Edson Chagas, Found Not Taken (undated)

Seeing the young Angolan artist Edson Chagas in London as part of the group exhibition Journal at the ICA (until 7 September) reminds me of the fantastic project that he made in Venice last summer as part of the Biennale. In Venice Chagas represented Angola, and the pavilion, Luanda, Encyclopedic City, which was situated in the Palazzo Cini, won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. (Image above: Edson Chagas, Found Not Taken, London, 2014).

Both the exhibition in Venice and the one in London feature works from an ongoing series by Chagas entitled Found Not Taken. The series depicts abandoned objects in city streets, and over the years the artist has made groups of works in several settings: including London and Newport, during the time when he was studying in Britain; and Luanda, where Chagas was born and where he now lives. The artist rearranges and repositions the objects, sometimes moving them considerable distances. He says that this process helps him to understand the dynamics of the urban context, and that in general the work is “a learning process of the city, its people and rhythm.”

In Venice the curators chose to exhibit only images from Luanda, which were shown as 23 large format posters, presented as piles. In this context the series spoke of the habits of re-use that have been characteristic of Angolan society, but also the rapid changes that are being wrought in the capital as part of an ongoing economic boom. And of course there was a strong contrast with the Western artistic canon represented in the Palazzo Cini, and with the more bling aspects of the Biennale as a whole. In addition, the posters could be taken by visitors, implicitly involving the viewer in the process of mapping and cataloguing that the series displays.

However, Chagas remarks that all of the cities where he has made Found Not Taken have been in states of transition. The same is of course true of London, where the artist stayed recently in order to make new work for the series and for the ICA exhibition. One of the things that I like about this work is that it is presented as posters, evoking the tradition of the artist’s poster as relational art work (a prime example being the paper stacks of Félix González-Torres). At the ICA the posters are pasted to the wall, so the work is not directly participatory, but still implies a culture of circulation that extends beyond the gallery system and into the wider world.

Images above: Luanda, Encyclopedic City, installation view, Palazzo Cini, Venice, 2013 (photo by Paolo Utimperger); plus works from Found Not Taken, Luanda, various dates, by Edson Chagas.

Images above: Journal, installation view, ICA, London. 2014 (photo by Mark Blower); plus works from Found Not Taken, London, 2014, by Edson Chagas.