The exhibition Fermata («still»/«stopped» Italian), which also refers to the pause in musical notation, by João Ferro Martins showcases a set of works from 2019, based on concepts like pause, wait, breathing, silence, invariability. Words that can not only be connected to music but also used when talking about cycles or routines. The constant need for time we cannot control and the cyclical power over days and tasks seem to lethargically suspend us, creating contradictions like dysfunctional objects or objects whose function has been displaced.

Pausa, suspensão,
transe
e
outras mortes

«And so on. (Pause.) Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery.
(Pause.) One wasn’t enough for you. (Pause.) Lie down across her.»
— Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape (1958)

Fermata presents a set of new works by the artist João Ferro Martins at the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra. The title, which comes from the term fermare (stop, pause, hold), refers to the symbol of musical notation used to indicate that a sound must be prolonged or extended beyond the normal duration value of the note. Sometimes it is also used to indicate the end of a phrase, a section of a piece, and live in concert, to determine the cadence point.

‍

Pause

Apart from being a singular name, presumably more contained in evocation, Fermata has a meaning that simultaneously offers two movements — the act of stopping and of extending. In this operation, two types of pauses, are often used in most of the artist’s works: the pause of the object (static at first glance, but reverberating if observed closely) and the extension of that pause in the viewer’s gaze. This is because, in his work, it is usual to emphasize the stopping, due to a practical or temporary necessity to crystallize the work, preceded by reflecting on the bodily existence in a time period (of the being and the work of the being, and of the being who sees the work, and so on). And if a pause can have the same duration as an extension, as such can be true both in music (time), and matter (space), that extension is in itself a form of pausing with movement. Choosing this title emphasizes just that, establishing a great aggregating premise for the exhibition. It also celebrates the essence of sculpturing as a whole, as an ontological tool, and the temporary death of an object to create new meanings.

In other past instances, João Ferro Martins (JFM) turned to the language of Dante for the title conception, for in his previous individual exhibition — Sottile sfumatura di rumore — at 3+1 Arte Contemporânea, in Lisbon (2017). In this case, the exhibition was made up of pieces that functioned as a set of backdrops and apparatuses, later used to shoot a movie. The Italian title was used as a poetic evocation of something intangible — not knowing the scope and reverberation of an image not yet captured, even though the participants (artist, script, objects, sculptures, machinery, sound, space, costumes, non-actors, extras, etc.) were permanent and planned. The sculptural installation and the movie wholly comprised the work. Despite seeming to belong to a different conceptual universe, this prior exhibition has a similar constituent to the new Fermata — the obsession contained in the Pause.

As for the Sottile sfumatura di rumore exhibition, it takes place between the process that leads to the finalization of the «set» and the «shoot». The film itself works as an extension and development of those final conditions. However, in Fermata the entire construction and preparation takes place in favor of the pause. The possible static extension occurs in the object and the viewer. The discourse sits on that pause, regardless of the content and shape of the work, which is always urgent. This can be called a sculpture of the pause that confronts us.  

One starts with a Samuel Beckett epigraph, an excerpt from Krapp’s Last Tape, which exemplifies how the pauses (in this case, used as directions for the reader or actor) create a necessary tension to sustain and emphasize the importance of what is said in the poetic mortar and rhythmic language (something the Irish author knew how to crystalize better than anyone [and Harold Pinter, later on]). Not coincidentally, in 2017 JMF made a sound installation (for internal sound circuits in theater venues, the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in this case) titled Intervalo, based on Kaspar by Peter Handke, with Joana Guerra and Alexandre Pieroni Calado. The pause in his sculptural and installation work continues to seek many influences from presence concepts and performative pause notions, which inform and determine the internal dynamics of theater plays, dance, and music. Despite his production mainly in the plastic arts, JFM spreads his knowledge between the performing arts, sound composition, and photography, being aware of the limits and potentialities of each practice, applying methodologies of one art form to another, operating coherently on the broad field of multidisciplinarity (which is still assimilated strangely by conservative audiences in 2019). The works at this exhibition result from that commitment to freedom urgently and unequivocally materialized in sculpting.

Bruno Humberto, Casablanca, 2019