Pedro Zamith

(Portuguese – 1971)

The irresistible tour, in the city of Lisbon, by Dr. Garuda and his friends.
October 1 to November 26^th 2022

This exhibition comes from a Pedro Zamith's proposal to work with objects exhibited at the Museu das Marionetas (Puppet Museum) adding an artistic interpretation over them, and moving them to Tinta nos Nervos gallery

It is not a documentary work in the strict sense of the term or a mere reproduction of a set of pieces, but the result of the work of the artist, opening the door to a parallel discourse, capable of being generated by the creation of a renewed iconography and biographical plots.

A back-and-forth that is intended to be generated between the Gallery and the Museum, led by Pedro Zamith, who found, in the city of Lisbon, the perfect stage of roaming of these strange characters.

Artist with a multimedia versatile practice when experimenting with drawing, Pedro Zamith has been articulating, in his research, informed referential territories, debtors of an interest in the creative directions of contemporaneity, whether in the field of plastic arts, the moving image and new media (in which it is inscribed with particular emphasis on cinema), whether in drawing, illustration or comics.

Therefore, drawing is the foundation of the projects it carries out, crossing other techniques and supports, Zamith presents in Tinta nos Nervos a sculpture, a canvas and a set of paintings on paper, unpublished and conceived especially for this exhibition.

The starting point for this work were the collections and pieces exhibited at the Museu Nacional da Marioneta that the artist is an assiduous visitor, combining the artistic practice with a teaching, of reflection on the objects and places of art.

It can be said that the significance of the physiognomies and energy of the forms from the masks and puppets, is fully conjugated with the plastic vocabulary experimented by Zamith, characterized by the exaggeration that he places in the expressions of his figuration, in the emotions that reveal or in the twists of elastic bodies put into action.

The idea of appropriation of museum objects was motivated exactly by values related to the presence of some pieces, their unique complexion, the idea that they were used in a pre-museum context as a cultural expression of different peoples and countries.

In the set exposed in Tinta nos Nervos, a reading level is added to those previously stated: that of projecting and imagining visual and biographical identities on objects recreated through other plastic languages. in this transformative proposition, it doesn't matter what they mean or who they are, it's not about any anthropological or documentary account, but rather an expansion of the fantasy, an artistic exercise in citation and speech construction in which the referential, being a real object, revives in everything that is built beyond it. By raising the idea that there have been events that have taken place outside the museum we enter the realm of fiction, where these situations are, in reality, only visible, in the gallery space.

The visit finds here three different moments.

First, it is confronted with a gallery of strange creatures. They are faces born from the masks seen, where evidence of a descriptive similarity to the originals that served as reference is diluted in the exercise of distancing that leads the artist to mentally reconstruct what you saw. What caught his attention. In another time.

A kind of gallery of mirrors where all those could be us while others invented.

In a second moment, the bizarre entities take the stage, alluding to puppet shows, rising now wildely, in a web of relationships where erudite and popular merge. A devilish Asian stick figure brings the story of Salomé and Saint John the Baptist whose head rests there on a plate. or not quite so? It's not him? Was there a crime on Rua da Esperança? Who was it?

The figures, vigorously cast black ink onto large sheets of paper, are theatrically lit. We may not know the plot, but that something is going up.

And not just in the gallery, but for the entire city of Lisbon.

The third moment involves the spectator in a delirious narrative anchored in intensely colorful “window-paintings”. In them, inanimate objects were inflated with its own  characteristics. Here, they are no longer masks or puppets, they are living creatures, anthropomorphized in gestures, in clothing. They aren’t deities or demons. They are wanderers of the world who are now crossing Lisbon. Coming from other geographies (or just down the street?), from different times. They correspond to the purest exercise of telling a story. From the hypothetical as a plot engine. Who would this figure be if it existed out there? What would you see? In what epoque ? Garuda could be a mythological creature, but it could be, also, a distinguished pedagogue and lens, taken by surprise as he crossed the street in front of Casa dos Bicos. D. Mahakola, in turn, arrived at the Ritz Hotel in mid-seventies to replenish energy and ward off diseases and atavistic illness.

