© Slideshow

Azul Cadoiço

Julião Sarmento

In 1957, Bruno Munari designed the famous Cubo Ashtray for Danese Milano. Originally conceived to be produced in two different dimensions (6x6x6 cm and 8x8x8 cm), it was built out of melamine and anodized aluminium. In 1966, nine years after Munari, Judd began a creation process of minimalist cubic sculptures that lasted for several years. Julião Sarmento was interested in the contamination of these two realities. His project for Expanded is a reconstruction of Munari’s ashtray, but with the dimensions of Judd’s first cube. However, unlike these examples, Sarmento’s piece is made out of limestone and complemented by a base comprised of wood pallets, which here are elevated to the status of artwork.

 

Azul Cadoiço, by Julião Sarmento

Forgive me for the historical inaccuracy and blatant speculation, but what interested me the most in this piece was Donald Judd’s eventual perspective of Bruno Munari’s Cubo Ashtray. The transformation of the ingenious functionality of a design object into an already historical sculptural postulate. This piece’s working title was Munari/Judd. I then decided to go for the designation of the beautiful stone that materialised it and tried to recover its lost functionality by reusing the pallets that transport it.

Julião Sarmento is an artist whose work interweaves his personal, idiosyncratic, literary, imagetic and cinematographic references with those of the history of modern art. Through a process of recollecting histories, references and images, his work operates within a permanent movement of revision.   The sculpture Sarmento created for the Expanded project arises from a very particular and specific discovery: the connection between a cubic Donald Judd sculpture and the iconic Cube Ashtray by Bruno Munari, created in 1957 for Danese Milano - which continues to produce it in its two original dimensions of 6 and 8 centimetres. In fact, the two works (in Judd’s case, the sculpture would be repeated in several shapes and materials beginning in 1966) are practically isomorphic, with the evident difference in scale between the object for use and the specific object, between the sculpture and architecture that inform Judd’s artwork. Thus, Sarmento has produced a cube that is formally similar to Munari’s ashtray, but has the same dimensions of Donald Judd’s first cubic sculpture, cast in a material that neither of them used - a limestone called “azul cadoiço” -, adding yet another semantic level to the history of the use of cubes in contemporary art: the piece rests on pallets that function as a plinth, conscious of the fact that Judd’s sculptural assumptions required the complete opposite, contact between the artwork and the ground.Julião Sarmento é um artista cuja obra cruza as suas referências pessoais e idiossincráticas, literárias, imagéticas e cinematográficas, com as da história da arte moderna. O seu trabalho, num procedimento de recoleção de histórias, referências e imagens, opera num movimento permanente de edição. A escultura que realizou para o projeto Expanded parte de uma deteção muito específica e particular: a da relação entre uma escultura cúbica de Donald Judd e uma obra icónica do design, o cinzeiro Cubo de Bruno Munari, projetado em 1957 para a Danese de Milão, que ainda o produz nas mesmas duas dimensões para as quais foi concebido, com 6 e 8 cm. De facto, ambas as obras (no caso de Judd, a escultura seria repetida de diversas formas e materiais desde 1966) são praticamente isomórficas, com a evidente diferença de escala entre o objeto de uso e o objeto específico, entre escultura e arquitetura, que enformou a obra de Judd. Assim, Sarmento produziu um cubo formalmente semelhante ao cinzeiro de Munari, mas nas dimensões da primeira escultura cúbica de Judd, num material que nenhum deles usou – uma pedra calcária chamada “azul cadoiço”--, adicionando ainda um outro nível semântico à história da utilização do cubo na arte contemporânea: a peça assenta sobre paletes que funcionam como um plinto, sabendo que os pressupostos da escultura de Judd requeriam precisamente o oposto, o contacto da obra com o solo.  
The history of the use of the cube in American post-war art is marked by other iconic examples, such as Tony Smith’s Die sculpture (1962), a set of 4 mirrored cubes by Robert Morris (1965), the One Tone Prop (House of Cards) by Richard Serra (1969) and Sol Lewitt’s cubic structures. In all of these examples, the relationship with the ground is fundamental, for its rhetoric carries the dubious character that Tony Smith synthetically expressed when stating that the piece was not an object nor a monument. Sarmento’s sculpture rubs salt into the wound: in that year of 1957, the same year Brancusi died, the synthesis of non-expression entered into objects through the hands of Munari. Whether this constituted a model for Donald Judd remains speculation. But the connection between functionality and phenomenological primacy, the dubious character between the object and the massivity of stone, presents a new narrative for the migration of the universes of art and design. Delfim Sardo May 2019Na história da utilização do cubo na arte americana do pós-guerra pontificam outros exemplos icónicos, como a escultura de Tony Smith Die (1962), o conjunto de 4 cubos em espelho de Robert Morris de 1965, One Tone Prop (House of Cards) de Richard Serra de 1969 ou as estruturas cúbicas de Sol Lewitt. Em todos estes exemplos, a relação com o solo é fundamental porque na sua retórica está sempre presente o caráter dúbio que Tony Smith tão sinteticamente expressou na sua declaração de que não se tratava de um objeto nem de um monumento. A escultura de Sarmento coloca o dedo na ferida: nesse ano de 1957, também o ano da morte de Brancusi, a síntese da não-expressão entrou nos objetos pela mão de Munari. Se constituiu o modelo para Donald Judd, é já uma especulação. Mas a conexão entre a funcionalidade e o primado fenomenológico, o caráter dúbio entre o objeto e a massividade da pedra propõem uma nova narrativa para as migrações entre os universos da arte e do design. Delfim Sardo Maio 2019