Pedro Valdez Cardoso: A Quiet Unease

Pedro Valdez Cardoso: restrained traces of fire

Unlike Pedro Valdez Cardoso’s (b. 1974) previous exhibition at this gallery, “Pagan Days” (2023), there is no clear sense here that the space has been invaded. The fire consuming the bodies on display seems instead to be Camões’ fire that “burns without being seen”; its effects are visible chiefly as traces rather than as physical presences.

Everything in this exhibition feels understated when set against earlier shows. In the first room, the titles “Burning Creature” and “History of Violence” intensify the meaning of two photo-engravings depicting Greco-Roman faces covered with shells. Here, “History of Violence” - recalling David Cronenberg’s notable 2005 film - is reduced to a window grille secured with a padlock.

Melancholy and unease in the gallery basement

The gallery’s second area, its basement, is entered via a staircase leading to a floor scattered with dead leaves, made from stitched kraft paper, and broken branches beside a fragile balustrade. A cap hangs from it, seemingly discarded. For some, this installation, “After the Sun” (2026), may bring to mind the celebrated French song from 1945, with lyrics by Prévert, made famous by Yves Montand.

Melancholy is unmistakable, yet the room’s walls carry a more unsettling note in a series of ten images. Their title, “Skin”, is far too gentle for what they contain. The same is true of “A Strange Form of Love”, a group of rubber gloves rendered unusable because they have been stitched closed at the opening.

A muted sense of discomfort inhabits the entire exhibition and steadily intensifies. The melancholy of the locked grille and the abandoned autumn leaves is set against the misshapen, or the concealed presence of a monster that remains possible - all the more disturbing because it cannot be seen and can only be guessed at.