THE POND SKATER
A large-format publication with thick cardboard pages by the Portuguese Luís Lázaro Matos looks like an illustrated children’s book, but it is also a reflection on artistic practice in book form. A fable about a pond skater, a magpie and a snake written by the artist himself begins on the white cover, in large gold type. Inside, double-page image collages propose a completely different visual language, but the text of the fable continues in a smaller black font. A number of paintings, drawings and even photographs of performances by the artist are arranged on each double page against sketched backgrounds. The metaphor of the book as exhibition space employed here is not without its problems, but the collages pursue Lázaro Matos’s diverse artistic practice in an interesting way through the medium of the book. The skater is sketched on each double page as it appears in the fable, resting on the surface of the water and looking down at a golden book lost by the magpie. Oscillating between two- and three-dimensionality and between handicraft and rendering, the collages question the status of various image-creating media. The aesthetic of ugliness occasionally evoked here comes across as very contemporary.
