Nelo Teixeira: Vox Populi

THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE presents, from February 8, 2024, Vox Populi, the first solo exhibition in Portugal by Angolan artist Nelo Teixeira (b. 1975, Zaire, Angola). The exhibition brings together a previously unseen body of work, comprising sculptures, assemblages, and installations, where matter and language merge to give shape to collective voice and social testimony.

Nelo Teixeira’s work sits at the intersection of Art Brut, Naïve Art, and installation-based practices, traversing territories of memory and resistance. Using recovered materials and urban fragments—wood, metal cans, textiles, newspapers, packaging, and debris from the demolition of Luanda’s favelas—the artist constructs a critical cartography of Angolan reality, where precarity and resilience manifest in a unique visual lexicon.

The exhibition title, Vox Populi, evokes the outcry of the streets and the resonance of orality within collective identity. Graphic elements and vernacular expressions emerge in his compositions as performative and political acts, creating tension between image, word, and social body. Inscriptions such as povo, povo, fala povo popular, mais pão com Best, or fala + povo reinforce a sense of discursive urgency, while the accumulation of materials and the juxtaposition of symbols reveal an approach akin to visual and sound poetry.

The recurring use of wooden drawers and crates in his installations functions as architectures of memory and identity, while also referencing his experience in designing scenographies for theatre and television. Here, theatricality is not confined to the exhibition space but is embedded in the artwork itself, inviting the viewer to become part of the staging of reality.

With a solid trajectory in the Angolan art scene, Nelo Teixeira was featured in the Angolan Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, titled On Ways of Travelling, alongside António Ole, Binelde Hyrcan, Délio Jasse, and Francisco Vidal. In this context, he presented a monumental installation of anthropomorphic figures assembled from recycled wood, plastic, and metal. His work, exhibited internationally since the early 2000s, offers a critical reflection on processes of urban and social transformation, addressing themes such as gentrification, displacement, and identity crisis.

With Vox Populi, THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE reaffirms its commitment to promoting artistic practices that challenge aesthetic and discursive boundaries, fostering dialogue between different geographies and contemporary realities.

The exhibition will remain open until March 21, from Tuesday to Saturday, between 2:30 PM and 7:00 PM, with free admission.

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