This is the catalogue of the exhibition All Titles Are Wrong by Paulo Quintas, which was on view at Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional between February 24 and April 30, 2018. The exhibition was curated by Isabel Carlos. The publication features texts by Sara Antónia Matos, Isabel Carlos and Rui Chafes, photographic reproductions of the exhibited works, including exhibition views, and the artist’s biography with the complete exhibition trajectory.
“No human figures appear in Paulo Quintas’ painting either and the rarefaction of the mostly geometric and abstract images, the dissolution or erosion of forms on the pictorial surfaces seem to be hallmarks of his work, leading me to think that the painting of Paulo Quintas is touched by the nature of death and annulment. Everything in it seems related to erosion, as if on the verge of disappearing or breaking apart on the surface of the canvas. Everything in it points at spatial dissolution.”
-Sara Antónia Matos
“The name of the exhibition thus suggested itself with lapidary clarity: “All titles are wrong”; or we could say the exact opposite: all titles are right. The intention is to deliberately create a sense of discomfort with statements, naming, summarising, grand definitions and closed systems: “I like to say both one thing and its opposite. Fragments are filled with identity” (PQ).”
-Isabel Carlos
“The ethics of these paintings is hard, dry, that of a scorching desert. To have the courage to offer only what you have: the desert is dry and hard. These paintings do not promise us anything, nor do they suggest anything. They are not dry landscapes, they are dryness. It is not the sun, it is the calcinated desert. I believe in this painting as I believe in the truth: raw, hard, inevitable, inescapable, immutable and courageous. It is the painting of someone who knows how to be, see and understand everything, who is removed from himself and never needed to play the game because he knows that it is the game that needs him more. It is a painting that springs from nothing and yearns to exhaust the last vestiges of its will.”
-Rui Chafes