Mário Martins
I discovered the photography more than thirty years ago. I am interested in series, the repetition, the memory, the rewriting, the trompe l'oeil, the reconstruction of meanings. The instant, the document, the narrative, the thesis, do not interest me so much. There is nothing to show but to see, even, and especially, what is not obvious. I am interested in the nonlinearity from Godard, Laurie Anderson, Penderesky, Robert Frank, Eggleston, Céline, Man Ray, David Lynch, César Monteiro, Poe, Luiz Pacheco, Pop Dell Arte, Dostoyevsky, Coltrane, Velvet Underground, Cocteau, Saul Leiter, Mayakovsky, successively and simultaneously. Distopic spaces, atopic, panoptic, erotic, synoptic, dysphoric, semiotic. For sheer delight in disorder and graphic anomie. I am not interested in routines, metaphors or utopias. I make photographs by impulse, by kleptomania, creation of memories, anthropophagy, celebration.
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Some of his works have been exhibited and published in different media, such as individual and collective exhibitions, contemporary printed and online art magazines, blogs and other digital platforms.
Some selected exhibitions: Projectos e Progestos, Edifício Chiado, Coimbra (group exhibition, 1982); II Salão Fotográfico do FITEI, Porto, where he obtained an Honourable Mention for the work set presented (group, 1984); Retratos, at Instituto Tutelar de Menores de S. Domingos de Benfica, Lisboa e Gouveia (solo, 1994); Seia / 95, at Biblioteca Municipal de Seia (group, (1995); Errância do Olhar, at Galeria Municipal de Abrantes (solo, 2003); Olhares, Vila Boim (solo, 2003); Ruralidades, at Galeria Municipal de Arruda dos Vinhos, (group, 2003); Homage to the actress Isabel de Castro, at Teatro S. Pedro de Abrantes, (group, 2003); Visões desconcertadas, at Museu do Hospital e das Caldas, em Caldas da Rainha (solo, 2005).
He did still photography in various contexts, namely in the Grupo de Teatro Fatias de Cá (1983-1984), he collaborated in several independent theatre projects with exhibition of photographic projects and publication of papers in several newspapers (1991-1995); with the theater group d D’As Entranhas (2004); in the cinema, A Porta Amarela, by Vítor Frade (2003). He also collaborates with Rosco Ibérica (1991-1992).
He has published regularly in publications of contemporary art (2008-2019): Revista Artes & Leilões, ARTECAPITAL.NET, Arq’a – Revista de Arquitetura e Arte, Wrong Wrong Magazine, Umbigo.
He developed the project umafotopordia in a blog with the same name, uninterruptedly, where a thousand and one photographs were published, with daily edition (2005-2007).
He was trained at the Center for Photography Studies in Coimbra (1981-1982) and attended the master’s degree in Theory of Visual Culture at IADE, Lisbon (2008-2009).
He is a founding member of the Terceiro Direito – Associação Cultural and belongs to the editorial team of the online magazine of contemporary art Wrong Wrong Magazine.