Bruno Zhu: Belas Artes

Belas Artes, a solo exhibition by Bruno Zhu (Porto, 1991), will be on view at CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian’s Project Space from February 28. 

Influenced by fashion design, publishing and scenography, Zhu’s object-led installations explore notions of agency, authorship, consumption, and power. The exhibition at CAM follows ‘Licence to Live’ (2024), commissioned and presented by Chisenhale Gallery in London. Amplifying the terms of the commission itself, Zhu authored a license agreement that includes a step-by–step guide to exhibition design. Belas Artes adopts the detailed instructions in that license agreement. CAM has implemented its codes for colour, display, ornamentation, and orientation, generating four distinct yet interconnected rooms. These custom-built exhibition rooms display artworks from the CAM Collection and historical mannequins from Museu Nacional do Traje selected by the artist. 

In Belas Artes, the main entrance to the gallery was fitted with a door that turns itself into a ceiling when entering the space. The real floor has been upholstered with wallpaper, effectively turning it into a wall where a sculpture leans on or lays on it. Turned sideways, this room borrows the modernist style of the Gulbenkian Foundation's head office designed by Ruy d’Athoughia, Alberto Pessoa and Pedro Cid. This space is followed by other rooms that are ruled by colour, divided by custom-made vitrines, and populated with busts wearing satin bows. 

Works from the CAM Collection on display include previously unidentified sculptures by Yvonne Mortier and works by artists such as Emília Nadal, José de Almada Negreiros, António Pedro, Sérgio Pombo, among others. Zhu’s exercise in museum display prompted a careful review of the data related to some of the works, leading to a critical assessment of how they have been documented. The exhibition resonates with CAM’s curatorial mission to encourage new perspectives of its Collection by inviting artists to engage with it.

On the occasion of Belas Artes, CAM and Bierke Verlag are co-publishing the second volume of Fiction Non Fiction, a series of readers edited by Zhu that pairs voices in literary criticism with the material histories of labor, gender, and race. Each volume proposes a close-reading of fictitious and theoretical works to explore how identity politics have been narrativized by liberal institutions across space and time. Volume II surveys the role of dress in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

In parallel to the exhibition at CAM, Gulbenkian Art Library is displaying a selection of publications by Zhu. The library recently acquired a collection of self-published works by the artist produced between 2013 and 2023. Spanning hand-made photobooks, artist books and exhibition ephemera related to A Maior, this body of work gives a unique insight into the artist’s oeuvre. The publications can be requested for consultation.

Bio
Bruno Zhu (Porto, 1991) lives and works between Portugal and the Netherlands. Recent projects include exhibitions at M HKA in Antwerp, Chisenhale Gallery in London, Para Site in Hong Kong, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Veronica in Seattle, Kunsthalle Zurich in Zurich, What Pipeline in Detroit, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Zhu is a member of A Maior, a curatorial program set in a home furnishings and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.