Camy Tam
An exhibition entitled “Botany” (植物學) by Portuguese artist Vasco Araújo, which is part of the ongoing Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2021 event, themed “Advance and Retreat of Globalisation” (全球化的進與退), is being held at the Macau Museum of Art (MAM) in Nape.
The exhibition is hosted by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) in conjunction with the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
According to a statement on the Art Macao website, Araújo was born in 1975 in Lisbon, the city where he continues to live and work. He got a degree in Sculpture in 1999 from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (FBAUL), and attended the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Maumaus in Lisbon between 1999 and 2000.
Founded in 1992, “Associação Maumaus – Centro de Contaminação Visual” is a non-profit cultural association that promotes the debate, knowledge and dissemination of contemporary art-related subjects.
Since 2000, he has participated in various solo and group exhibitions both in Portugal and abroad, also taking part in residency programmes, such as The University of Arts in Philadelphia in 2007; Récollets in Paris in 2005; and the Core Programme in Houston in 2003 and 2004. He was awarded the EDP (European Digital Press Association) Prize for New Artists in 2003.
According the statement, Araújo takes up a recurrent subject in his work in this series – colonialism, in the broadest sense – that allows him to discuss and deconstruct the individual and collective identity. Through photographs of tropical plants embedded in wooden tables, this work challenges and openly criticises that institutional relationships and sexual relations were inextricably linked in the power exerted by Western nations in their settlements.
Through the combination of object-table seen as an active device staging of reality and exotic plants found in Western cities, including Lisbon and Coimbra in Portugal, “Botany” becomes an uncomfortable view of the contemporary situation, the statement notes.
The plants (exotic) penetrate and are rooted in the tables (Western), as if it were a sexual act, reversing the powers of the old society thus causing more anxiety, the statement underlines.
The exhibition is being held in the 1st floor gallery of the museum at the Macau Cultural Centre complex until October 17. It opens daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (no admission after 6:30 p.m.). It is closed on Mondays but open on public holidays. Admission is free. For more details, visit https://www.artmacao.mo/2021/en/artDetail/380.
As part of the government’s COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures, all visitors to the museum must wear a facemask, have their temperature checked and present a valid Macau Health Code.
Photos: Camy Tam
