Queremos Tudo

Galeria Presença, Porto, 2024

Between violence and tenderness, the erotic and the profane, emerge the images present in Queremos Tudo (We Want Everything). Diogo Nogueira’s works manifest a grammar of gestures that communicate with each other – a language specific to themselves, represented by the bodies that inhabit them – and the desire to dismantle a predefined iconography. The viewer is delivered to the Carnival and the Bacchanal, thus immersing themselves in a dark environment that feeds on the comic and longs for flesh.

The ambiguity of the image and the strangeness of the actions of the figures leave the viewer in limbo between pain and pleasure. Naked male figures release persistent laughter, which contrasts with the blows caused by the animal attack. As if the joy prompted by the antics served as an anesthetic to the bloody consequences, to the danger caused by risky and reckless interactions. They test the limits of acceptability through bold gestures, soon after taking refuge in somewhat animalistic poses. Challenging games that emanate a sense of eroticism, not only because men and hybrid beings appear naked, but also because of the nudity of their actions a return to their most primitive instincts. (…)

— Leonor Barbosa

Queremos Tudo I e II, cerâmica vidrada, ⌀ 30 cm, 2024

Queremos Tudo III e IV, cerâmica vidrada, ⌀ 30 cm, 2024