La Biennale, R. Açúcar (Armazém nº3) - Lisbon. 16 June - 07 July 2022 (Hugo Bernardo, Francisca Carvalho and Pedro Proença)
"Once upon a time there was a Biennale, or a pavilion we once remembered, one that could be for those who had it or hadn't where it should be, this desirable space, with its own resources, zero budget and no whining. This artists, since opportunity obliges, go to work, and the result is a display that coexist with complex fabrics and ceramic of pop-tantric paintings and patterns installations by Francisca Carvalho; the imaginal abyss of both ancient and contemporary icons resonating in a world at war by Hugo Bernardo; and the itchy neo-rococo ornaments, on the brink of being illustrative, belonging to Pedro Proença." – Pedro Proença, La Biennale (excerpt), 2021
"Once upon a time there was a Biennale, or a pavilion we once remembered, one that could be for those who had it or hadn't where it should be, this desirable space, with its own resources, zero budget and no whining. This artists, since opportunity obliges, go to work, and the result is a display that coexist with complex fabrics and ceramic of pop-tantric paintings and patterns installations by Francisca Carvalho; the imaginal abyss of both ancient and contemporary icons resonating in a world at war by Hugo Bernardo; and the itchy neo-rococo ornaments, on the brink of being illustrative, belonging to Pedro Proença." – Pedro Proença, La Biennale (excerpt), 2021
Mastaba, Fundação D.Luís I - Cascais. 09 Oct - 23 Jan 2022 (Individual Exhibition)
[Video Interview, Fundação D.Luís I]
DB. What relationship do you establish between sound duration and artistic making?
HB Sound interests me for its evanescence and spatiality. In its silence, the mirage of a transcendent experience emerges.
DB. Could it be that the music you play, what you allude with your lute be relative to that?
HB Yes, it is that dubiousness and historical poetic, the myth as universality and common meaning about an idea of belonging. Ultimately an unanswered search for the fate of our desires and ambitions – who we are and where we are going to.
DB. Did you know that Tibetan monks drew reality with the aid of a wooden egg as an extension of the mind. Could you imagine a place you'd like to visit or a place you haven't visited, how would you go back?
HB I think the creative act will always be about a journey of no return…
– Diogo Bolota interviews the artist (exceprt), 2021
[Video Interview, Fundação D.Luís I]
DB. What relationship do you establish between sound duration and artistic making?
HB Sound interests me for its evanescence and spatiality. In its silence, the mirage of a transcendent experience emerges.
DB. Could it be that the music you play, what you allude with your lute be relative to that?
HB Yes, it is that dubiousness and historical poetic, the myth as universality and common meaning about an idea of belonging. Ultimately an unanswered search for the fate of our desires and ambitions – who we are and where we are going to.
DB. Did you know that Tibetan monks drew reality with the aid of a wooden egg as an extension of the mind. Could you imagine a place you'd like to visit or a place you haven't visited, how would you go back?
HB I think the creative act will always be about a journey of no return…
– Diogo Bolota interviews the artist (exceprt), 2021
Triângulo, Centro Cultural Brotéria - Lisbon. 22 April - 29 May 2021
Carla Castiajo / Catarina Silva / David C. Gonçalves / Eduarda Rosa / Francisca Carvalho / Horácio Frutuoso / Hugo Bernardo
Pedro Sequeira / Pedro Tropa / Vasco Futscher – Curated by Brotéria (Texts by João Sarmento, Eva Oddo and Carolina Quintela)
“In 1967, Bruce Nauman drew a neon spiral, inside which we can read the blue letters that read: The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths. The content of mysticism is the very nature of the mystery, the secret, the awe, the unspeakable. However, the act of revealing is also an integral part of the functioning of the mystic, the sacred and the occult. (…) Regardless of what it may mean to be a true artist, we will be able to recognize that there is a demiurgical nostalgia in the making of artistic practices. Under the artist's idea, a shadow of acts of worship persists: there is a proximity between the production of the art world and the timeless construction of symbols.” – Brotéria Gallery (João Sarmento), Triângulo (excerpt), 2021
Carla Castiajo / Catarina Silva / David C. Gonçalves / Eduarda Rosa / Francisca Carvalho / Horácio Frutuoso / Hugo Bernardo
Pedro Sequeira / Pedro Tropa / Vasco Futscher – Curated by Brotéria (Texts by João Sarmento, Eva Oddo and Carolina Quintela)
“In 1967, Bruce Nauman drew a neon spiral, inside which we can read the blue letters that read: The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths. The content of mysticism is the very nature of the mystery, the secret, the awe, the unspeakable. However, the act of revealing is also an integral part of the functioning of the mystic, the sacred and the occult. (…) Regardless of what it may mean to be a true artist, we will be able to recognize that there is a demiurgical nostalgia in the making of artistic practices. Under the artist's idea, a shadow of acts of worship persists: there is a proximity between the production of the art world and the timeless construction of symbols.” – Brotéria Gallery (João Sarmento), Triângulo (excerpt), 2021
Les Amis du Cadavre Exquis, Duplex Air / Lisbon (23 April - 21 May 2021)
Catarina Silva / Constança Arouca / Francisca Carvalho / Hugo Bernardo / Nuno Henrique / Pedro Calhau / Roger Paulino – Text by Carolina Quintela
"Les Amis du Cadavre exquis brings together a group, quite diverse and multidisciplinary, seven visual artists who present unprecedented work between drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. It is also based on the long friendship that unites them and, also inseparable from the current context, we can say it is a celebratory exhibition, thought and prepared from a distance.
