Image caption: We are safe and all is well in our world (2017)

In the winter of 2017, Toronto-based curator Rui Mateus Amaral opened the exhibition, We are safe and all in our world featuring works by Chris Curreri, Robert Gober, Robert Mapplethorpe and Paul P. At the time the exhibition was conceived as an allegorical atmosphere: an acknowledgment and physical reaction to a changing world. Four years later and in the context of a global pandemic (which the exhibition pointed to), Mateus Amaral will reinterpret the project's elements, unpacking his curatorial strategies, feelings and references throughout. This talk will offer thoughts on self-permission, doubt, exhibition-making as a creative act, beauty, history, politics, language, loss and survival.

Rui Mateus Amaral is Adjunct Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA). He also serves as Director and Curator of Scrap Metal, a privately owned, not-for-profit exhibition space in the city. Mateus Amaral has curated a number of exhibitions with artists Carlos Bunga, Eduardo Basualdo, Eric N. Mack, Vajiko Chachkiani, Hudinilson Jr., Iris Häussler, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Paul P., Ryan Gander and Eva Kot’átková. He has consulted on a wide-range of cultural projects for organizations that include the Royal Ontario Museum, Canadian Art Foundation, Art Toronto and Chanel. His writing has appeared in Artforum International and Momus, as well as artist publications for Ryan Gander, Jimmy Limit, Iris Häussler, and Eva Kot’átková. Mateus Amaral holds an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Studies from OCAD University, Toronto. Currently he is co-curating Greater Toronto Art 2021, a multidimensional, museum-wide exhibition of new works by Toronto based-artists opening this Fall at MOCA.

This talk is part of the Winter MVS Proseminar speakers series (organized by Charles Stankievech), other speakers include: Kapwani Kiwanga (Jan 17), Filipa Ramos (Jan 23, in partnership with Mercer Union), Rui Amaral (March 23) and Irenonsen Okojie (Feb 23). In the Fall we presented Chris Lee, Angela Schubot, and the Airspace Tribunal (in partnership with the Power Plant) and the 50th Anniversary Reading of Éden, Éden Éden (in partnership with the Musee D’Orsay's Donatien's Grau and the Association Pierre Guyotat).