Augusto Alves da Silva
Born in Lisbon, Augusto Alves da Silva (1963) lives and works in Tremês, Santarém. Without completing his degree in Civil Engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico (1981-1984), he continued his studies in London, where he attended the London College of Printing (B.A. Hons. Photography, 1989) and the Slade School of Fine Art (M.F.A. Media, 1997), with two scholarships from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Affirming his place in the field of photography since the late 1990s, he was nominated for the Latin Union Prize in 1996, and finalist for the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize in 1999. He was also part of the Portuguese representation at the 9th Venice Photographer par excellence, his work also extends to video. Author of a serial and sequential work, Augusto Alves da Silva works in the field of colour figuration, where the mark of the documentary school of Dusseldorf is recognised from an early age. By transposing the realistic and synthetic approach, the artist consciously explores the artificiality of representation. Approaching the major themes of landscape and portrait, the gaze on solitude is transversal in his work, which gains a central place in the solo exhibition Crystal Clear, held at MACE - Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas, 2016-2017.
Exhibiting at renowned Portuguese and international institutions, Augusto Alves da Silva signed, among others, the individual exhibitions: ist, Culturgest, 1995; Quatro Pontos Cardeais, Fundação de Serralves, 1997; Una Ciudade Así and Carretera en Work, Museu Nacional de Reina Sofia, 1998; CNB 2001, Instituto Camões in Paris, 2001; Espaço de Tempo e Ugly, MNAC - Museu do Chiado, 2002; BES Photo 2006, CCB, 2007; and the retrospective Sem Saída / Ensaio sobre o Optimismo, Museu de Serralves 2009-2010. He has participated in numerous collective exhibitions, in the national and international context.
His work has been published in several artist's books, such as the initial series Que Bela Família, 1992, ist, 1994, Antena, 1999 and Shelter, 2001, and is represented in private and institutional collections, especially the collection preserved by MACE..
RS, setembro 2020
