Polaroid
2004
Video, colour, silent
1' 40"
2019-20 Constellations II: a choreography of minimal gestures, curated by Ana Rito & Hugo Barata, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisboa. With Nuno Sousa Vieira, Fernanda Gomes, Kazimir Malevich, Os Espacialistas, Félix González-Torres, Fernando Calhau, Giulio Paolini, Jemima Stehli, Ignasi Aballí, Ana Hatherly, Susana Mendes Silva, José Maçãs de Carvalho, Jack Pierson, Glenn Ligon, Mark Rothko, Angel Vergara, Sarah Lucas, Gina Pane, Ernesto de Sousa, João Tabarra, Rui Chafes, Douglas Gordon, Maya Deren and Diogo Pimentão.
2005 Life-cage, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisboa
> play video
Ivo Martins Collection (in deposit at the Serralves Foundation, Contemporary Art Museum, Porto)
Colecção Privada
The short video work "Polaroid" moves Susana Mendes Silva's explorations from the realm of detachment and disembodiment to
dematerialization. A figure gradually but inexorably emerges from the pure white void of a developing photograph. Susana Mendes Silva seems to bleed into being, and it happens almost too quickly to savour the gorgeous exposure of colour and texture. We are inescapably left a step behind, struggling to grasp the exact moment when the image first forms, when it seems to be fully formed, and when it actually is. At the end, we are denied eye contact with the figure, and, in a way, the void
remains
James Westcott, "Disembodied Fragments"
in Life-cage, catalogue of the exhibition, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art