Past exhibition at Lumiar Cité:

James Newitt
Uma Espécie de Sombra
14.11 - 22.12.2013

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Press-Release (port)
Press-Release (eng)
Exhibition View

James Newitt, Cruz Vermelha, 2013

James Newittʼs exhibition is fragmented, divided into parts evoking concepts and metaphors of Heterotopias and of Platoʼs Cave. Moving and still images – a video installation and photographs – are combined with texts and drawings in the form of a screenplay and a series of ʻmindmapsʼ, presented inside and on the glass façade of the space. The light from the videos merges with diluted daylight, an effect created by covering the galleryʼs windows with a reflective film. The video which, is projected on both sides of a suspended screen, depicts two young boxers training alone in front of a mirror. The young men only confront each other in an imagined space. The movement of the camera as it films, circling the protagonist, anticipates the movement of viewers around the screen – which produces further reflections in the windows of the gallery space. The viewer positions themselves physically and mentally within the range of heterotopias of a boxing club and an art space, both occurring on the frayed edges of their areas of action and their common location in the outskirts of Lisbon. The reflections of bodies in the impossible ʻthereʼ of the reflected image in the mirror merging with the ʻrealʼ image of the Alta de Lisboa landscape which exists just beyond the frame.


James Newitt (b. 1981 Hobart, Tasmania). He has exhibited his work in numerous museums and galleries, including: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2013); the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2012); the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart (2011 and 2009); Rosalux, Berlin (2010 and 2009); the Gallery of Fine Arts, Split, Croatia (2010); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2010); the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2008); and the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of the Biennial of Australian Art, Adelaide (2008). He has received several awards, including the City of Hobart Art Prize in 2010 and the Qantas Foundation, Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award in 2009. In 2012/2013, he received the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.


This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The project has been supported by the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. Thanks to Culturgest for the kind support in the production of the exhibition.