Carlos Barreira e Peter Rosman

27/Sep/2019

a 19/Jan/2020

Evoking the memory of Alberto Carneiro, who first brought them together during one of the sculpture symposia started in Santo Tirso in 1991, Portuguese sculptor Carlos Barreira and Australian sculptor Peter Rosman celebrate 25 years of friendship with a joint exhibition at the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture (MIEC).

Represented in the city’s sculpture park with the works Pedra Bulideira XXII (1993) and Canto (1993), these sculptors focus, respectively, on concepts of matter and movement—essential to Carlos Barreira’s work, as highlighted in a recent retrospective held at the Nadir Afonso Museum of Contemporary Art in Chaves—and on constructivist concepts centered on the human and social aspects, which Peter Rosman emphasized at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

Building on these core concepts, Carlos Barreira and Peter Rosman present at MIEC a collection of works specially created for this event and executed in various materials. These pieces not only demonstrate the coherence of their artistic trajectories and sculptural languages in relation to these concepts but also strengthen the image of two distinctive artists, continuously renewing their approaches to sculpture.

Opening: September 27, 2019, at 7:30 PM

About

Peter Rosman

Australian sculptor Peter Rosman was born in Melbourne in 1944. From 1963 to 1965 he was an Architecture student at the University of Melbourne, though he did not graduate. In 1968-69 he attended a sculpture post-graduate programme at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, and in 1973 obtained the Arts Diploma at the Preston Institute of Technology, Melbourne. In 1974 he received the Education Diploma at the former State College of Victoria, Melbourne. Rosman’s multidisciplinary practice includes installations combining materials like stone, wood and metal, as well as explores different techniques, such as printing on paper, wood or steel, in order to produce artist books. These have been developed over time and may be taken as autonomous objects or incorporated into new installations and sculptures. Exhibiting individually since 1976, he has participated in numerous group exhibitions and outdoor sculpture symposia in various countries. Notably, besides his presence at the 2nd International Contemporary Sculpture Symposium in Santo Tirso in 1993, he took part in the 4th International Sculpture Symposium in Davos, Switzerland, in 2008, and more recently at the 18th Cerveira Biennial, Portugal, in 2015, and the Venice Biennale in 2017. Since 2008, he has developed a web exhibition, “Terminal Artworks,” available at www.anywhere.com.au.

Carlos Barreira

Carlos Barreira was born in 1945 in Chaves, Portugal, and moved to Porto in 1967. He graduated in sculpture from the Escola de Belas Artes do Porto in 1973 and taught there from 1977 to 2009. Besides sculpture, he works in design and graphic arts and has developed projects as a set and costume designer. Between 1975 and 1976, he was part of the SAAL Project (Local Support Mobile Service), taking technical responsibility for the brigade in Seixo, S. Mamede de Infesta. In 1978, he co-founded the Cerveira Biennial, and in 1986 he held his first solo exhibition, “Carlos Barreira: Escultura,” at the Northern Regional Delegation of the SEC (Secretary of State for Culture) in Porto.
Combining diverse materials such as stone, wood, polyester, iron, and steel, Carlos Barreira creates sculptures that are almost always playful, dynamic, and open—both to the space where he works and sometimes to the viewer’s interaction. He often works in series, which he abandons and resumes over time. The “Bulideiras” series, related to his sculpture for the 2nd International Contemporary Sculpture Symposium in Santo Tirso in 1993, is one of the most significant in his oeuvre. Started in 1984-85, these are stone sculptures with a movable upper part resting on a rectangular base, placed in the landscape oriented towards the “mother stone,” a natural rock near Chaves.
He frequently participates in symposia, sculpture workshops, and art biennials and has created several public artworks. In 1999, he won the grand prize at the Cerveira Biennial, and in 2009, the Matosinhos Municipal Library gallery presented a retrospective of his work titled “Carlos Barreira: uma questão de matéria” (Carlos Barreira: a matter of substance).