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There Was A Time When I Could Be Anything: SOLO SHOW: CÁSSIO MARKOWSKI

Past exhibition
26 November 2022 - 25 January 2023
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Overview
There Was A Time When I Could Be Anything, SOLO SHOW: CÁSSIO MARKOWSKI

THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE gallery presents on November 26th, in Lisbon, "There Was A Time When I Could Be Anything” - a solo exhibition by Cássio Markowski.

 

The Lisbon-based Brazilian artist Cássio Markowski (b. 1972) mainly works across drawing and painting, besides exploring video and installation as means of expansion of his practice. The artist’s production encompasses a process of documentation on different socio-cultural aspects of Afro-Brazilian history. This approach relies on a constant search in archives, image databases and flea markets from where the artist collects ancient books, photographs, illustrations, newspapers, advertisements or old family albums. Markowski’s visual universe, simultaneously auto-biographic and fictional, political and poetic, fuses his own personal memories with collective experiences and trauma, while often referencing religious iconography, especially the Brazilian syncretic version of Catholicism. 

 

The pieces produced for this exhibition reach a rigorous and sophisticated process that involves several layers of interventions. After preparing the raw linen canvas with a first stratum of acrylic plaster coating, Markowski draws the major lines of his preconceived compositions with graphite. The artist then applies a covering vinyl paint layer on which he intervenes with gouache for the non-human motifs, with charcoal and graphite for the drawn figures. This ultimate intervention overlaps all the chromatic elements.      

 

In a subtle but effective way, Markowski brings in allusions to political issues regarding colonization and slavery. The artist’s creative process goes through an exploration and a deconstruction of the past to shape some sort of ideal world imbued with touches of serenity, nostalgia and mystery. This imaginary time and space to which the title of this exhibition is related, either refers to childhood—a time of innocence prior to dealing with the harshness of socio-political realities—or to a dreamed, unspoiled and peaceful Africa. The characters depicted in a figurative and realist manner are mostly children and women who are amongst the most vulnerable members of society. In Markowski’s world, they stand strong, in communion with nature, and bravely look the viewers in the eyes. A behavior that was strictly prohibited to black people under slavery and servitude. In other pieces, the children focus on reading and studying, activities that were equally inaccessible for black communities. Needless to say that portraiture, even under photographic form, was almost nonexistent in Brazil for afro-descendants. Thus, the artist mostly appropriates Afro-American portraits captured during the first half of the 20th century. From an experience of suppression of his African cultural references, Markowski willingly puts into practice a therapeutic relationship with these repressed dimensions of his own identity. The remembrance along with the supplement of beauty that is added to the conceptual and often minimalist images tend to perform some sort of cathartic or magical healing. 

 

The human alliance with nature is another key element in Markowski’s work. In this unreal world of his, the fragile and delicate flora and fauna stand in their grace and beauty and gently fuse with the characters. The dream-like atmosphere is enhanced by the unexpected juxtaposition of natural elements and motifs laden with symbolic meanings such as plants resting on majestic clouds, which evoke churches' traditional iconography or a blazing Sacred Heart hanging on a branch of a banana tree. The communion with a luxuriant and pristine nature contrasts with the persistent state of estrangement and the loss of connection with its cycles, its forces and frailties. For the artist, the natural world is a favorable wellspring, a space for silence and contemplation, a constantly renewing source of inner strength that can lead to meaningful and benevolent actions. How to accommodate one’s poetry and lust for freedom, justice and beauty with the world we live in? Through a genuine reconnection with nature and selfhood. There lies perhaps the core of what Markowski is telling us through his refined and elegant drawings. 

 

Concerned with issues of cultural identity and of almost lost traditions, Cássio Markowski’s work emphasizes the tenuous remaining links between past and present, sparkling a renewed perception while highlighting and enhancing their aesthetic, spiritual and universal value.

 

 (Katherine Sirois, Curator)

CATALOGUE
Works
  • Cássio Markowski, A Família, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, A Família, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, A Flor do Mandacaru, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, A Flor do Mandacaru, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski As Leitoras #2, 2022 Vinyl paint, graphite pencil and gouache on linen 180 x 140 x 2 cm; (framed) 185 x 145 x 4 cm
    Cássio Markowski
    As Leitoras #2, 2022
    Vinyl paint, graphite pencil and gouache on linen
    180 x 140 x 2 cm; (framed) 185 x 145 x 4 cm
  • Cássio Markowski, Alice, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Alice, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, N. Senhora do Pranto Tirai Esse Quebranto, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, N. Senhora do Pranto Tirai Esse Quebranto, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Jacaré, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Jacaré, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Nossa Senhora do Banzo, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Nossa Senhora do Banzo, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Comigo Ninguém Pode #01, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Comigo Ninguém Pode #01, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Comigo Ninguém Pode #02, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Comigo Ninguém Pode #02, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Conselhos para meu eu quando jovem, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Havia um tempo em que eu podia ser tudo, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Havia um tempo em que eu podia ser tudo, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Sagrado Coração, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Sagrado Coração, 2022
  • Cássio Markowski, Tapir, 2022
    Cássio Markowski, Tapir, 2022
Installation Views
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 2
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 1
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 4
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 5
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 3
  • Installview Editada Soloshowca Ssiomarkowski 6
Press
  • Cássio Markowski

    Cássio Markowski exhibits in Portuguese lands

    Jornal Angola, 1 January 2023
Publications
  • Guerreira e Egungun (Warrior and Egungun)

    Guerreira e Egungun (Warrior and Egungun)

    LIMITED EDITION PRINT Cássio Markowski, 2024
    A2
    Publisher: THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE Gallery
    Dimensions: 55,5 x 42
    Read more
  • Sagrado Coração

    Sagrado Coração

    Limited Edition Print Cássio Markowski, 2022
    A2
    Publisher: THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE Gallery
    Dimensions: 55,5 x 42
    Read more
  • There Was a Time When I Could be Anything | Solo Show by Cássio Markowski

    There Was a Time When I Could be Anything | Solo Show by Cássio Markowski

    Exhibition Catalogue Cássio Markowski, Katherine Sirois, 2022
    A4 48 pages
    Publisher: THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE Gallery
    Dimensions: 29,7 x 21
    Read more
Videos
  • There Was a Time When I Could be Anything

    There Was a Time When I Could be Anything

    Solo Show by Cássio Markowski Read more
Related content
  • Guerreira e Egungun (Warrior and Egungun) Publications

    Guerreira e Egungun (Warrior and Egungun)

    LIMITED EDITION PRINT 19 January 2024
    Signed and Numbered Giclée print on Canson Arches BFK Rives White 310g paper
    Read more
  • Sagrado Coração Publications

    Sagrado Coração

    Limited Edition Print 1 October 2023
    Signed and Numbered Giclée print on Canson Arches BFK Rives White 310g paper
    Read more
  • There Was a Time When I Could be Anything | Solo Show by Cássio Markowski Publications

    There Was a Time When I Could be Anything | Solo Show by Cássio Markowski

    Exhibition Catalogue 25 January 2023
    Read more
  • Cássio Markowski exhibits in Portuguese lands Press

    Cássio Markowski exhibits in Portuguese lands

    Jornal Angola 1 January 2023
    Read more
  • There Was a Time When I Could be Anything Videos

    There Was a Time When I Could be Anything

    Solo Show by Cássio Markowski 19 December 2022
    Read more

Related artist

  • Cássio Markowski

    Cássio Markowski

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