For over a decade, Marta Ângela and João Artur have been collaborating under the (shifting) name of Von Calhau! (also known as Calhau or von Calhau, among others). Recalling this elusive signature, the duo’s practice flows between different formats and media, being mostly recognised by their sound and moving image installations as well as their performances. Von Calhau!’s awareness of the world’s instability reflects their singular approach to language, understood as a representational tool based in tacit agreement, embedded in contradiction and in permanent transformation. This sort of conceptions are made clear by constant references to the visual and connotative playfulness of concrete poetry, which frames their general comment on reality. Their accomplished mirroring between naming, choice of media and body of work translates the complementary nature of their practice which produces the humorous, surreal and visceral cosmos they inhabit and propel.
In PHANTOM BLOT BACK TO ATTACK the duo focuses...on the idea-image-object of the Black Blob, mixing references such as a 1980s Lisbon suburb graffiti – which is still visible today – the Walt Disney character Phantom Blot, and the inflatable object Von Calhau! use during some of their performances to scare the audience away. From a black blob to a ghost figure and back again the show designs eerie relationships between solid and gas-like states, using materials such as air or plastics while employing concepts such as empty or full among other ambivalent tools.
Von Calhau!: PHANTOM BLOT BACK TO ATTACK / MANCHA NEGRA VOLTA A ATACAR is supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portuguese Embassy in the UK and Instituto Camões, Portugal.
Entrada actualizada el el 16 ene de 2018
¿Te gustaría añadir o modificar algo de este perfil?
