Solo show: Jorge Varanda - Breakfast On Card / Cam - Temporary Exhibition Room And Multipurpose Room (over)

Centro de Arte Moderna - CAM - Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Centro de Arte Moderna - CAM - Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Rua Dr. Nicolau de Bettencourt 1050-078 Lisbon Portugal (city map) Send E-mail tel +351 217 - 82 34 74 / 21 782 3483 www.camjap.gulbenkian.org

Curator: Lígia Afonso

The Temporary Exhibition Room and Multipurpose Room at the CAM present the first posthumous exhibition of the work of Jorge Varanda (Luanda, 1953 - Lisbon, 2008).

The title Breakfast on card refers to a sheet of card on which the artist drew the outlines of several objects and wrote words such as "local de bandeja" ("position of the tray"), "pão" ("bread") and "controlo remoto" ("remote control"), suggesting a morning meal eaten in front of a TV, an object of considerable importance in Varanda's work.

The figuration of domestic daily life is communicated through multidimensional supports that vary from articulated reliefs, boxes that are interiors of small theatres or exteriors of big city buildings, at times in the form of screens and other devices, to serial painting, film and video. This diversity is at the root of the artistic rationale on which Varanda developed a trajectory which was both unconventional yet pioneering in its exploration of digital media.

Varanda's characters are mundane and eclectic like the decade (the 1980s) they were born into: they participate in hardcore films, are comic book characters and, simultaneously, the subject and pretext of masterpieces of western art. They take part by viewing exhibitions and being art at the same time - like actors and audience.