Catalogue > At random

“Bilbao’s work revolves around the figure of the lanternfly to articulate a political discourse on ontology that goes beyond fixed meanings of self and other, of human and non-human. Instead, the lanternfly acts as both a literal and metaphorical representation of how the current capitalist, global market produces, circulates, and then alienates othered beings. (…) In all its layers, Prelude challenges the distinction between human agency, anthropomorphism, and other––animal and human-created––intelligence. (…) In his canonical work Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes reminds us how cinema, unlike photography, which fastens down figures “like [preserved] butterflies,” enables beings to continue living (56–57). The cinematographic present is alive, carrying its referent without being tied to it. In their motionless movement, Bilbao’s lanternfly flutters, confronting the humanity of the anthropomorphic yet inert clown-like puppet. (…) Working with [archival images and also with the AI app DALL·E], Bilbao projects the images and films the projection with a 16mm Bolex. (…) even if digitalisation appears to dematerialise the production of images, Bilbao’s analogue camera reminds us how the digital is bound to the analogue world: kilometres of data centres and storage farms make possible the apparent immateriality of the digital visual realm.” (By Alejandra Rosenberg Navarro)

AnaMary Bilbao is a Portuguese-Spanish visual artist born in Lisbon (Portugal). In an endless play between analog and digital, Bilbao’s work challenges time’s dichotomy between beginning and end, and goes deeper into the notion of truth and the dialectics of doubt and certainty. Her work has been recently exhibited at Galeria Avenida da Índia - EGEAC (Lisbon), Photo Basel (Basel), ISCP (New York), Paris Photo / Curiosa (Paris), MAAT – The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon), Opening Arco Madrid (Madrid), Leal Rios Foundation (Lisbon), PLMJ Foundation (Lisbon), among others. Bilbao's works have been screened in venues such as Anthology Film Archives (org. Mono No Aware, New York), MoMA - Museum of Modern Art (org. Mono No Aware, New York), Novo Negócio - ZDB (Lisbon), Batalha Centro de Cinema (org. Contemporânea, Porto), or MAAT (16.ª ed. Fuso, Lisbon). AnaMary Bilbao has been the recipient and/or shortlisted to various distinguished Portuguese awards such as: EDP Foundation / MAAT Acquisition Award (16.ª ed. Fuso, 2024); Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Grant for studying visual arts abroad (2023/2024); Luso-American Development Foundation Artist Residency in the U.S.A. Grant (2022); FLAD Drawing Award (2021); EDP Foundation’s New Artists Award (2019); FCT PhD Fellowship (2015-19).