Francisco Tropa , March to May 2015
Francisco Tropa was born in 1968. He lives and works in Lisbon.
Francisco Tropa makes complex installations, associating different media: sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, the projection of images and performances that make references to literature, art history and science.
The use of all the diverse media allows him to concentrate the effect of his sculpture, seeing it through the prism of subjects such as the body, death, nature, landscape, memory, origins or time.
Francisco Tropa makes work that reveals itself slowly, having a hidden sense that is not limited to what is visible.
At the Atelier Calder, Francisco Tropa further developed his project entitled TSAE (the Submerged Treasures of Ancient Egypt), a vast and varied cosmogonical installation. The newest portion of this, made at the Atelier Calder, consisted of three works. First, le Songe de Scipion, (Scipio’s Dream), which echoes the cosmic vision revealed to Scipio during a dream, and was then retold by Cicero. Tropa suggests in turn his vision of this cosmic organization using metal sculptures symbolizing the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. They are at once surprising and poetic, playing on our perception by their suspended volume and movements.
The works called Antipodes, (Extreme Opposites), are sculptures made in different materials such as wood, marble or bronze, and present simple geometric shapes, but their movement reveals a complex architectural play offering endless configuration and installation possibilities.
Finally Scripta presented a collection of objects and their replicas in bronze on the floor of the Atelier making an imaginary landscape.
Francisco Tropa represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale of 2011; He participated in the Istanbul Biennale, Manifesta in 2000; at the Melbourne Biennanle and at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1999.
In 2013, he did a performance at the Palais du Tokyo, Gigante, (Giant). He had several solo exhibitions in that year: at the Verrière, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès; the work TSAE at the Gregor Podmar Gallery in Berlin and Arinaire at the Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, 2014, that represents him in France.
During his residence at the Atelier Calder, the Centre d’Art Contemporain, the Moulins de Paillard in Poncé-sur-Loir gave him a solo exhibition from April 4 to June 7, 2015.
www.moulinsdepaillard.wordpress.com
The Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain of Sérignan in Languedoc-Roussillon gave Francisco Tropa a solo exhibition from June 28 to August 30, 2015. The work produced at the Atelier Calder figured in this.
www.mrac.languedocrousillon.fr
Francisco Tropa is represented by the Galerie Jocelyn Wolff.
www.jocelynwolff.com