João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva

João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva mine sources ranging from nineteenth-century literature to unconventional scientific traditions to create a set of surreal fictional imagery. In their photographs and 16-mm silent films, a set of bizarre male characters perform uncanny actions, challenging ordinary perceptions of the natural world. “Magnetic Efluvium” is an exhibition and publication project whose title and content is inspired by a sublime sea storm described in Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel The Man Who Laughs. Two (of a series of three) fanzine-style journals published by the artists bring together their own essays on the topic, along with writings on Henri-Louis Bergson’s intuitive methodology, Alfred Jarry’s pataphysics, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s unique genealogical philosophy, to name a few. The show’s opening was marked by a fourteen-hour performance of a block of ice melting over steel wires; a record of the event is now projected, sped up, onto one of the gallery’s walls. In the rooms that follow, pieces such as Cinematic, 2006, in which a man reveals an unusual gift for telekinetically piling up wooden trunks, create an atmosphere of absurdity. However, it is A Coluna de Colombo (Columbus’s Column), 2006, depicting a man setting an egg on top of a stack of eggs, which best demonstrates the ironic twist linking the works on display.