EXHIBITION // TALKS
David Infante
David Infante works primarily with traditional photography.
He holds a PhD in Fine Arts, specializing in Art and Multimedia, from the University of Lisbon, and a Master's degree in Contemporary Photography from the Royal College of Arts (2017). He was awarded the BES Revelation Prize by Banco Espírito Santo / Serralves Museum (2008) and received the Pedro Miguel Frade Prize, awarded by the Portuguese Photography Centre (2007). He was also selected for the PHotoESPAÑA Discoveries (2014).
His work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums, with recent shows at Galeria La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires (AR), at the WIP show at the Royal College of Arts, London (UK), at Galeria Módulo, Lisbon (PT), and at Villa Tamaris Centre d'Art, Toulon (FR). David's work has been referenced in several publications and is part of prestigious collections, including the National Photography Collection / Portuguese Photography Centre, the PLMJ Foundation Collection and the Novo Banco Collection.
He currently teaches at the University of Évora.
He holds a PhD in Fine Arts, specializing in Art and Multimedia, from the University of Lisbon, and a Master's degree in Contemporary Photography from the Royal College of Arts (2017). He was awarded the BES Revelation Prize by Banco Espírito Santo / Serralves Museum (2008) and received the Pedro Miguel Frade Prize, awarded by the Portuguese Photography Centre (2007). He was also selected for the PHotoESPAÑA Discoveries (2014).
His work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums, with recent shows at Galeria La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires (AR), at the WIP show at the Royal College of Arts, London (UK), at Galeria Módulo, Lisbon (PT), and at Villa Tamaris Centre d'Art, Toulon (FR). David's work has been referenced in several publications and is part of prestigious collections, including the National Photography Collection / Portuguese Photography Centre, the PLMJ Foundation Collection and the Novo Banco Collection.
He currently teaches at the University of Évora.
BELIEVE
The addition of liquid matter, its solidification, extraction, and liquefaction constitute, in sequence, the complex field of visual possibilities that led to these works. The time cut in the process is equivalent, here, to a glimpse of meaning in the metaphorical, whose richness is not unrelated to the unusual literalness of the linguistic game. Let's see: understanding the photographic mirror in the light of the first and primary discourse on photography [DUBOIS], these photographs show an experience of image construction that uses the ice itself to freeze the image of a space-time again.
Accepting, therefore, the saying that photography freezes a space and a time, in these photographs the ice is the broken mirror that, when it liquefies, is also a metaphor for fading in time. What we see objectively in the image construction process as an additive act, we interpret instead as an ongoing decomposition; in them, everything is, therefore, an emphasis on the critique of falsity: of the performative act, of the constructed pose of those portrayed (in a certain lack of "naturalness"), in some cases of doubt as to their effective presence before the photographer, in short, of the very nature of the photographic as a mirror and vestige of the real.
David Infante's photographic art avoids being a testimony to the visuality of a self-extrinsic reality, since he does not directly seek the sources of his act of showing in that reality—he prefers, at once, to endow it with matter only to subsequently subtract it, thus making a work-record of what is soon lost—his images are the possible remnants of fleeting sculptures, they are admittedly a construction of reality and not its mere reproduction.
Nuno Matos Duarte
// ROGER BALLENOn the occasion of the Believe exhibition, the Procurarte cultural space hosted a conversation between American-South African artist Roger Ballen and Portuguese photographer David Infante the conversation saw David Infante engage his visual research in direct dialogue with the work Hungry Ghosts by Roger Ballen, who participated in the event via online link. The discussion drew on both artists' photography books and was moderated by Portuguese publisher Tiago Casanova (XYZ).
The discussion concluded with a special presentation of Spirits and Spaces, Roger Ballen's first all-color photographic project.