More than in a conventional exhibition tic tac toe (2025) calls for an analysis that takes into account the absence of the interpretative burden. Based on an uncommon methodology, the work of David Maranha (1969) feeds on a series of encounters at varying artistic borders (ie., drawing and sculpture, concert and performance). Often recognized for his remarkable, continuous, avant-gardist and experimental approach to musical practice, Maranha’s oeuvre is not commonly associated with an equally remarkable exploration of the visual arts. Perhaps for his invariably multidisciplinary approach, perhaps merely for his restrained and incidental presentations, his collaboration with the Osso Exótico collective (founded in 1989 and currently formed by André Maranha, Patrícia Machás, Francisco Tropa and Manuel Mota) seems to be the only reference to that area. There seems to exist a time (liberated by the spectator and built by the artist) suspended in a sort of vacuum that is distributed across the chronology of his past works and the singularity of each expanding moment. 

A direct reference to the game known as tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses), the exhibition features a choreography that unfolds in three spatial locations and can be understood in the relationship between drawing and sound. Revisiting the historical constant of the horizontality of drawing vis-à-vis the verticality of painting, the space features three constructions that rest on the floor. Analogous in terms of scale (which varies slightly according to the size of every room) and matter (very thin birch wood rods painted in red liquid watercolour), these drawings have an encrypted and ethereal quality reminiscent of Neolithic petroglyphs. Originating in a predisposition towards a minimalist aesthetics with strong links to a geometric approach (at times with nods to S. LeWitt or F. Stella), these presences unfold within a square that subtly envelops and conserves them until they are transformed by the performance (much like in Opera, Experimental Intermedia, from 1998). Forming a set of fifteen variations, each trio of inscriptions (always featuring a golden rod, the emperor) is replaced after each trio of musical interventions in the exhibition space (featuring one musician per room), generating a constant cadence of the drawing and the sound in potency.

As for the sound substance (here too understood as sculptural matter given its occupation of space), it is subjected to a collaborative process between the artist and a set of ten guest musicians and artists. Chosen for their musical practice, or their association with it, the names in the programme include: Margarida Garcia (1977) and Rodrigo Amado (1964); Pedro Tropa (1973) and André Maranha (1966); Helena Espvall and António Júlio Duarte (1965); Riccardo Dillon Wanke (1977) and Manuel Mota (1970); Bernardo Devlin and Patrícia Machás. Although they summon a series of stylistic variations (folk, electronica and ecstatic music, as well as jazz and drone ad-libs) and more or less conventional instruments (cello, bulbul tarang, bass, keyboards and electric guitar, recurve bow, synths, Shruti box, violin and percussion) each composition exudes a tone that is catalysed by Maranha’s presence. A precursor of Kosmische Musik in Portugal and a consensual avant-gardist in the contemporary music scene, the artist orchestrates (whenever possible) the harmonic and rhythmic pitfalls which accompany the expressive phrasing of the triads that are deployed. After establishing the set of sound recordings that circulate in each amplifier in the three exhibition rooms, the artist’s editing and amplification work then begins. This process, a practice linked to so-called studio work, will be experienced in loco during the exhibition days that precede the subsequent sound evocation. 

Forming an innocent and aleatory pact between the spatial, sound and visual dynamics of its assembly, tic tac toe drives a series of entr’acte interpolations, laying out a lexicon of contrasts between unison and dissonance. By distorting and recalibrating the punctuation of its sequences, the artist draws a sort of sound ensemble complicit with the plastic path that transforms and accompanies it. Like a serpentine dance, the seemingly refractory nature of the exhibition blends into a sequence of abstract forms brimming with cataclysm, turbulence, contemplation and melancholy.