Eliza Tan
Life in a Bush of Ghosts presents a new body of Rui Calçada
Bastos' work since his last solo exhibition at Galerie Invaliden1 in 2006.
The exhibition mirrors the title of the 1981 album 'My Life in the Bush of
Ghosts' by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Excluding the pronoun 'my', Life
in a Bush of Ghosts marks a point of departure from Bastos' previously self-referential
approach.
Comprising a combination of large format photographs, and a video, the collection
encapsulates Rui Calçada Bastos’ longstanding interest in urbanism
and his artistic experimentations with the global city as an itinerant space;
a placeless studio. Unfolding to the beat of transient time, the works feature
unexpected occurrences, myriad objects, materials and quirky scenarios arising
in everyday city life. The nature of cities as pervasive spaces of constant
economic and social expansion is referred to by Bastos, who attempts
to chronicle moments of contradiction enacted within the contesting spaces
of urban jungles; the urban bush.
He juxtaposes scenes of movement with stillness, casting a slow lens over the
transformations articulated by seemingly quiet and insignificant events that
often go unnoticed in the speed driven city. No explicit attention is drawn
to human activity, although the surfaces and objects which come into focus
subtly enact the presences and absences of city dwellers. Lost or discarded
articles, exposed floors or walls, misaligned bricks or unfinished concrete
surfaces seem to find new life almost coincidentally as visceral, sculptural
objects. They evoke contrasting, poetic auras that allude to unknown pasts,
serving not only as memory fragments as well as interrupted narratives, but
as a question after present and future functions.
Life in a Bush of Ghosts is an invitation to consider how the cities in which
we live become never-ending propositions of how we restructure not only our
observable worlds, but our interior perspectives and inner narratives. While
the works convey the pluralities of city environments, at once dynamic and
generic, they resonate with a haunting sense of quietude. That change is the
only constant in life might be a given – even a cliché. Yet, Rui
Calçada Bastos continues to confront the ghosts of what may have once
been, is now and will be. This peripatetic, even romantic impulse belongs to
both urbanites and travelers alike.
Rui Calcada Bastos born 1971 in Lisbon, Portugal lives and works in Berlin
since 2003 when he received a residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien. He
has exhibited works international in Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Bergen Kunsthall,
Norway, Singapore History Museum, CGAC, Galego de arte Contemporanea, Spain,
Le Plateau, Paris, Vila du parc Centre d`art Contemporain, France.
His works have been included in internationally renowned collections, such
as the collection of the CGAC, Centro de arte Contemporanea, Spain, NBK, Neuer
Berliner Kunstverein, Fundacion COF. Centro Ordonez Falcon Fotografia. Susanne & Werner
Peyer, Switzerland, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal.
Eliza Tan is a writer and curator who has worked variously
on projects with the Singapore Art Museum, National Arts Council and Solomon
R. Guggenheim in New York.
