Darwin’s Apple, Newton’s Monkey, 2012, 16mm Filmstill – Photo: João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva

The Corner Edges Of Objects Appear Rounded At Faraway Distances, 2012, Camera Obscura Installation – Photo: David Aebi, Kunsthaus Glarus

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THOSE ANIMALS THAT, AT A DISTANCE, RESEMBLE FLIES

Untill 18 August 2012

Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland

The Portuguese artist duo João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva (b.1979/1977, living in Lisbon) themselves call their work “recreational metaphysics”. In their first solo exhibition in a Swiss institution, the artists are showing new films and a space-filling camera obscura at Kunsthaus Glarus. The artists have arranged groups of work especially developed for this exhibition in a range of thematic constellations that are combined into a kind of dream landscape. With a particular sense of humour they use optical devices and obscure experiments to challenge human understanding and thus inquire into the logic of illustration and at the same time reflect on the complexity of image productions. The artists also follow this principle of illusion with the camera obscura, which they use to produce imaginary images. The themes are many and vary in kind from anthropological-enlightenment, experimental-artistic and philosophical-magical. They thus evoke sometimes scientific sometimes absurd and then again dream worlds.