«Sfumato» at Tabacalera Madrid, Spain
12.02—12.05.2013
curated by Begoña Torres González
« (…) Starting from the painting itself and the images it creates of the duplication of the stubborn reality, beyond it, enveloping it, unfolding the space between our initial perception, our reflection and the fantasy it arouses, Rui is able to unfold ephemeral layers of representation without limits, opening unpredictable subjective spaces in which the subject who looks and the artistic object contemplated intertwine.
(…) The result is an invisible work because it does not seem to be what we see. It has a fleeting and elusive appearance, it does not look like painting, that is, something that we can see again and again, carefully and deeply, in its 'tactile dimension', in the solidity of the line, in the thickness of the pigments, in its density.»
Begoña Torres González, excerpt from the catalogue essay, 2019
« Some creators are able to stand on the dangerous edge that separates the wonderful from the banal, the extraordinary from the unexpected, and what we have at hand in their particular everyday lives It is there, and not in a hollow transcendentalism, that the singular must emerge, penetrating deeply into an etymologically idiotic reality in order to reach other intensities, works like those of Rui Macedo, which I dare to call magnificent, in which the brilliance of pleasure and the vibration of the concept do not have to be antagonistic.»
Fernando Castro Flórez, excerpt from the catalogue essay, 2019
« (…) Rui Macedo's painting deliberately participates in this shared fusion, which means that in the Tabacalera's exhibition space, he also achieves a radical rapprochement between the real and his pictorial illusion, developing an extraordinary play between the painting and the architectural space in which it is affirmed and dissimulated.
(…) That is to say, the paintings that appear there not only present the illusion of the space of architecture, but also take its place, sometimes concealing it in compliance with the millimetric measurements of certain parietal apparatuses. And although he does not avoid, or rather confirms, through the inevitable expression of the techniques of this discipline, that painting constitutes the short-circuit of his artistic work, Rui Macedo essentially reaffirms it in the relationship of simulacrum that he manages to establish with the spatial order of his work that he manages to establish with the spatial order of its manifestation. »
David Santos, excerpt from the catalogue essay, 2019
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The solo exhibition "Sfumato" curated by Begoña Torres, was held from September 30, 2023, to April 7, 2024, at Tabacalera, in Madrid, Spain.
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November 5 | 7pm
Talk and guided tour of the exhibition with Fernando Castro Flórez and Rui Macedo.
Free entry -
On the occasion of this exhibition, it was published the catalogue «Sfumato» (ES) with essays by Begoña Torres, Fernando Castro Flórez and David Santos.
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Begoña Torres González, director of the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, holds a PhD in Art History and is a member of the professional body of Spanish museum curators. She received a special end-of-degree award, an honours award for her doctoral thesis, and the Marqués de Lozoya prize for cultural research. She has directed the Centro Tabacalera in Madrid (2010‒20) and the Museo Nacional del Romanticismo (1997‒2010), being responsible for the reopening of the latter in 2009. She has likewise held important posts both in other cultural institutions and museums and in the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport.
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