Born 1978
Lives Lisbon/London
Impact: Inflammable Sculpture No. 3
2005
Matches, matchboxes, cardboard, fire extinguisher dust, wood
350x130x250cm
Courtesy Galeria Filomena Soares
In 2003 Rodrigo Oliveira misled many of the drivers in Maia, Portugal, into thinking that the town’s central underground car park had been designated a museum: Portico comprised lettering that declared ‘MUSEU’ above the structure’s minimal entrance. What are the results – besides mischief – when discrete signs and codes concerning access and expectation are muddled or made into visual riddles, the artist seems to ask. More recently, the prolific Oliveira has elicited other kinds of subverted wayfinding in a series of glow-in-the-dark geometric drawings based on emergency evacuation diagrams, ‘Complex Constructions (Geography of the House)’ (2007). And judging by the partially charred Modernist housing models that make up his ‘Inflammable Sculpture’ series (2004–5), the artist’s conceptual redirections can have truly incendiary consequences. (MA)
