Film Memoirs

Eustáquio Neves launched an individual exhibition at cAsA – Obras Sobre Papel (Works on Paper), in Belo Horizonte, the city where his retrospective has been on display at the Museu de Arte da Pampulha since 2011. Memória do filme (Film Memoirs) is a series that draws from various phases of his career – including Futebol (Football 1997-98), Objetização do corpo (Objectification of the Body 1999-2000), Máscara de punição (Punishment Mask 2004) and Dead horse (2008), and Film Memoirs, produced in 2018 and presented here for the first time.

Eustáquio Neves’s oeuvre is known for the different techniques used to manipulate the photographic image (whether authored or appropriated), like the superimposition of elements and interferences in the images by manipulating the negatives. The works raise issues of racism and the objectification of the body as well as topics related to the city and the countryside.

Neves refers to his work as autobiographical, reflecting his roots from Minas Gerais and Africa. In Punishment Mask, for example, he appropriates a portrait of his mother when she was young, by superimposing on it images of the masks that were used to punish slaves. His use of serializing and narrative processes allows for his oeuvre to dialogue with cinema, shuffling story order, time and attachments. The exhibition is open through 30 June.