For its first participation at ArPa, Martins&Montero will present a dialogue between artists João Loureiro and Hiram Latorre.

The project draws on the contrast between Loureiro’s sculptural and conceptual practice and Latorre’s painting. Between humor and irony, the object emerges as an emblem in both physical and pictorial spaces.

João Loureiro presents a pair of sculptures and a group of drawings. Much of the artist’s three-dimensional work stems from drawing—a form of thinking resolved a priori, in two dimensions, as image and projection. The works Mateiro [Man of the Forest] and Agricultor [Farmer] unfold from linear structures in metal or wood, derived from a series of anthropomorphized, somewhat violent figures the artist calls “Monsters.” They are based on the same construction system: thick rebar rods, welded together and coated with glossy black automotive paint and clear varnish, with tubers pierced onto their ends. Detached from their original function, these forms become independent doubles, diagrams of their origins.

The objects in Hiram Latorre’s paintings don’t shout or demand attention—they whisper. They are simply there—pitchers, vases, amphoras, fruit, and patterns— imbued with the same quiet strength and fragility with which memory occupies the inner space. The vases and fruit are not merely arranged; they inhabit the place. The repetition of elements—such as scattered pears or half-moon patterns—builds a memory of forms, full of history, though not of a specific narrative. It is a tactile history, one felt by the body before being grasped by reason.