We tried to say the word “exegesis” seven times in a row and as fast as possible. It turned out “hecksacgecsicks” and so we knew it was something to be avoided at all cost. Thus, when we thought of making a publication that would accompany Jorge Queiroz’s exposition, we immediately put aside the idea of commissioning an academic text, full of references and footnotes. Above all, we did not want to sponsor a couple more thousand characters on the surrealist heritage in Jorge’s works, or on his peculiar positioning in contemporary pictorial production. Thus, we escaped the temptation to make a catalog altogether and chose to publish an album instead: a book containing illustrations of all and only the paintings present at the exhibition, accompanied by a fictional text by Eduardo Lago, novelist, expert on James Joyce’s Ulysses, former director of the Instituto Cervantes in New York and longtime friend of the artist.

Naturally, we decided to follow the same rationale for this publication’s first public appearance. So, instead of a panel of guests who’d comment with propriety the value of this publication, we invite you to a last foray into these exhibition halls, where we can follow, in the presence of the paintings themselves, and guided by the voice of Cláudia Gaiolas, excerpts from the fictional plot that Eduardo Lago conceived out of his encounter with the pictorial universe of Jorge Queiroz.