Melissa
Rodrigues
Rodrigues
Armanda Duarte
Praia do Ribatejo, 1961
Lives and works in Lisbon
The work of Armanda Duarte is site-specific to such a degree that her proposals are actually determined by her observation and analysis of each given space. She observes the characteristics and details of each context in search of the essence which will lead the process of creation up to the work’s final reception. Her spatial poetics, which involve drawing, sculpture, installation and architecture, provoke subtle and intimate experiences.
Duarte’s stripped down, austere and delicate stagings result from the manipulation and composition of everyday objects such as stones, cutlery or tin can lids according to precise objectives such as measurement, balancing and replication. In her work, objects and simple gestures are subjected to almost scientific processes of repetition and systematisation that imply their conceptualisation, the definition of research criteria, and the normalisation of rigorous collection and editing procedures.
Duarte’s intense activity ultimately leads to an apparently unproductive, mute, discreet, at times almost imperceptible or even microscopic result, such as the foot and knee marks in saw dust that bear witness, on the ground and far from the public’s gaze, to the slow disappearance of an object and the traces of the body that made it disappear.
Text originally written for Google Arts & Culture apropos the exhibition “All I Want, Portuguese Women Artists from 1900 to 2020”, curated by Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand
