The Portuguese artist Paulo Simão appropriates, transforms and redefines a series of historical photographs from the US Library of Congress that document sculptures installed in parks and gardens around the country. The subjects of the images are presidents, military officials, the clergy or artists (the vast majority of whom are white men). Eliminating the figures, but keeping the empty plinths and the titles of each work, Erased questions the role of historical monuments in contemporary public spaces.

Simão uses digital tools to transform the photographs, which were originally taken with glass negatives. Combining old and new technology, the series proposes a historical, transverse reading of the tools, aesthetics and politics of representation. It is a debate opened by decolonial practices that question the space occupied by monumental works and the values ​​and stories they represent.

In a scenario of strong political confrontation in which opposing visions of national and individual identity are ever-present, the series invites us to reflect on the relationship that Western countries have with their past, and their way of projecting it in the present.

He was born in Santarém, Portugal, in 1973 and lives in Lisbon. Paulo works as a graphic designer and photographer. With a PhD in Advertising from IADE, he graduated in Photography at the Ar.Co school in Lisbon in 2017. His work has been selected in international photography festivals such as Mostra 2020 Lisboa, Descubrimientos PhotoEspaña, Solar (Brazil), Delhi Foto or Kaunas Photo (Lithuania) and has also been exhibited in India, USA or Portugal. His work has been published in Hant, Der Greif magazine, Take the Picture or Propeller. In his work Erased, Paulo Simão evokes Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953) from a set of images from the archive of the Library of Congress of the United States.

Paulo Simão (Portugal, 1973)
Erased

2022 Edition
Outdoor installation
Venue: Ereaga Gardens