After studying sculpture in Portugal, the artist Rui Chafes (born 1966 in Lisbon), attended the Düsseldorf Arts Academy for two years, studying under Gerhard Merz. The artist himself says: “I don’t make sculptures; I make shadows.” Influenced by the late medieval master Tilman Riemenschneider, Chafes has published the book Um Sopro (“A Breath”, 2003), containing detailed shots of Riemenschneider’s woodcarvings alongside his own works. He is suspicious of the way in which art is usually divided between the “contemporary” and the “historical”. He has also translated the “fragments” of the German Romantic Novalis into Portuguese. This affinity is visibly reflected in his sculpture, where flowing shapes emerge whose delicate appearance belies the fact that they are made of hard steel, creating an impression of shadows that are able to shift and disappear.
This exhibit containing new works by the artist is titled BALTHAZAR, named after the donkey in the film Au hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson. The film is “one of the most important films of my life”, according to Rui Chafes: “It has always played a central role in my work due to the strict and exacting aesthetic principles of Robert Bresson, which I have been following in my own work for years.”
Chafes has represented his homeland at the biennials in Venice and São Paulo. In Germany he was awarded the Robert Jacobsen Prize by the Würth Foundation.

OPENING :
Friday, 19 January 19:00

mpefm GERMANY art press release