At times alone. At times accompanied. Was the world already there before there was reflection? The small scenes explore, to the saturation point, the enigmatic relationship between a double that is either opposing or facing his double; they isolate the figures by replicating them; they make us query the paradoxal originality of the other, the one that reproduces by replicating itself infinitely, conveying subtlety, tension, and deceptive fragility in seductive but potentially aggressive body moves. We draw closer. The images are fairly opaque, thick, dense, shadowy, obscure, faded almost unfocused – can clarity be destroyed by clarity? – ill-defined, precarious, somewhere between “fainting, falling, fading and faking” (the title of a text by Delfim Sardo in Luxury Bound). Jorge Molder, whose essentially photographic work is, according to a number of critics, about “duplicity,” fences with an impressive dearth of resources, with arguments that duel over the inevitable, uncanny division of the self. What we see are small Polaroid images taken from a number of video-recordings Molder made on the movements of the body during a fencing match. Two bodies – or figures (or maybe a duplicated body) are wearing the usual white suits and protective masks that both conceal and reveal the face. The naked hands relate to each other at different moments though different poses/gestures, in an arena whose hazy background is lit by a circular focus-light, expressively delineating a here and now – hic et nunc – that is almost archaic, germinal, seminal and symbolic, but one that immediately transports us to a timeless before and after: “still not a not-any-more.” A past that is the future perhaps. For João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, “the Polaroids strengthen the potential reach of that living past.” As he writes about Molder, he stresses the importance of “being ‘en garde.’ The Duelers are his domain. In this work, the photographs are his thoughts exactly. The on-target thrusts constantly lead us to turn back to the photograph. They create a need for time – and more time – to examine the consistency of a face that recoils in flight (and fusion) at every instance into the blackness of the background.” (text by João Miguel Fernandes Jorge in the catalogue “Algum Tempo Antes/ Algun Tiempo Antes”, 2006). Discreetly revealed is a paradoxical dialectic involving mirroring and a seductive interplay of closing and disclosing using two perspectives in each one of us, without time and objective space: Il faut que je sois mon extérieur, et que le corps d’autrui soit lui-même” (M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception). The Polaroid series esgrimitas (the Fencers) is cited over and over again in texts on Molder’s career, but the texts rarely explore more than the basics. The 1986 series with 8 x 8 cm photos is complemented by two small black-andwhites (the Polaroids are taken from video-recordings and the photos are direct shots) is a quasi-distillation of a number of 86 FLAd ArT coLLecTion Jorge molder en garde features, topics, and pivotal points of the types of discourse Molder has produced since 1977. The concept of “series” has been essential since the beginning, as the artist has asserted. Its meaning is rooted in a “well-known philosophical concept,” having temporal allusions, and references to belonging and other attributes that are difficult to clarify. “I know very well where it begins and eventually discover when it ends, I can manage to understand the elements that it comprises but what escapes me completely is the way it works and how it comes about.” (from the artist’s website) Unfinished – with an alpha but no omega – this series dealing with the world of fencing is a window into a few of Molder’s obsessions: primarily topics related to personal doubles or doppelgangers: an offshoot creature or a replica of ourselves wandering around out there somewhere. The fencers in these works “are beings that are a bit special,” according to Jorge Molder. The clothes, gestures, and anatomy of a routine that borders on the ritualistic bespeak ideas and memories of a fundamental archetype that faces the impossible challenge of the master stroke, the perfect rapier thrust, the unstoppable, the purest creation illuminated by human talent. It is a model of inspiration and efficiency which, because of its nature, discloses a spirit of agony, in a silent duel with its own image whose reflection seems to escape the boundaries imposed by the artist, between rejection and retention, obsolescence and ritual, in constantly imprisoned flux. As George Kubler has said, “the replications that fill the story effectively prolong the stability of many past moments, allowing meaning and model to emerge whenever we turn our attention to these moments. However, it’s an imperfect instability. Any replica made by man differs from the model owing to minimal, unpremeditated differences. The cumulative effects of these differences act as a slow drift in relation to the archetype.” (A Forma do Tempo). Perhaps like making a hit while avoiding being touched by the foil. pedro Faro A graduate in Philosophy, Jorge Mol‑ der (Lisbon, 1947) began his artistic career in 1977 with a solo show entitled “Vilarinho das Furnas (Uma Encenação), Paisagens com Água, Casas e Um Trailer.” In 1980, he collaborated with poets João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, and Joaquim Manuel Magalhães on “Uma Exposição”. his self‑depictions, coupled with strong references to literature, movies, and day‑to‑day life start to take shape in 1987 with several series of works. In 1999, Molder is invited by Delfim Sardo to represent Portugal at the 48th Venice Biennale, thus confirming him as one of Portugal’s most impor‑ tant contemporary artists. he was the director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Center from 1993 to 2009. Jorge Molder’s work can be found in a number of distin‑ guished Portuguese and international art collections. Parallel no. 6 | FALL | WINTER 2011
FLAd ArT coLLecTion “Don’t move. You won’t move. Someone else, a perfect likeness, a meticulous phantom-like double will perhaps perform for you, one by one, the gestures you don’t make.” Georges perec, The Man Who Sleeps Untitled (from the series “The Fencers”) 1986, Polaroid snapshots on Canson paper, 8 x 8 cm Parallel no. 6 | FALL | WINTER 2011 87 LAURA CASTRO CALDAS E PAULO CINTRA
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Why Studying at a Portuguese Univer
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A trail of war and debt “The ten
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Three iconic sites “On the 10th a
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