The selfie painted on the canvas marks the moment when everyone met, on a day where they strolled through the city of Lisbon.

The title that names this exposition, intentionally long and rocambolesque, reinforces the convergence of arguments. These could be the stories. or not.

But a question remains: these masked unmasked, left the museum or they have never been there?

Pedro Zamith - CV

Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Fine Arts of Lisbon, 2000.
BA in Scenography and Theatre Models (Superior School of Theatre and Cinema), 1993.
Degree in animation at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1995.
Degree in Arts Education, from the Faculdade de Psicologia in Lisbon, 2007.
Visual Arts Teacher in Oeiras Internacional School, since 2012.
Visual Arts Teacher in Colégio Planalto, 1995- 2011.
Visual Art teacher in  ESTC, 2009-2012.

Solo Exhibitions:

Oriq Gallery, Lisbon- 2022.
Espaço Exibicionista Gallery, Lisbon- 2020.
Espaço Exibicionista Gallery, Lisbon- 2018.
Bing Bang Gallery (with António Salvador Carvalho) , Lisbon- 2017.
Antonio Prates Gallery, Lisbon- 2016.
Miguel Justino Contemporary Art, Lisbon- 2015.
Centro Cultural de Cascais-2014.
Jorge Vieira Museum, Beja-2013.
PicketPocketGalery (with the photographer Isabel Saldanha),
Lisbon-2013.
Arte Periférica Gallery, CCB, Lisboa-2012.
Fil Arte Lisbon-2011.
Who Gallery, Lisbon-2011.
Arte Periférica Gallery, CCB, Lisbon-2011.
Fábulas Gallery, Lisbon-2010.
Dama Aflita Gallery, Oporto-2010.
Appleton Square Gallery, Lisbon-2009.
Arqué Gallery, Lisbon-2007.
Pedro Serrenho Gallery, Lisbon -2006.
Estufa Fria, Lisbon-2005.
Monumental Gallery, Lisbon-2003.
Quadrum Gallery, Lisbon-2002.
ZDB Galery, Lisbon-2000.

Projects:

Project LISBOAGORA for the Camara Municipal de Lisboa (about the covid situation, several artists), Lisbon- 2020.
Exhibition with Art Agency Vera Cortês, “Comboio Fantasma”, with Manuel João Vieira, André Lemos e João Maio Pinto, Lisbon-2007.
Illustration project for the fashion designer Nuno Gama, Moda Lisbon-2010.
“WTF?!?”Exhibition with Antonio Salvador Carvalho and Guttguff, Livraria Sá da Costa- 2017

Colective Exhibitions ( selection):

Berardo Museum, Lisbon-2012.
CCB,Lisbon,2011.
Circulo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra. Sobre a Obra de Ernesto de Sousa, Coimbra- 2010.
António Prates Gallery,Lisbon-2010.
Carlos Carvalho Gallery, Lisbon-2009.

Espaço Interpress, Lisbon-2008.
Contemporary Museu from Corunha, Spain-2006.
Contemporary Museu from Badajoz, Spain-2005.
Pavilhão de Portugal na Expo-2003.
Serralves Museum, Oporto-2001.
Hospital Julio de Matos-2001.

Collections:

MNAC- Contemporary Art Museum in Chiado, Lisbon. Portugal.
Telecom Fundation, Lisbon. Portugal.
Norlinda José Lima Contemporary Art Colection. São João da Madeira, Portugal.
Luciano Benneton Collection.
Several private collectors.

Publications:

Portugal: Open Window to the World. Contemporary Artists from Portugal. Ed.imagomundi. Luciano Benetton Collection. Fábrica. 2015.
“José Cid” Comic book, 2009, Ed.Diário de Noticias.
“Frank Sinatra” Comic book, 2003, Nocturne.
“Louis Jordan” Comic book, 2004, Nocturne.
O homem que desenhava na cabeça dos outros” 2006, Oficina do Livro. 
“ A estranha ligação de três habitantes de Brooklin: O talhante, O Farmaceutico e o taxista”, Comic book, 2000, Ed.Bedeteca de Lisboa.