João Motta Guedes: No feeling is final
It's a beautiful Saturday morning. I sit on a terrace overlooking the rooftops of Lisbon, and I finally have time to start writing this text. I tried a couple times before but I wasn’t in the right mood to do it—not in the right emotional state to let myself sink into it. “so much to do / so much to feel / so much to be / so much to love / so much to enjoy / so much to devour and to be devoured,” as João Motta Guedes writes in one of his three poems that are part of his solo show No feeling is final—which this text is going to be about—at Galeria da Boavista, curated by Luís Silva.
There is so much of life that needs to be lived every day, and “A day is not so short even though it is not so long,” as the artist remarks. And although in these past short, long days I haven’t written down a word, the exhibition has been on my mind a lot. No feeling is final. What does that mean—for me, for us, for life and how it is to be lived?
This title, taken from a line from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Go to the limits of your longing,” is not only the title of the show, but also of the three works on display on the ground floor of Galeria da Boavista. I was surprised with excitement when I saw these works are made out of stained glass, a material so steeped in history but rarely seen in a new and more youthful artistic interpretation; a material, moreover, that is special to me as I connect it with my mom, who is a glass artist herself and whose closeness I often find myself longing for living so far away from her. “I am right here / you are right there / why is it not possible to build bridges through the abyss?”
A bridge between me and you, but also a bridge between what is outside, what the world is, and what is inside, what I am, what I was and what I will be. In his work, João transcends these seemingly separate worlds by opening up a cosmic sphere. He does this from his own perspective, and yet I can step into this cosmic realm so effortlessly, for it is sustained by a true universality that contains us all in our human essence. The glass windows themselves are like three different entry points to this journey, fuelled by feelings of ecstasy; and can sometimes be travelled alone, sometimes together.
In the materiality of the glass, the artist has found a medium that shows this trip in different momentary impressions without limiting it to a beginning or an end. For the glass always remains permeable in its solidified form, as it is enlivened by the light, the intensity of which is slightly different each day, proving capable of carrying the colours beyond their substantive limits. Blue, red, and golden yellow are spreading across the room. No feeling is final, no feeling is ever alone, and no feeling is the furthest. I want to come along on this trip and leave the heaviness I sometimes feel behind. “everyday / wherever you are / flying is a matter of letting go / all the unnecessary weight, / and to go with those who propel us higher / is a thing of beauty / that may last forever.”
I want to fly.
It's a new day and I sit down again to continue writing this text. I'm on the same terrace, but this time it's evening; yet, the sun is still strong and warming my face as it slowly sinks deeper and deeper into the city. A light breeze is blowing, and I can hear the chirping of the birds blending with the noises of streets as they slowly come to rest. It seems like a beautiful moment, and it is. Over the last few days, I have been dwelling more and more on moments like these, recognising the preciousness of the mundane and the everyday treasures, putting my inner feelings out into the world, and at the same time letting the outside impress what's within me. It was above all João's lines of poetry which are also part of his exhibition—some of them I’m citing here in this text and which I read again and again—that had this effect on me.
I allow myself to drift back to the moment when I was in the exhibition and left the room with the glass windows to go up the stairs. The atmosphere here is different. The room is dark, the colour is gone, and the walls are black with no daylight coming in. A sculpture made of intertwined metal spirals takes over the room. It takes me a while to grasp what I'm seeing, and even more so what I'm hearing. At first I thought the three megaphone-like shapes coming out of the sculpture were there for me to speak into it, but then I realised that there is already a voice coming out of them. It’s João reading out his poems, one at a time. The poems converse with the stained-glass windows, and more than that, they give a more tangible expression to the feelings they portray, bringing them out of pure abstraction. And yet what I feel and what you feel remains, to a certain extent, incommunicable, although shareable in endless forms and countless times. “My dear, come, u can leave when u wanna, / the road goes as the road goes / and absolute freedom / is only true when shared.”
João's exhibition is a journey through a human experience in which temporality turns into simultaneity and uniqueness, all spatiality becomes placeless, and thus emotionality becomes the guiding principle. What remains are endless possibilities, glimmering colours, the horizon, the sun and the stars, and I myself and we each other. When no feeling is final, I can enjoy each one a little more for as long as it lasts.
Valerie Rath is an Austrian cultural producer and curator with an academic background in art history and art and cultural management. She is currently living in Lisbon. Since April 2024 she is working as an in-house Curator for DUPLEX_AIR. Her curatorial practice is driven by a deep curiosity about the influence of past narratives on our collective and individual abilities to imagine future worlds — and how artistic interventions can expand that imagination.
Proofreading: Diogo Montenegro.
João Motta Guedes: No feeling is final. Exhibition views at Galeria da Boavista, Lisbon, 2024. Galerias Municipais de Lisboa. Photos: Bruno Lopes. Courtesy of the artist and Galerias Municipais de Lisboa.