Francisco Tropa

Tropa attended the independent art college Ar.Co in Lisbon from 1987 until 1992.[1] In 1992 he received a scholarship from the same institution to study at the Royal College of Arts in London. Between 1995 and 1996, Tropa held a scholarship from the Foundation Alfred Topfel at the Kunstakademie Münster, Germany. From 1996 to 2007, he was a professor in the Department of Sculpture of Ar.Co.[2]

Over the years, Tropa has participated in a number of prominent exhibitions. The artist represented Portugal at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), but also took part in the Istanbul Biennial (2011), Manifesta in Ljubljana (2000), the Melbourne Biennial (1999) and the Bienal de São Paulo in collaboration with Lourdes Castro (1998).[3]

Since his first solo exhibition in 1991, Francisco Tropa has since been building his unique body of work grounded the fusion of naturally occurring phenomena with a decidedly human interest for the mythical and unexplained, incorporating historical and archeological elements into his oeuvre. Making use of a heterogeneous formal language, where sculpture, architecture, painting, photography, cinema and theater intersect, Tropa's work goes beyond the categorization of artistic genres. The artist relies mostly on primal materials in his installations, incorporating glass, metals, stone, wood, insects or sand, redefining their original character through transporting them in a process reminiscent of a modern alchemy. Unlike the traditional artist, Tropa “mixes art and technical ingenuity” to embrace “prototypes and machines, but also paintings, screen prints, photography and performance” in his curious yet engaging works.[4] In this way, his projects create a complex scenic device by combining elements that are either manufactured, collected or specifically chosen by the artist, challenging a generally pre-established concept of perceived experience.

Tropa’s oeuvre is defined by a process of excavation, manipulating the passage of time to reveal new faces of known objects through the mechanical harnessing of natural processes. This approach can be seen, for example, in the Scenario projections, a long-standing series that merges the intricate technical elements of an electrical projection device with the mysterious nature of the origin objects, actively engaging the viewer in a timeless narrative that investigates questions of transience, temporality and transformation. Reproducing the image of various organic and inorganic objects, such as an hourglass, a dead fly, a small glass or even droplets of water descending down a thread, the devices duplicate the experience of the passage of time through the introduction of unexpected not-quite mirroring images using a simple machine. For example, one such piece titled Lantern projects the image of an hourglass onto a plaster screen, the device duplicating the experience of the passage of time with every grain of sand whose fall in unregulated intervals is reflected into the exhibition space. The viewer is able to examine the physical origin object as well the machine through which it is reproduced, and to interact with a reinvented reflection into the exhibition space.[5]

A similar approach can be seen in another one of his seminal works, titled STAE – shorthand for Sunken Treasures of Ancient Egypt. The complex installation links three individual chambers: “the underwater section”, “the looted chamber” and finally the “Terra platonica”. Each space contains its own narrative which spills over into the next, creating a seemingly incoherent but deeply interconnected collection of individual works, which come together into a single whole. Raising questions of metamorphosis, reconstruction and the fleeting human experience, the individual rooms contain unique storylines referencing everything from scientific history and early alchemist discoveries to Native American burial rites. An assemblage of geometric forms and automated appliances, the turbulent array of shapes and textures that make up each space take the viewer on an archeological exploratory mission. Shaped by the writings of Paul Scherbert and Raymond Roussel, the piece creates a unity out of seemingly incompatible elements, such as the floating assembly of a cube and two spheres that make up Le songe de Scipion or an ethnographic film depicting a Native American building a box in L’influence Americaine.[6][7]

• Instituto Camões – Francisco Tropa Biography
• E Arte Portal Website
• Mousse Magazine Website