Zé dos Bois presents, between April 22 and June 24, the exhibition Duplo Vê, by Mattia Denisse. Following the homonymous exhibition presented at the Casa das Histórias – Paula Rego, in late 2016, this exhibition integrates the drawings then shown and adds an unpublished series entitled O Tautólogo, with about two hundred new works. This new series will also be the subject of a book to be edited by Dois Dias during the exhibition. This large body of work will allow the public to dive in the elliptical narratives of this French artist based in Lisbon for nearly two decades.

Duplo Vê, the title of the exhibition that Mattia Denisse now presents at the Zé dos Bois Gallery, refers both to the name of the letter W in Portuguese and also the “double sight” of a cross-eyed God. According to the artist: “There is a temptation probably as old as the appearance of man: the desire to see other realities behind reality. This disposition infinitely multiplies the possibilities of interpretation and the meaning of things and makes it impossible to name things exactly as they are. This atavism — to see things behind other things — is born of a malformation of the eye of God, a convergent strabismus so severe that translates into duplication. These asymptotes realities are no more than the symmetrical reflection of the same, a Tautology.”

Composed of a wide selection of drawings, this exhibition invites the viewer to get involved in the webs of a set of elliptical and largely idiosyncratic narratives. Centered on a set of archetypal and recurring characters – among whom is the artist himself – these narratives unfold and contaminate themselves, making each drawing a particular moment of a given story, as well as a point of connection between different histories. Thus, the series As Metamorfoses das Sombras could be close to A Guerra das Formas; in the series W ou a Vida Selvagem could appear a detail that belongs to the O Quarto Nupcial do Anti-Globo; the series A Nova Teoria do Sacrifício could have chromatic similarities to A História Fantástica do Mergulho and so forth. These innumerable combinations fuel the hypothesis of an infinite story.