‘The Song of Pedro Costa’
22 October 2022 — 23 April 2023
The Song of Pedro Costa is the first exhibition to adopt such a specific perspective on the film-maker’s work: faces, voices and songs as signs of what is most particular to each person and as a response to the combined pressure of history and personal life. Five works of the ten that are presented were created by Pedro Costa expressly for this exhibition.
Pedro Costa (1959) is among the film-makers most appreciated by new film audiences and international critics, especially since the release of In Vanda’s Room (2000). His latest feature film, Vitalina Varela (2019), received the Golden Leopard for best film at the Locarno Film Festival.
His cinematographic approach is based on certain themes and ways of producing images, including the technical and aesthetic aspects and emphasizing the dimension of the work (economics, production structure, shooting and editing times, types of relations, etc.).
The Song of Pedro Costa is an exhibition conceived for La Virreina Centre de la Imatge. It approaches the film-maker’s work from the specific perspective of the direction it may take in the future. The exhibition revolves around faces, voices and songs as signs of what is most particular to each person and as a response to the combined pressure of history and personal life—a response to suffering and loss.
The exhibition is based on ten works, with titles alluding to the idea of singing: Down to Earth – Scrapbook (artist’s book, 1994) and Songbook of Fogo (a documentary video to display the contents of the notebook), Balar de Balibar (projection, 2009), Ventura’s Song (projection, 2014), Our Voices Will Sing No More (a set of three independent works projected in different rooms of the exhibition, 2022), Stone Song (five photographs on paper, 2015), Morna of Shadows (installation with five projections on screens suspended from the ceiling and soundtrack, 1994-2022) and Songs to Avoid Suicide (installation made up of the works On Suicide and To the Little Radio, both from 2022).
The five independent works that make up Songs to Avoid Suicide and Our Voices Will Sing No More were produced expressly for the exhibition The Song of Pedro Costa. Morna of Shadowsshows significant variations from earlier versions. Balar de Balibar, a fragment of the film Ne change rien, is presented in this form for the first time.
An essay also entitled The Song of Pedro Costa written by the exhibition’s curator, Javier Codesal, was published to accompany the exhibition.
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