Vasco Araújo

VASCO ARAÚJO (Lisbon, 1975)
"Diva a Portrait, 2000.
Black and white photography.
Provenance: Filomena Soares Gallery, Lisbon.
Exhibitions: ARCO, 2001.
Measurements: 60 x 50 cm, 73,5 x 63,5 cm (frame).

The series "Diva a Portrait", made by Vasco Araújo in 2000, belongs to an early stage of his career and anticipates many of the conceptual axes that will define his later production: the construction of identity, theatricality, the body, gender and the codes of scenic representation.

In these black and white photographs, Araújo presents figures characterized as divas or characters of popular, operatic or theatrical resonance. The use of costumes, make-up, emphatic gestures and dark backgrounds turn each image into a mise-en-scène where the portrait ceases to be a simple individual representation and becomes a reflection on the mask, artifice and identity as a cultural construction.

Situated at the crossroads between photography, performance and theater, "Diva a Portrait" reveals Araújo's interest in scenic languages and historical forms of representation, used as tools to question the roles assigned to the body, gender and image.

Vasco Araújo held his first solo exhibition at Galeria César (2002), currently Galeria Filomena Soares, in Lisbon, and in 2003 he received the Prémio EDP Novos Artistas, one of the most relevant awards for emerging artists in Portugal. Since then he has developed an international career, with solo exhibitions in institutions such as Museu de Serralves in Porto, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, Boston Center for the Arts and Jeu de Paume in Paris.

His work is part of collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação de Serralves, Fundação PLMJ, Museo Reina Sofía and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.