VITALS VAPORS
Adriano Amaral
13. April – 8. Juni 2025
Opening: 13 April 2025, 11 AM - 3 PM
Press Preview: 10 April 2025, 11 AM
Exhibition: 13 April - 8 June 2025
Exhibition venues: Kunstverein Arnsberg and Lichthaus Arnsberg
Eröffnungsreden: Grußwörte von Frau Dr. Barbara Rüschoff Parzinger, Frau Minkel Kulturbüro Arnsberg und Einführung in die Ausstellung und das Projekt VERSUMPFUNG von Prof. Pauline Doutreluingne
The solo exhibition VITALS VAPORS by the Brazilian artist Adriano Amaral opens as part of the annual programme VERSUMPFUNG at Kunstverein Arnsberg. Curated by Pauline Doutreluingne, the programme explores how changing ecologies manifest themselves in contemporary artistic practice, particularly at the interface between water and land, between physical and spiritual ideological landscapes. The exhibition opens up an understanding of humans as part of a complex ecosystem whose definition is rapidly changing in the face of climate change
In his artistic work, Adriano Amaral explores materiality, time and space, creating complex, immersive and transformative landscapes that can be experienced through the senses. This transformation is not only physical but also symbolic, questioning the permanence of meaning in content and form. His practice is based on an intuitive and pluralistic approach. Numerous dichotomies - natural/artificial, abstract/figurative, material/immaterial, ecology/technology - play a role, but the interesting aspect is that new hybrid forms and content constantly emerge and enable new perspectives in the juxtaposition. His installations stimulate our thinking and drive us into the liminal zone between the strangely absurd and the known and familiar. They are like talismans from the future that evoke a new iconography. His oeuvre is more than mere representation; it invites us to enter into a deep, psychic and physical experience, awakening sensations and states of mind linked to our captivation with the chimerical.
The floor of the Kunstverein in Arnsberg has been transformed. It is now covered with black-grey lava sand, the windows have been covered with antifreeze agent and the view to the outside is obscured. Natural light flows into the space, but not excessively. The four basic elements of fire, water, earth and air come up against silicone, acrylic and prosthetic rubber. Industrial and everyday objects are combined, natural and synthetic elements merge and the resulting hybrid sculptures and paintings populate the space. For instance, the Prosthetic Painting Series (2023) hangs on the wall, resembling sci-fi swamp landscapes from another world or the future. Several (kinetic) sculptures hang and stand in the room, bringing together unexpected and elegant assemblages of acrylic pipe, silicone, pigment, shells, wire, ants, LCD screens, twigs and electronic components. In the middle of the room, three monitors hang from the ceiling in a triangle, showing the atmospheric film Mar de Fé from 2020. The film is set on a rugged coastline at night. The camera glides over foaming waves, chases through dark bushes and along shiny, resinous tree trunks. The exhibition is like a porous experience, in which the viewer is left to decide how to take it in.
Im Lichthaus Arnsberg, unweit vom Kunstverein, ist die Installation Mar de Fé The installation Mar de Fé (2020) can be seen in the Lichthaus Arnsberg, not far from the Kunstverein. It consists of an octagonal aluminium tank, steam, water, various seeds, silicone, peat and aluminium casts of fish. The base consists of modular solar panels. Over time, the influence of sunlight has created subtle purple and green patches on the dark surface. This artificial landscape conveys a sense of time and transformative energy through technological devices that accompany us in our daily lives. Amaral allows organic and industrial things to interact with each other on this platform. The compressed peat soil dries and shrinks slowly, while mould forms on the surface, absorbing the mist from the humidifiers. The octagon has been a recurring architectural and ornamental motif in many cultures since ancient times. Its symbolism is related to the integration of the material and spiritual worlds through the harmony between the square, which symbolises the earth, and the circle, which represents the sky, the divine dimension. A sculpture hanging above the octagonal basin was made from casted aluminium fish fossils and recalls the book One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez- in which a man began to cast and melt fish in a cyclical quest from matter to form and back to matter again. The exhibition VITALS VAPORS questions the extent to which it is possible for us today to step out of rigid thought patterns and try to understand the environment that surrounds us in its transformation.
ADRIANO AMARAL lives in Brazil. He obtained an MFA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London, before taking up a residency at De Ateliers, Amsterdam, in 2016. He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (NL), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (NL), Rodeo Gallery, London (UK), GRIMM Gallery, New York (US) and Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld (DE), among others, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (2024), Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (2024) and Mudam, Luxembourg, LU (2020)
SWAMPING (2024 - 2025) explores how changing ecologies manifest themselves in artistic practice. In addition to a selection of new and existing works by established and emerging international visual artists, artists from various disciplines as well as ecologists and activists are invited to create an artistic sensibility and imagination for an ecological past, present and future. In this project, the Kunstverein has set itself the task of developing public awareness of the principle of moorland and swamping as an ecological strategy.
09.06.-30.06.2024: LUNDAHL & SEITL – River Biographies
13.04.-08.06.2025: ADRIANO AMARAL – Vitals Vapors
27.06.-23.08.2025: PATRICIA DOMÍNGUEZ
28.06.-29.06.2025: WETLANDS FOR THE FUTURE (Panel/Symposium/Activations)
12.09.-16.11.2025: ELISE EERAERTS & ROBERTO APARICIO RONDA
For further information and press material, please contact: carolauehlken@gmail.com
The exhibition is sponsored by the Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn, the City of Arnsberg, the Hochsauerlandkreis and the LWL Cultural Foundation as part of the cultural programme for the anniversary year 2025 ‘1250 Years of Westphalia’. The patron of the cultural programme is Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
