rest against, against rest
Having met on a residency deep in the Bolivian rainforest, Marco Godoy and Daniel de Paula have been speaking ever since. While their contexts differ, both share a long-standing interest in the dynamics, structures and theatrics of economics and power.
In their joint exhibition, ’rest against, against rest’, Godoy has tuned a conceptual practice into a figurative sculptural outcome, and de Paula has begun to make paintings alongside the sculptural practice he is known for. Presenting only a single word and its shadow rendered in a paint mixed with performance enhancing drugs, these innocent little paintings are enough to send trained dogs into a frenzy, appealing to the limits of our senses and the labour expectations exerted on us.
Meanwhile Godoy has shifted from erasing coins and manipulating fences to a more allegorical form of expression. His recent works depict figures engaged in intimate gestures, exploring the ways in which individuals relate to each other through a language not rooted in ideology, but in touch and empathy. These bodies are juxtaposed with replicas of humanity’s earliest lithic tools, signalling a return to the origins of power structures in his ongoing research. This exploration does not merely trace back to the Greco-Roman classicism that informs much of the visual language of modern power and the white body. Godoy looks further to the very dawn of human civilisation and the “first arms race”, linking us to our ancestors, those who first shaped tools out of flint — the first blade, the first spear, the first means of gaining an advantage over others.
De Paula also brings new developments in his sculptural practice, combining the likes of under-sea data cables with the literal power of lightning strikes frozen in time in Fulgurites. As Godoy considers the direct human relations of power and communication, here de Paula takes us into contact with some of the most technical, dehumanised, but ultimately human-made means by which communication continues now at a fraction of the time.
Copperfield, 6 Copperfield Street, London SE1 0EP
Opening Thursday 28 November 6-8:30 pm
29 November 2024 – 22 February 2025
Runs weekly, Wed – Sat, 12 – 6pm until 22 Feb 2025