Art, as a primordial spiritual force, the converging and unifying motive of these artists who come together in its scope, seeking, under the same motto, new meanings through the intersection of their artistic practices and specific individual processes, thus enabling a dialogue about speeches activated by affinities and sharing the same place, of an extensive desire for the creation of the common space and, above all, of the collective dynamics about the various challenges of contemporary times." (...)
– Carolina Quintela, Les Amis du Cadavre Exquis (exceprt), 2021
Catarina Silva / Constança Arouca / Francisca Carvalho / Hugo Bernardo / Nuno Henrique / Pedro Calhau / Roger Paulino – Text by Carolina Quintela
"Les Amis du Cadavre exquis brings together a group, quite diverse and multidisciplinary, seven visual artists who present unprecedented work between drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. It is also based on the long friendship that unites them and, also inseparable from the current context, we can say it is a celebratory exhibition, thought and prepared from a distance.
Art, as a primordial spiritual force, the converging and unifying motive of these artists who come together in its scope, seeking, under the same motto, new meanings through the intersection of their artistic practices and specific individual processes, thus enabling a dialogue about speeches activated by affinities and sharing the same place, of an extensive desire for the creation of the common space and, above all, of the collective dynamics about the various challenges of contemporary times." (...)
– Carolina Quintela, Les Amis du Cadavre Exquis (exceprt), 2021
Trick and Treat, Gallery Tereza Seabra / Lisbon (15 May - 12 June 2021)
Hugo Bernardo / Pedro Sequeira
"From an alleged interiority, as an intimate relationship with the world, the present exhibition enshrines jewelry as an object that formulates codes and syncretic gestures. Such common action regarding the invention and construction of adornment items, composes the spontaneous means of a craft in continuous renovation. In this way, combining differences and similarities, two artists approach the borders of jewelery as an adventure deviated from its first meaning." – Press Release, 2021
Hugo Bernardo / Pedro Sequeira
"From an alleged interiority, as an intimate relationship with the world, the present exhibition enshrines jewelry as an object that formulates codes and syncretic gestures. Such common action regarding the invention and construction of adornment items, composes the spontaneous means of a craft in continuous renovation. In this way, combining differences and similarities, two artists approach the borders of jewelery as an adventure deviated from its first meaning." – Press Release, 2021
Babel, Biblioteca Alcântara - Palácio Burnay / Lisbon (27 May - 26 June 2021)
Diogo Henrique / Hugo Bernardo / Joana Aparício Tejo / José Sottomayor / João Motta Guedes / Madalena Anjos / Madalena Caramelo
"Artists explore the Universe of the hexagonal galleries of Infinite Libraries, as Jorge Luís Borges wrote (La Biblioteca de Babel, Ficciones, 1944). Works of art are seen in more and less hidden places, into the overflowing soul of this hexagon that was created." – Francisca Gigante, Babel (excerpt), 2021
Diogo Henrique / Hugo Bernardo / Joana Aparício Tejo / José Sottomayor / João Motta Guedes / Madalena Anjos / Madalena Caramelo
"Artists explore the Universe of the hexagonal galleries of Infinite Libraries, as Jorge Luís Borges wrote (La Biblioteca de Babel, Ficciones, 1944). Works of art are seen in more and less hidden places, into the overflowing soul of this hexagon that was created." – Francisca Gigante, Babel (excerpt), 2021
Maqam (Independent Project) / Lisbon (27 November - 11 December 2020)
Hugo Bernardo / David Correia Gonçalves
