Inflammatio, meaning to set fire in Latin, also designates inflammation (or inflammatory process) as a reaction of an organism in the face of an injury to its tissues — a stage described by Aulus Cornelius Celsus in Ancient Rome, around 50 BC.

His insulae [Insulae] — gregarious spaces, residences where the less fortunate were housed in Old Rome — were also flammable, which, unlike the domus, would quickly catch on fire, taking Nero, for this reason as well, — in a hot-tempered state — to want to see Rome burn.

After these autophagies [autofA(l)gias _Gelo Real Vestígios], new consciousnesses of the body are revealed when it is exorcized before what is mirrored in nature, in florigen [Florigen]. Everything beyond what gets exorcized [Oratória] and appealed to [Dá-me a mão, não as luvas] in prayer through fire.

However, there is a secret walking in the mountain [A(l)titude], and yet, a dark dialogue throughout the night in the search for meaning. That necessary hunger to invent god [Samovar sobre pedras].

Inflammatio by António Barros

Something is unsettling about the absence of color in the work by António Barros. A mourning and a death that immediately transfigures into struggle and love. Black and white from which light shines: work illuminated by the power creator of poetry, illuminating the perception of those who touch it with their gaze. A gaze immediately transfigured by catharsis, a liberation operated by fire: a cleansing through combustion, a penitence. Unsettlement is accentuated by the absence of a meaningful space, creating a space to create meaning(s) instead. A work, project work without a frame: consciously rupturing normative space, situated (and besieged) by involvement. An anti-fascinating, anti-technological, whirling work, promoting the release of the consciousness, of what is born of consciousness — of the learned structures of perception. A work against the absence of meaning, against the trivialization of meaning. A work that ignites. 

There is something uneasy about the title of this exhibition. Inflammatio: a salvation by the flame of a fire, a transfiguration of the inflamed gaze. José Tolentino Mendonça warned that a title is a mysterious thing, and so is the relationship it establishes with the work, regarding the exhibition Alvoro» at MUDAS. 16/12/2024 The mystery deepens: inflammation, what fuels the fire; inflammation, how the body reacts to the injury. And those island-places (those frameless places) ignited by the fire, are gestured in this work. Open the door to a dialogue that appeals to openness, to communicating with the other: the «progesto». Experienced places are ignited, and collective identity memories are kindled. There is something uneasy about the work by António Barros: a fever, the lighting of a flame, the lighting. A work that germinates.

Inquietação, desassossego. Uma febre e um fogo que inscrevem a inteligência teórica do autor, operações estéticas que excedem o visualismo poético, que ultrapassam a instalação performativa, que transpõem a arte em espaço público. Como entender estes espaços-ilha onde os públicos se isolam? Como entender? Obra pronta para a resposta: como jogo de sombras, os barroquismos controlados de António Barros são enigmas, e em relação a essas tensões devem ser observados. O seu ofício é a geração de contaminações, religando o corpo e a natureza, exsudando as inflamações. Um «inventário da dor», que «exibe e esconde» ao mesmo tempo, como também refere Tolentino Mendonça. Luto e amor, luta e morte. Obra que questiona: desassossego e inquietação.

Let us observe the catalog (the ordering: as if things had an inner order…, as if things can be ordered…). Draft catalogs, sketches, works in attempting (experimenting), looking for meaning before meaning. The draft strives for shape, it is the seed that anticipates its fruit. The sketch of this work, documented in black white, disturbs: catalog without color, catalog without photographs, pure icon previous to singularity. Works in sketch design themselves, form in potential, pure quality. Improvised poems («esquisso» [sketch] comes from the etymological origins in schedius, an ancient form of improvised poetry...), performance (in its truest sense of performance, unique and unrepeatable, present): aliving inner force that is never ordered. Living work. Or yet: a work enlivened by flames and inflammation. Sketches (improvisations) of a project in action. Thus, a catalog to gaze at, a catalog of the gaze, a catalog of a work for the gaze.

A work that still promotes revisiting, transfiguring the past, mourning, and becoming, the spring. António Barros always takes advantage of the «ex_posições»¹ to transform himself, to transform what he has showcased. No chronological dimension, no anthological order. A work gestured through alchemy (through transfiguration), the stone that awaits to bloom. Light dust that sustains the communication of what is ephemeral, of what exists in transition. Like butterflies in circles, chrysalises dreaming of resurrection. Like nocturnal butterflies, consumed by love, flying around the fire flames, burning their wings in circles. Ash which is the synthesis of communication. And in a world where communication seems saturated, sutured, and excessive, a work demanded by insularity, by necessary distancing. A return to nature, a revealing art between icon and symbol, between possible and canonical, between wandering and rooting, as comprehended by the artist Isabel Santa Clara. A work between, made of passages, exchanges, meta_morphoses: an excited fever. A temporary work, sketched, revisited: uneasy, questioning.

According to the author, these navigations, these transits, signal a journey to the interior of one’s condition, a journey to the infinity of the self, an inner journey in search of emptiness. The interior is that which cannot be named and what, according to António Barros, hides by showing itself. There is no place for the soft here because what we see is not real: rather, it sustains the frame of the frame, as it is put by Barros. A work that searches. Therefore, the fire of this art is also the timeless fire of Prometheus, it is poiesis, the seed of fire, the desire for the creating word, manifesting itself in logos, reason, and intelligence. Fire that becomes placenta, that primordial water, a journey back to the origins. A work that restores: and all that matters is beginning the journey, being in transit.

But how does one dialogue when immersed in silence? How does one find bridges in the liberating journey? How does one enunciate the doors, the passages between states, between worlds? This work questions, but it also answers: in this journey, from the known to the unknown, from light to darkness, a door opens, a door that opens us to a new mystery. The mystery of the gaze, the inflammation of the gaze. Perseus’ petrified gaze, protected by a polished shield, turned mirror, beheading Medusa, immobilized by her own image. Everything comes to us through the eyes: the miracle, the living stone, the work. Mourning, here, without punishment, without the punishment of human immoderateness. How does one dialogue in silence?

In the work by António Barros, there is a clear paradox that ignites us: art as education (a work that informs), situated in at the same time counter-interpretation, against the resignation of sensitivity. Its difficulty is a challenge, compelling us to a new beginning. Always beginning. Like what is liquid or aqueous, transitional. A work that seeks nature, a work in transit germinating in communication. Fire also exorcizes, and in this work, it is fever and delusion: the gaze raves, the gaze does not see, the gaze imagines. In a committed relationship with its reader, it becomes a lens, amplifying the concept, sublime art. Contemplation and enchantment: art seeking to outdo itself. Communion, magic.

Rui Torres
July 2018

¹A play on the Portuguese word «exposição» (exhibiton) with «ex posição» (ex position).