Rui Chafes

Rui Chafes was born in Lisbon, in 1966. Between 1984 and 1989, he graduated in Sculpture at the then Lisbon Superior School of Fine Arts, and he also studied at the Kunstakademie, in Dusseldorf, Germany. During his stay there, he dedicated himself to the study of German culture, namely the gothic sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider and the romantic poet Novalis, of whom he translated some literaty fragments, published in the book Fragmentos de Novalis [Novalis Fragments], with drawings by Chafes. After a short, more experimental period, he started making the black objects that are characteristic of his work at the end of the 1980’s, when he began to dedicate himself exclusively to the construction of his sculptures in iron or steel, then painted in black.

His first solo exhibition, Pássaro Ofendido [Offended Bird], was in Lisbon, in 1986, and from very early on he gained relevance in the artistic world, namely in 1995, with his participation at the XLVI Venice Biennale, representing Portugal, and in 2004 at the São Paulo Biennial with the project Comer o Coração [Eat the Heart], in partnership with ballet dancer Vera Mantero. In 2000, at the Sintra Modern Art Museum, he showed Durante o Fim [During the End]; in 2006, Corpo Impossível [Impossible Body], at Palácio Nacional de Queluz; in 2011, Five Rings, at Berardo Museum, in partnership with artist Orla Barry and, in the same year, a solo exhibition in Sassi di Matera, Italy. In parallel, in 2003, João Trabulo’s film Durante o Fim [During the End], revealed Chafes’ mysterious universe and later, in 2012, he wrote Entre o Céu e a Terra [Between Heaven and Earth], a fictional autobiographical book in which he revealed his imagined artistic path. In 2014, Peso do Paraíso [Paradise Weight], at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, was his first retrospective exhibition in Portugal. At the end of 2015, he was awarded the Pessoa Prize. Recently, between 2022 and 2023, a new retrospective exhibition is taking place at Serralves, Chegar sem partir [Arriving without leaving]. Other important exhibitions were Gris, vide, cris, in 2018, a dialogue between the work of Alberto Giacommetti and his work, at the Paris Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and in 2022, O resto é sombra [The rest is shadow], a group exhibition with Pedro Costa and Paulo Nozolino, at the Pompidou Centre, in Paris. With numerous public sculptures throughout the world, the work of Rui Chafes is represented in various important collections in Portugal and abroad.

 

CQ, August 2022