Past exhibition at Lumiar Cité:

Thomas Mulcaire
LIMITES
26.01-13.03.2011

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“What happens in the space should stay in the space.” Marcos Corrales

When Maumaus took up a newly built shopfront in the Alta de Lisboa precinct to use as an exhibition space, Marcos Corrales was commissioned to draw up an architectural project with the objective of giving an identity to the unfinished space. The plans were submitted but the building work has been on hold due to a complex set of financial and bureaucratic constraints. In the meantime, Maumaus initiated an exhibition program, which is now in its second year, and the raw space, which was named Lumiar Cité, has taken on an identity through this through this program. This identity however remains ambiguous. Has the space become deliberately incomplete, displaying its underlying structure and thus allowing artists to intervene in the architecture according to their own tastes and needs? Or is it a project that remains suspended between its foundational elements and its final design due to structural factors?

Responding to an invitation from Maumaus to research and produce an exhibition at Lumiar Cité, Thomas Mulcaire proposed the realisation of as many elements of the Corralesʼ architectural project as his exhibition budget would allow. Thus far this has included completing a stone floor for the ground level gallery and a section of mouldable plywood wall for the upper level gallery. The exhibition raises a number of questions about work, particularly in relation to the built environment. The notion of work takes on a polysemous meaning, in the sense that the exhibition “Limites” consists of a number of different levels of authorship and labour: a design concept by an architect, executed by artisans, under the direction of an artist, at the instigation of an institution.

Thomas Mulcaire was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1971. He lives in Itamambuca, Brazil. He has participated in several international exhibitions including the 1998 Bienal de São Paulo, the 2004 Biennale of Sydney, Art Unlimited in Basel in 2008 and the Bienal del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina in 2009. Mulcaire has collaborated with other artists on several exhibitions including 'The Trial of Pol Pot' (with Philippe Parreno and Liam Gillick) at Le Magasin, Grenoble (1998), 'Johnny' (with Craigie Horsfield) at Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels (2000), 'Library of Congress' (with Joseph Kpobly) at South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2003) and 'National Park' (with Amanda Rodrigues Alves) at Galerie Kabinett, Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (2006). Between 2005­2009, Mulcaire co­founded and directed ITASC (the Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation), a collaborative network of artists, engineers and scientists who together designed, built and deployed ICEPAC (ITASC Catabatic Experimental Platform for Antarctic Culture), the first Antarctic research base to be run entirely on wind and solar power. Recent exhibitions in 2009/2010 include 'Cue' at the Vancouver Art Gallery; 'Intempérie: Fenómenos Estéticos da Mudança Climática e da Antártida' at the Centro Cultural Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro; 'Frozen Time at Stadtgalerie Kiel in Germany, and Remote Proximity: Nature in Contemporary Art', at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany.