“Eppur si muove” (whispered words of Galileo Galilei)

“And yet it moves.” This statement attributed to Galileo hovers over José Damaesceno’s exhibition. It hovers like the sentence written on the wall, “é pura épura” (“it’s pure epure”), which operates like a transcendental horizon for the works. For anyone who merely looks, it is a conjunction of geometric pieces composed under the influence of the ellipse. But for anyone who really sees, it is a place that moderates spaces and triggers new ways for inventing spaces.

The granite mousehole, a solid shadow that imagination inhabits with the cartoon mouse, receives us with enigmatic density. With Damaesceno, there is always a between, an intermediary; in this case, the oscillation between the concrete presence of the object and the made-up hole of the imaginary mouse.

The idea of epure, a resource from descriptive geometry, inspires the artist to make playful leaps, switching between dimensions. It constitutes a semantic horizon, an act that presupposes projections of movement that bring about an alteration in space.

The accelerator, made of wood, conjures the idea of moulds and models, but mainly brings forth a kind of question-asking machine to which one can fairly ask: What should be studied? To keep the artist’s investigative horizons open, we might say: research the very creative urge, investigate the uncertainty of spaces that are related within it. A machine with no “why”, but a “how” and enigmatic reason.

The succession of elliptical spaces gradually narrows in size and number until it creates a kind of neo-baroque vertigo. The forms are inspired by the geometry of the “ellipse”, but we cannot forget the meaning of the term “ellipsis”: implicit, condensation, internal torsion.

The accelerator is static before us with its latent mobility. An optical instrument, an allusion to the idea of the lens (which makes images dilate and retract), the accelerator raises the essential issue of pace. Pace of lines, pace of words, successive punctuations.

One major topic for Damasceno is how far vision, thought and language can reach: “just glancing means to see less; really looking means to see more.” In its interplay and leaps between vision and thought, we realize that the “accelerator” epure is beside the “accelerator” object. An ambivalent presence, it is here and yet not here. A specular state of speculation.

Jackpot alludes to the slang of money, nervousness and imagination. A superlative, it speaks of great quantity and is associated with the idea of value. Folded leaves of lead catapult us to the alchemist’s dream of turning lead into gold. To turn the lead of experience into the gold of thought. To enlighten.

The monitor is a device that has no clear relationship between figure and ground. Strands of wool create an optical experience. Colours reveal a given weave, weft and web. A pace of threads. The word “pace” permeates the exhibition. Especially in accelerator, the holes make shortcuts, spaces between spaces, connecting vessels, paced punctuations. In the hand-written sentence, “é pura épura” the meanings of “purge”, “purify” and “regulate the pace of movement” are aligned without ever forgetting the relativity implicit in the word “velocity”.

Even after walking round the pieces, in one’s head one continues to extend and weave new projections. An intense projective experience, the exhibition also asks us, with its spatial and semantic ellipses: What does it really mean to see? Can there be movement in something that is apparently unmoving?

An artifice from a world of potential velocities, José Damasceno also delights in the art of echoing specular dimensions. As if he were always restating the aphorism: “just glancing means to see less; really looking means to see more”.

José Thomaz Brum has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Nice, France. He lectures in aesthetics on the postgraduate certificate course in the History of Art at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro.