In February and March, CLB Berlin presents new works by Victor Lema Riqué as part of a solo exhibition. The drawings with charcoal and coloured pencils were created between 2020 and 2022 during the pandemic in Brazil and can now be seen in Germany for the first time. On the large-format papers, motifs from modern architecture, mass media, advertising and consumption are interwoven in a way that celebrates, breaks and questions the dawn of modernity and the optimism of progress of the 20th century in equal measure. This creates sleepwalking scenes that literally invite reflection – a re-examination of the past in the mirror of the present: What remains of the former ideas, hopes and promises? What is still alive and what had to be laid to rest? And what visions do we have today for our own future?
Victor Lema Riqué was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1955. He has lived in São Paulo, Brazil, since 1979 and has worked in Paris, London, Bristol, Berlin and Dale, Norway. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the USA and several countries in Latin America and Europe. Riqué’s art is expressed primarily in painting and drawing – but also in combination with literature, radio play, performance, film and video.
The exhibition is curated by Karen Lisboa.
Photo: Victor Lema Riqué, Victor Lema Riqué, “Já falei: as palmeiras não dão sombra – 1”, charcoal on paper, 100 x 150 cm, 2020.