Gustavo Sumpta
Performativa de Verao (Summer Performance), 2006-2008 by Gustavo Sumpta
This intervention is composed of two drawings made with a transparency pen on paper, glued onto free leaflets (both from 2006) and a string of drawings that were the outcome of the performance “Assim não vais longe” (“You won’t go far like that”), 2007, which was the opening of the Sintra exhibition of Contemporary Dance/2008. This is a suggestion that shows the importance of the performance acts in the work of Gustavo Sumpta, where the show always gives place to symbolic acts, which will continue to live, later, in pieces in different contexts, in the circuit of the visual arts.
Vista da performance “O melhor mundo possível” (2004) no projecto TERMINAL, Hangar K7, Oeiras/Arquivo Paulo Mendes / PLANO 21 a.c.
O melhor mundo possivel (The best of possible worlds) by Gustavo Sumpta
This project was created within an artist in residence program at the Art Gallery ZBD and through the agency RE.AL, where the somehow optimistic resignation seen in the title of the performative act is subject to irony when the material (rolls of toilet paper) is used in the construction of a suspended world.
GUSTAVO SUMPTA was born in Luanda (Angola), in 1970, and lives and works in Lisbon. He has been exhibiting and performing his work regularly since the nineties, at the ZBD Gallery, in Lisbon, in the project Salão Olímpico (2003-2006) in Porto, in the exhibitions Terminal (2005) in Oeiras and In.Transit (2007) in Porto, at the Revólver Platform and at the VPF Cream Art Gallery, in Lisbon, where he has presented his first solo exhibition: Quando se reúne muito trabalha-se pouco (When one meets too much one works too little), 2007.
In 2003, he started developing performance as an artistic medium, participated in Lab10 with the project Bala, expressão de contentamento (Bullet, Expression of Contempt) and collaborates with the choreographer João Fiadeiro and the filmmaker Pedro Costa in the creation of The End of a Love Affair.
Beyond his activity in the fine arts, he has also worked in theatre, dance and cinema. He was one of the founders of the theater group Pogo Teatro, having participated in the collective’s activities between 1995 and 1999; He also participated in various productions by Artistas Unidos (United Artists) between 2000 and 2003. He collaborates with RE.AL since 2002, having participated in the works Existência, O que eu sou não fui sozinho e Para onde vai a luz quando se apaga? (Existence, What I am, I was not alone and Where does the light go when it is switched off?), all directed by João Fiadeiro. In the cinema, collaborations include his participation in the film Juventude em Marcha (Youth in March), by Pedro Costa. He won the prize EDP, New Artists 2007.