Pivô interviews Paloma Bosquê

Pivô: I would like to start our conversation by talking about your relationship with materiality. It seems to me that your departure point is always the investigation of possible ways to use and handle different materials. How does this process take place?

Paloma Bosquê: Yes, this is almost always the case. In fact, what has triggered most of the projects I have worked on up until now is the confrontation between masses. This takes place either in the work process itself, between my body and the material, between the different materials that compose the artwork, or even between the artwork and the space itself. Materiality is how each thing is in the world. It is how things present themselves or how their internal structures are organised so they can be. I am always drawn to the relationships between masses, their thresholds and their behaviour under different stimulus.

Pivô: In ‘O Incômodo’ (The Unsettling) you chose to work with materials that are typically associated with others in their everyday use. For example, rosin is used as a type of glue or to adjust violin strings; meanwhile lead is used in the manufacturing of batteries and as protection from radiation. In this project you use these materials in their pure form, examining their materiality, weight and texture, and also the ways in which they can be associated. What attracts you to these materials that are considered ordinary and transitional?

Paloma Bosquê: This happens not only in relation to these two materials specifically. In most of my choices, the attraction and options for possible materials stem from a tactile/sensorial experience.

In the case of rosin, this was something to do with its malleability, ductility, translucency and smell.

This was the first time I used lead sheets, and it was the contradiction between density and malleability that drew me to it.

I thought the two would make a good contrasting pair whilst still keeping some similarities as, for example, the fact that they are normally seen as ‘useless’ in their original form.

Pivô: When writing about your work, I often thought about describing rosin as ‘reacting’ to lead or brass, perhaps due to a habit of language. Thinking about its behaviour and having read about its atomic arrangement, it seems to me that the term ‘to settle’ is more appropriate to describe what happens to rosin in this case, as it settles onto the other materials. We have talked about the physical relation between the materials but I believe there is also a poetic relation. Do you agree?

Paloma Bosquê: The main driving force is gravity, much more than a confrontation between the materials. Gravity is constant. The physical and poetic relations happen not only between the materials but also within them. I was attracted to the fact that rosin, an apparently solid material, is in constant transformation, and from there I decided to develop this project. It is a silent and seductive way of not accepting conformity. It is as if the material was many things at the same time, as if it could take any shape or form, yet not be bound to any of them.

Conversely, transporting rosin is practically impossible as it is extremely fragile; therefore, it cannot be transformed into an object to be consumed. It is merely a sort of mutating presence.

Pivô: The artworks in this exhibition propose an experience that is not only spatial but also temporal. The rosin blocks’ subtle movement is only revealed through time. To be fully appreciated, the project depends on regular visits or a thorough documentation of the process, which is subsequent to the physical experience. I would like you to describe how you thought about this project in relation to its duration.

Paloma Bosquê: In order to be fully understood the work depends on intimacy, regularity or the perception that nothing there is permanent.

Every artwork requires a certain intimacy and this happens over time. In this sense, the duration of the work is not unusual but this does not rule out the possibility of having an instant and unique impression, which is also valid.

Think of a painting as a ‘static’ example. You can look at it once in your life or spend your whole life looking at it. I am sure the painting will transform itself, even though it is not moving.

In this project, the change is in the expectation in terms of the impossibility of reaching a final form or knowing that you are always looking at a transitional form. At times, it feels like the duration of the project – the exhibition’s four months – means that the sculptures will eventually reach a final point but the fact is that this point does not exist.

Pivô: This project was meticulously planned. You made models, ran several tests and developed specific methods. The irony is that despite all this it is impossible to foresee the rosin’s behaviour up until the end of the exhibition. How do you relate to this uncertainty?

Paloma Bosquê: The preparation would be the same even if I knew the sculpture’s final outcome, as every single installation requires this type of planning, perhaps due to the scale and nature of occupying the space. The uncertainty is not the material’s behaviour. I have researched and, in fact, it is possible to have a certain idea and roughly calculate the desired outcome. However, it is the combination of factors that is crucial, and this we cannot predict accurately. It is not only a matter of weight, malleability or resistance. There is also room temperature, the vibration of the structures where the sculptures are placed and a series of environmental variables that are more or less uncontrollable. I am looking forward to seeing how the blocks react but I think the result will be less dramatic than it sounds. It is only about settling. But even so it is very exciting to have the freedom to experiment in this way and I think that, in this sense, this programme’s format is ideal.

Pivô: In the project’s presentation text I mention the unfathomable challenge of imposing a certain geometry to an amorphous material that is in constant transition. This type of imprecise geometry is recurrent in your work, in projects that come about on the edge of frustration, such as the reused squares of ‘Ritmo para Dois’ (Rhythm for Two) or ‘Projeto Cegueira’ (Blindness Project). I would like you to talk a little bit about how you see these issues reflected in this project.

Paloma Bosquê: In general, I have noticed that my practice derives from a somewhat absurd effort to give form to things, and this effort usually results in an interesting confrontation between materials. There are two different driving forces combined: a desire to produce forms and a confrontation with matter, such as in the series ‘Repetições’ (Repetitions) in which I attempt to give geometric shape to a gold leaf attached onto an irregular surface made of wax. The result is such that the gold leaf that was initially there to determine a geometric space ends up revealing the relief on the wax beneath it; revealing, therefore, the ‘imprecise geometry’ to which you are referring. The focus is the form that is possible within a certain material existence without imposing more than it can actually offer.

In particular, I think this project stems from a form ‘imposed’ by the casting of rosin into orthogonal moulds. This form reveals itself as a lie and over time it is undone. It is as if the material found its own ideal form; and as if the artwork was precisely this process of readjustment of the form.

Pivô: Another recurring theme in your work is the use of soft and flexible materials. In this case, even the metal selected is malleable. It is inevitable to think of the opposition between these materials and modern architecture, which carries the ideal of progress and the rigidity of concrete structures. How do you see the dialogue between the unstable structures you propose and the space inside Copan?

Paloma Bosquê: Using the space at Pivô is not a simple task, not only due to the fact that it is a residual space within the building but also due to the nature of the construction, which is full of curves and ramps.

The lack of straight angles in a space has always been disturbing to me, as the walls seem to push you to the centre. The corners of a room offer comfort, a literal vanishing point, and a refuge. A room with no corners is authoritarian. It is as if the space constantly forces you into the centre and, therefore, to the action or focus of attention. Modern architecture has a positive, progressive and imposing drive.

This work is the opposite of that. It is made of imprecise sculptures that, from the outset, reveal the incapacity to conform. They are soft materials that are practically useless in their regular form.