"Exhuming - a moment that only appears in silence. A silence that deceives both the head and the eyes. Burning bodies appear looking for life. (...) Drawings asks for time, time for union. Time because the material needs to meet, affirm. And that tension is welcome - it is all. (...) The soul's desiderium that makes up the invisible interval is formulated, the property of a palpable power, the invisible energy that inhabits and that is visited. Thus, more space appears. Necessary space for understanding, so that we may arise. MAQAM, Place of the two ones." (...) – Hugo Bernardo and David C.Gonçalves, Maqam (excerpt), 2020
Hugo Bernardo / David Correia Gonçalves
"Exhuming - a moment that only appears in silence. A silence that deceives both the head and the eyes. Burning bodies appear looking for life. (...) Drawings asks for time, time for union. Time because the material needs to meet, affirm. And that tension is welcome - it is all. (...) The soul's desiderium that makes up the invisible interval is formulated, the property of a palpable power, the invisible energy that inhabits and that is visited. Thus, more space appears. Necessary space for understanding, so that we may arise. MAQAM, Place of the two ones." (...) – Hugo Bernardo and David C.Gonçalves, Maqam (excerpt), 2020
True Node part II, Galeria Mota Galiza / Porto (07 February - 03 March 2020)
Diogo Bolota / Hugo Bernardo / Pedro Calhau / Rita Senra – Curated by Carolina Trigueiros
"In «Meta-Reflection», (…) The installation features heads of different origins, part of the artist's research (mostly in painting). From mythological to futuristic figures, in a tangle of perspectives and combinations. A device that plays with transparencies and allows the alternation between what is reflected and what remains: allowing new angles with each look and different understandings of a fragmented "whole" and a compound self. The mirror, the glass: subject to movement, to light, to architecture, to the other and to ourselves. " (...) – Carolina Trigueiros, True Node Part II (excerpt), 2020
Diogo Bolota / Hugo Bernardo / Pedro Calhau / Rita Senra – Curated by Carolina Trigueiros
"In «Meta-Reflection», (…) The installation features heads of different origins, part of the artist's research (mostly in painting). From mythological to futuristic figures, in a tangle of perspectives and combinations. A device that plays with transparencies and allows the alternation between what is reflected and what remains: allowing new angles with each look and different understandings of a fragmented "whole" and a compound self. The mirror, the glass: subject to movement, to light, to architecture, to the other and to ourselves. " (...) – Carolina Trigueiros, True Node Part II (excerpt), 2020
Arche part I, Galeria Cidadela / Cascais (28 September - 23 October 2019)
Hugo Bernardo / José António Quintanilha / Pedro Sequeira
"For the Greeks, arche was considered to be everything that exists in the world, embodied in its materiality. The verb from where everything starts and where everything returns to. The knowledge that exists in everything that exists. Contemporary art is lavish, echoing these primordial movements as starting points for new understandings of their representativeness.” (...) – Pedro Calhau, Arche (excerpt), 2019
Hugo Bernardo / José António Quintanilha / Pedro Sequeira
"For the Greeks, arche was considered to be everything that exists in the world, embodied in its materiality. The verb from where everything starts and where everything returns to. The knowledge that exists in everything that exists. Contemporary art is lavish, echoing these primordial movements as starting points for new understandings of their representativeness.” (...) – Pedro Calhau, Arche (excerpt), 2019
I will take the risk, Tomaz Hipolito Studio (AZAN) / Lisbon (21 -27 February 2019)
Collective Exhibition with 29 artists – Curated by Carolina Trigueiros and Tomaz Hipolito
"I WILL TAKE THE RISK gathers young Portuguese artists (mostly from the 90s) and assumes the will to think about our present condition: no guarantee or guarantees. Just away from the main protagonists. In the gesture of risking thinking about the paradoxes of our daily lives and also of our context and artistic circuit. A proposal unrelated to the market logic that creates the conditions for a state of contagion and contamination." (...) – Carolina Trigueiros, I will take the risk (excerpt), 2019
