” which, in Portuguese, designates women or girls and also landmines.