Curation of the solo show Auto- GibberisH by Diogo Gama at hARTSlane Gallery

“What is the meaning of the pleasure for accumulating objects and images that pass us along the way and their concerns? What do we do with the possibility of ignoring, not registering, not archiving? Circulating, passing through reflections, shadows, and objects — What's the point of putting one image next to another? When there is the possibility of isolating them.” Auto - Gibberish is a collection of visual and material information, often fragmented by mundaneness, the multiple connections, paradoxes, nuances, and inner contradictions that inform Diogo’s creative process. This exhibition will put together a body of work mostly based on hand craftworks, found objects, alien phrases, and a staged-lit room. Individual experiences of frustration, desire, obsession, and confusion are juxtaposed and contrasted in an attempt to expose the magical and cyclical paradigm of individuality (clocks, circles) and the contradiction between Fiction and Reality. Nothing is static, everything is ephemeral, meaning is contingent in ever-lasting experimentation enriched by our curiosity and ambition; a product of our individual nature. Indeed, it is the atelier (artist studio) as both a material and imaginary site that these two rooms are resembling, theatrically, where artworks become decontextualized from their original meaning by means of selection, archiving experimentation, and creative impulses. The tension between the process and the finalized product transcends formal arbitrary lines and offers room for transformation, disturbance, and dissonance. Dichotomic relations of violence and peace, stability and fragmentation, linearity and circularity are inherently embedded in the creation of the pieces. There are no finished works. The constant creative experimentation and the ephemerality of the artworks are tied to the malleable, nonlinear, and ever-evolving nature of the artist’s experience. - Marina Cortés Calle