Collective Exhibition with 29 artists – Curated by Carolina Trigueiros and Tomaz Hipolito
"I WILL TAKE THE RISK gathers young Portuguese artists (mostly from the 90s) and assumes the will to think about our present condition: no guarantee or guarantees. Just away from the main protagonists. In the gesture of risking thinking about the paradoxes of our daily lives and also of our context and artistic circuit. A proposal unrelated to the market logic that creates the conditions for a state of contagion and contamination." (...) – Carolina Trigueiros, I will take the risk (excerpt), 2019
Locus19, Calçada Ribeiro Santos 19 / Lisbon (12-16 April 2018)
Adriana Proganó / Ana Luísa Amado / Aires de Gameiro / Henrique Palmeirim / Hugo Bernardo / Joana Rá / João Maria Pacheco / João Pedro Fonseca / Luís Rocha
Pedro Batista / Raquel Melgue / Ricardo Marcelino / Rita Thomaz / Sara Mealha / Stefanie Pullin / Zé Maria Ardison
Sixteen artists occupy the 1st floor and the eleven rooms of the empty building on Calçada Ribeiro Santos 19, for 5 days. Different proposals, from painting to video, drawing and sculpture, in an organic aggregation that allows a fresh look at the current artistic production.– Press Release, Locus19, 2018
Adriana Proganó / Ana Luísa Amado / Aires de Gameiro / Henrique Palmeirim / Hugo Bernardo / Joana Rá / João Maria Pacheco / João Pedro Fonseca / Luís Rocha
Pedro Batista / Raquel Melgue / Ricardo Marcelino / Rita Thomaz / Sara Mealha / Stefanie Pullin / Zé Maria Ardison
Sixteen artists occupy the 1st floor and the eleven rooms of the empty building on Calçada Ribeiro Santos 19, for 5 days. Different proposals, from painting to video, drawing and sculpture, in an organic aggregation that allows a fresh look at the current artistic production.– Press Release, Locus19, 2018
Hábito, Igreja S.Vicente / Évora (10 February - 4 March 2018 )
Ana Morgadinho / Ana Rafael / David Gonçalves / Hugo Bernardo / José António Quintanilha / Vasco Futscher
Habit as frequent repetition or enduring disposition is meant to raise questions about passivity, dynamism, consciousness, or automatism.
– Press Release, 2018
Ana Morgadinho / Ana Rafael / David Gonçalves / Hugo Bernardo / José António Quintanilha / Vasco Futscher
Habit as frequent repetition or enduring disposition is meant to raise questions about passivity, dynamism, consciousness, or automatism.
– Press Release, 2018
Osmóptico, Espaço AZ / Lisbon (6 December, 2017 - 5 January, 2018)
Ana Rafael / Hugo Bernardo
“Osmoptic - allegorized word parodying the metaphorical combination of the mechanism of vision and the processing of images (optics), combined with an almost accidental and intuitive mixture of elements of a different nature, carried out by two hands, two heads and two spirits (osmosis). The osmoptic mechanism thus becomes a way of unfolding meaning and experience, to the detriment of a mental and hypothetical dimension of images.” (...)
– Ana Rafael and Hugo Bernardo, Osmoptic (excerpt), 2017
Ana Rafael / Hugo Bernardo
“Osmoptic - allegorized word parodying the metaphorical combination of the mechanism of vision and the processing of images (optics), combined with an almost accidental and intuitive mixture of elements of a different nature, carried out by two hands, two heads and two spirits (osmosis). The osmoptic mechanism thus becomes a way of unfolding meaning and experience, to the detriment of a mental and hypothetical dimension of images.” (...)
– Ana Rafael and Hugo Bernardo, Osmoptic (excerpt), 2017
Anamorphic Object, Geological Museum / Lisbon (18 - 31 March, 2017)
Individual Exhibition
“The object seduces. One returns to it. Observing its shape from different angles. Representing it bigger or smaller. Watching how the object's tone changes while shifting the tone color. Finding connections between different objects. Trying to unveil its secrets, create an intimacy, possess it through portraiture.
And the intimacy can become such that, what is wanted at certain times is to reformulate the object, distort it, mold it, similarly to Pygmalion in a vicious circle.
