MIMA presents Multitude: a solo exhibition by Vhils about the relationship between people and cities
Multitude: Carving Memories in the Digital Age, from 28 June 2024 at MIMA
MIMA in Brussels is presenting a solo exhibition by Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils. Since 2005, Vhils has presented his work in over 30 countries around the world in exhibitions, site-specific art interventions, and museological institutions
The exhibition at MIMA, titled Multitude: Carving Memories in the Digital Age, is about our relationship with the city, “the greatest human invention” according to historian Ben Wilson. This is a recurring theme at MIMA, who previously organised solo exhibitions by artists Boris Tellegen, Akay & Olabo and Félix Luque Sanchez. Like his predecessors, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils draws his raw material and inspiration from urban space, giving eyes to blind walls with his jackhammer.
By scratching surfaces, Vhils delves into the past and present of societies. The artist digs into their heritage, culture and narratives. The more he digs, the more human stories he brings to light. Throughout his process, which is particularly marked by carving, he eternalises moments in three elements that are crucial to his work: urban landscapes, patterns and faces. By engraving portraits, he carves into the future, although his works are as ephemeral and transitory as history and life itself.
Spread across the ground, first and second floors of the MIMA, visitors can encounter wall carvings, billboards, cityscapes, videos and installations from different time periods that offer a compelling insight into the Portuguese artist approach to the relationship between people and cities. They are all characterised by his persistent attempt to freeze time. He constructs contemporary memories in an ongoing reflection on identity, on life in contemporary urban societies and their saturated environments.
Remembering is fundamentally a social act. Since the time of ancient civilisations, communities have erected monuments to celebrate, inspire and construct identities. If such memorials are linked to a specific date, time or space, in contemporary art the approach to remembering has no limitations. Art extends the notion of memory to humanity.
However, our relationship with memory has changed dramatically in the digital age. Participation, information, algorithms, recording and posting are now part of a limitless and uncontrollable chain of media memory. In this digital archive, not only humans but also technology are agents. This is what the scholar Andrew Hoskins calls “memory of the multitude”: together, all the digital uploads of contemporary life create a continuous, cumulative and real-time loss of control over memory. For Hoskins, collective memory has its limits; memory of the multitude does not. For better or for worse, such entanglements are now an irresistible part of what it means to be social.
This highly complex and chaotic mode of communication and hyperconnectivity inspires Vhils’ solo exhibition Multitude: Carving Memories in the Digital Age.
The final section of the exhibition confronts us with the cacophony and exhaustion of information overload. Although the digital age is characterised by a potentially infinite memory, lack of connectivity, fragmentation and miscommunication prevail. A multitude of individuals who have lost control over what is remembered – and what is forgotten.
The invitation to the Portuguese artist to exhibit at MIMA was not simply a desire to share his colossal body of work here in Belgium. There is also a desire to give exhibitions an urban dimension from time to time, to stimulate visitors' imaginations outside the white cube.
Next to the exhibition at MIMA, Vhils is also making a new wall in the public space of Brussels, resonating with the city's vibrant history and cultural tapestry.
Alexandre Farto aka Vhils
Multitude: Carving Memories in the Digital Age
28.06.2024 - 05.01.2025
MIMA
Quai du Hainaut 39-41
1080 Molenbeek-Saint-Jean
Vhils Public Wall in Brussels
Location: Rue Léopold 25, 1000 Brussels
Located in the heart of Brussels, the new public wall by Vhils is an extension of the artist’s exploration of urban environments and human identity. Set to be inaugurated on June 26th, this piece occurs simultaneously with Vhils' solo exhibition at MIMA, bridging the institution and the street.
The wall reflects themes of freedom, identity, and resilience, resonating with the city's vibrant history and diverse cultural tapestry. Through his distinctive technique of carving into the wall, Vhils uncovers the layers of the city, metaphorically peeling back the facade to reveal the essence of its inhabitants.
The creation of this wall during the MIMA exhibition setup is not coincidental. It serves as an extension of the exhibition's focus on the city. The Scratching the Surface project embodies the concept of the exhibition's ground floor, where the local history and the stories of the residents are carved into the wall, creating a permanent dialogue between the city and its people.
The flower depicted on the wall symbolises freedom and resilience, representing the hope that drives social change. Flowers have historically been symbols of peace and resistance, embodying the wisdom gained through the passage of time. Vhils' work pays homage to the anonymous individuals whose collective efforts and sacrifices shape history, emphasising their crucial role in society.
In essence, Vhils' Brussels wall captures the chaotic yet beautiful essence of life, reflecting on how we navigate and shape our collective existence. It stands as a powerful reminder of our role in the ongoing local and global changes and our continuous quest for identity and freedom within them.
About the artist
Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils (b. 1987) has developed a unique visual language based on the removal of the surface layers of walls and other media with non-conventional tools and techniques, establishing symbolic reflections on identity, the relationship of interdependence between people and the surrounding environment, and life in contemporary urban societies, as well as the impact of development, the passage of time, and material transformation. Having begun to interact with the urban environment through the practice of graffiti in the early 2000s, Vhils has been hailed as one of the most innovative artists of his generation. His poignant, poetic portraits chiselled into flaking walls can be seen adorning cityscapes around the world. Based on his aesthetics of vandalism, Vhils destroys as a means to create. He carves, cuts, drills, etches and blasts his way through the layers of materials. Yet, like an archaeologist, he removes in order to expose, bringing to light the beauty that lies trapped beneath the surface of things.
Since 2005, he has presented his work in over 30 countries around the world in solo and group exhibitions, site-specific art interventions, artistic events and projects in various contexts – from working with communities in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, to collaborations with well-reputed artistic and museological institutions such as MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (2022); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2020); Le Centquatre-Paris, Paris (2018); CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017); Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation, Hong Kong (2016); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014); EDP Foundation, Lisbon (2014); and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego (2010), among others. An avid experimentalist, besides his groundbreaking bas-relief carving technique – which forms the basis of the “Scratching the Surface” project –, Vhils has been developing his personal aesthetics in a plurality of media: from stencil painting to metal etching, from pyrotechnic explosions and video to sculptural installations. He has also directed several music videos, short films, and two stage productions.
Vhils works with several leading galleries, including Vera Cortês Gallery (Portugal), Danysz gallery (France and China), Delimbo Gallery (Spain), and Over the Influence gallery (Hong Kong and USA). His work is represented in several public and private collections in various countries.
Selection of images
