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Les Prairies's artists
FRANCISCO TROPA
Terra Platónica, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and galery Quadrado Azul, Porto. Photography : Guilherme Carmelo.
Production
Les Ateliers de Rennes 2012.
Portuguese artist Francisco Tropa's art is a perfect contemporary example of what Harald
Szeemann described as individual mythology. Tropa not only creates objects, he also draws
up constellations of specific references through which ideally the objects can be interpreted.
In spite of the potentially esoteric nature of his works he is not a mystic. The sources of his
sculptures, performances, photographs, drawings and printings are to be found in the history
of the media he uses, in classical art, philosophy and literature, as well as in classic themes
such as memento mori, ritual, games and time. The striking and enigmatic Terra Platonica
(2012) includes a number of Tropa's preoccupations – the classical technique of cast bronze, and
questions of ritual and temporality. The piece was inspired by a strange photograph by Edward
S. Curtis illustrating an obscure funeral rite, from his famous series on North American Indians.
Tropa made a cast from something representing the mummy curled into the foetal position. It is
displayed here hanging from cables. The title refers to pre-Copernican belief in a flat Earth at
the centre of the universe. Curtis's total incomprehension of the mysterious rite could be seen
as comparable, as if it were a microcosmic analogy with the pre-Copernican model.
C. S. tr. J.H.
Born in 1968 in Lisbon (Portugal), where he lives and works.