Humus is matter in transit. Based on this premise, the exhibition HUMUS, curated by Ana Rito, is presented at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar as a fictional and speculative action centred on the cycles of decomposition and regeneration, between ending and beginning, between death and the creative act.
Inspired by Húmus by Raul Brandão (1917) and by Herberto Helder (1967) – two milestones of Portuguese literature which, despite their temporal and formal distance, converge in the metaphor of the earth as both archive and generative force – the exhibition establishes a dialogue between matter and spirit, memory and transformation.
In Brandão, humus represents the sombre soil of existence, the sedimentation of collective melancholy and the inevitability of dissolution. In Helder, humus becomes incandescent energy, an alchemical principle of transmutation and creation. Between the two, a fertile field of metamorphosis unfolds, within which the artistic gesture partakes in the same movement of (de)composition and (re)generation.
At Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, Graça Morais, Júlio Pomar, Daniel Moreira and Rita Castro Neves – artists of distinct practices and generations – traverse symbolic territories animated by archetypes such as the stone, death and the dead, spring, the tree, silence, resurrection and dream.
Bringing together over one hundred works, HUMUS presents significant pieces from the extensive career of Graça Morais, including previously unseen works, alongside new creations conceived specifically for this project by the duo Daniel Moreira and Rita Castro Neves, whose practice is characterised by the cross-pollination of languages and disciplines. Complementing these are sculptures and graphic works by Júlio Pomar, as well as several previously unexhibited drawings, bringing together diverse voices within a shared space of mediation and vital energy.
HUMUS thus defines itself as a territory of listening and transformation: a site where art becomes living matter – the humus of time, of words, and of images – in a continuous state of transfiguration.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of parallel activities, including talks, guided visits and other events, to be announced in due course, intended to deepen the dialogue between art, literature and contemporary thought.