John Divola’s first solo exhibition in Portugal, Despite Intensions, is a selection of nine diptychs produced in the mid-1980’s that articulate recurrent ideas in his work over the last forty years — a fundamental commitment to photography and its idiosyncrasies through processes that transcend the limits of photographic techniques. Permeating his images with gesture and intent, Divola edges onto sculpture, performance and conceptual art, and evokes a staging that cuts across photography’s documental tradition.

John Divola (Los Angeles, 1949) received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1974. Since 1975 he has taught at numerous institutions including the California Institute of the Arts and, since 1988, he has been Professor of Art at the University of California, Riverside. Divola is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a California Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, among other awards. His work was featured in group shows at institutions like The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, in New York, LACMA and MOCA, in Los Angeles, and the Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris; and in solo shows at LAXART, in Los Angeles, and the Freiburg Kunstverein, among numerous others. He is represented by Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, and Galeria Pedro Alfacinha, Lisbon.

John Divola, Despite Intensions
Opening Thursday, September 24th at 10 pm
From September 25th to November 21st, 2015 
Galeria Pedro Alfacinha
Rua de São Mamede 25C, Lisbon
www.pedroalfacinha.pt