Rodrigo Matheus’s practice revolves around oddly sophisticated assemblages of found objects. In his latest exhibition ‘Hiato’ at Fortes D’Aloia Gabriel warehouse, Matheus rearranged and combined civil construction elements in order to echo a sort of domestic environment. Concrete balls and bird spikes are turned into structures that bear hanging voile curtains or underpin delicate compositions made with wool, twigs or cotton net. The stunning Moedas (Coins, 2018), for example, is made with hundreds of gold sequins supported by ‘anti-pigeon’ spikes: its seductive and shiny spheres somehow taunt the vocabulary of kinetic sculpture.
Matheus has been exercising this playful appropriative approach since the early 2000s. Most of his installations and sculptures result from tying, piling and piercing an assortment of elements as disparate as feathers, brushes, oil barrels and blowing horns. But unlike Duchamp’s readymades (that gain total autonomy when selected by the artist but can lose their ‘art-status’ whenever), Matheus’ objects are combined as if they were doomed to sign an irrevocable contract, in which they all agree to interrupt their everyday function in order to be something entirely different. - Fernanda Brenner