And so one arrives at the anamorphic object, the newly formed object, from an already existing one, from which the basic structure derives, a metaphor that exists in the arts and in the sciences. However, perhaps any artistic object is anamorphic, considering that any representation is to create again, maintaining points of reference, in some cases more, in others less, even in the most abstract contexts.” (...)
– Eva Oddo, Anamorphic Object (excerpt), 2017
Individual Exhibition
“The object seduces. One returns to it. Observing its shape from different angles. Representing it bigger or smaller. Watching how the object's tone changes while shifting the tone color. Finding connections between different objects. Trying to unveil its secrets, create an intimacy, possess it through portraiture.
And the intimacy can become such that, what is wanted at certain times is to reformulate the object, distort it, mold it, similarly to Pygmalion in a vicious circle.
And so one arrives at the anamorphic object, the newly formed object, from an already existing one, from which the basic structure derives, a metaphor that exists in the arts and in the sciences. However, perhaps any artistic object is anamorphic, considering that any representation is to create again, maintaining points of reference, in some cases more, in others less, even in the most abstract contexts.” (...)
– Eva Oddo, Anamorphic Object (excerpt), 2017
Rocks and Clouds, Gallery Sá da Costa / Lisbon (7 - 27 October, 2016)
Hugo Bernardo / Roger Paulino
VF. I sense that each of you could develop the idea of Rocks and Clouds in your individual work.
HB. I think it's metaphorically intrinsic and common to the creative process, we all come across something that comes from nowhere and we end up having to materialize something specific. In this process there is a certain lightness and immateriality to it, a certain cloud effect.
VF. How did Anamorphoses appear in your work, Hugo? In a way, it is a cloud-like transformation.
RP. It is a rock, something specific that Hugo takes out of its context.
HB. And I obliterate their meaning and configuration, it is an intentional metamorphosis of the image.
VF. Such as in the clouds that resemble certain shapes, in anamorphosis there is a key to discover and a sense to decode.
RP. In the visual arts there is something related to the making in order to be able to see it and that is the exercise that applies, it is basic but it is useful.
– Vasco Futscher interviews Roger Paulino and Hugo Bernardo, Rocks and Clouds (excerpt), 2016
Hugo Bernardo / Roger Paulino
VF. I sense that each of you could develop the idea of Rocks and Clouds in your individual work.
HB. I think it's metaphorically intrinsic and common to the creative process, we all come across something that comes from nowhere and we end up having to materialize something specific. In this process there is a certain lightness and immateriality to it, a certain cloud effect.
VF. How did Anamorphoses appear in your work, Hugo? In a way, it is a cloud-like transformation.
RP. It is a rock, something specific that Hugo takes out of its context.
HB. And I obliterate their meaning and configuration, it is an intentional metamorphosis of the image.
VF. Such as in the clouds that resemble certain shapes, in anamorphosis there is a key to discover and a sense to decode.
RP. In the visual arts there is something related to the making in order to be able to see it and that is the exercise that applies, it is basic but it is useful.
– Vasco Futscher interviews Roger Paulino and Hugo Bernardo, Rocks and Clouds (excerpt), 2016
Distâncias, Espaço AZ / Lisbon (18 November - 5 December 2015)
Constança Meira / Hugo Bernardo / Nuno Barroso
"Man fears nothing more than being touched by the unknown (...) All the distances that men have created are dictated by this fear of contact."
– Press Release.. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (excerpt), 1960
Constança Meira / Hugo Bernardo / Nuno Barroso
"Man fears nothing more than being touched by the unknown (...) All the distances that men have created are dictated by this fear of contact."
– Press Release.. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (excerpt), 1960
Plano imanente, Gallery Alecrim 50 / Lisbon (20 February - 21 March, 2014)
Individual Exhibition
“Isolation procedures (…) are places (…) the figure thus isolated becomes an image, an icon. (…) Isolating is, therefore, the simplest, necessary but not sufficient means to break with representation (…) to release the figure " – Press Release. Gilles Deleuze in Francis Bacon - Logic of Sensation ( excerpt), 1981
Individual Exhibition
“Isolation procedures (…) are places (…) the figure thus isolated becomes an image, an icon. (…) Isolating is, therefore, the simplest, necessary but not sufficient means to break with representation (…) to release the figure " – Press Release. Gilles Deleuze in Francis Bacon - Logic of Sensation ( excerpt), 1981
