https://fabiocolaco.com Fábio Colaço Wed, 27 May 2026 23:51:47 +0000 https://fabiocolaco.com en https://fabiocolaco.com/home Sun, 26 Jul 2020 21:14:05 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/home <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20412922430b1b1bf25b284063b9e7aaeb95b3ab3b722542825c6f688204b6ae/fabiocolaco_untitledutopia_2024_1.jpg" data-mid="219454041" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/20412922430b1b1bf25b284063b9e7aaeb95b3ab3b722542825c6f688204b6ae/fabiocolaco_untitledutopia_2024_1.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e356192eb6da6f8eb0e40e73093725c545cdaf9d20f36b1e2c6bb24f7ac2cf6/fabiocolaco_sisyphusrock_2024_1.jpg" data-mid="219454044" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8e356192eb6da6f8eb0e40e73093725c545cdaf9d20f36b1e2c6bb24f7ac2cf6/fabiocolaco_sisyphusrock_2024_1.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d50481d1c3317707abc659f651e32e89cda3a00a30c05cfab659b5e8cc087f02/fabiocolaco_faust_2024_1.jpg" data-mid="219454045" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d50481d1c3317707abc659f651e32e89cda3a00a30c05cfab659b5e8cc087f02/fabiocolaco_faust_2024_1.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a659fec35ee7bfd9299c98840f3a7cc88eb66cc9cb3f0f7f22d695d01034ec8a/fabiocolaco_press_2.jpg" data-mid="167197896" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a659fec35ee7bfd9299c98840f3a7cc88eb66cc9cb3f0f7f22d695d01034ec8a/fabiocolaco_press_2.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cce4ac8092b1bd4d7f3ac255f349d798bb9ee8e0476c149a7013a69bedf6abb5/fabiocolaco_godshoes-10_2024.jpg" data-mid="219454042" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cce4ac8092b1bd4d7f3ac255f349d798bb9ee8e0476c149a7013a69bedf6abb5/fabiocolaco_godshoes-10_2024.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/986e98232fe2a1dd2a61975e248de295a493357092032ffcb87c925c8a5d11f0/2.jpg" data-mid="162017990" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/986e98232fe2a1dd2a61975e248de295a493357092032ffcb87c925c8a5d11f0/2.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5a57069f103d82e0389b93c3e6455b1fe2dfbd703e2989c03674c43022dd2056/fabiocolaco_darkcloud_2021_0.jpg" data-mid="114493214" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5a57069f103d82e0389b93c3e6455b1fe2dfbd703e2989c03674c43022dd2056/fabiocolaco_darkcloud_2021_0.jpg" /> <img width="2000" height="1336" width_o="2000" height_o="1336" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/21257f6f922196d41672f2d2cf8a9ba3ec23712f6deaab0f615c96f33dbb64e6/FabioColaco_Untitleddark_2020_1.jpg" data-mid="91362833" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/21257f6f922196d41672f2d2cf8a9ba3ec23712f6deaab0f615c96f33dbb64e6/FabioColaco_Untitleddark_2020_1.jpg" /> <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8a961544ac7c12ebdbf72c54da39afe057be40f9502b5567084e3986477f951a/GoldenCent_1.jpg" data-mid="97936934" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8a961544ac7c12ebdbf72c54da39afe057be40f9502b5567084e3986477f951a/GoldenCent_1.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cb4b4a3375b46fb012fbc941c3eef6fde5dbb21fc356661da622f646b2d501e8/fabiocolaco_untitledtruth_2024_3.jpg" data-mid="219454043" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cb4b4a3375b46fb012fbc941c3eef6fde5dbb21fc356661da622f646b2d501e8/fabiocolaco_untitledtruth_2024_3.jpg" /> <img width="5832" height="3888" width_o="5832" height_o="3888" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c3fa2661376d5e1a54b236742a7dd873543b3f97c6769fd48528e020bb53f9a2/FabioColaco_AGodCalledMoney_7.jpg" data-mid="78397887" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c3fa2661376d5e1a54b236742a7dd873543b3f97c6769fd48528e020bb53f9a2/FabioColaco_AGodCalledMoney_7.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5a57069f103d82e0389b93c3e6455b1fe2dfbd703e2989c03674c43022dd2056/fabiocolaco_darkcloud_2021_0.jpg" data-mid="114493214" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5a57069f103d82e0389b93c3e6455b1fe2dfbd703e2989c03674c43022dd2056/fabiocolaco_darkcloud_2021_0.jpg" /> <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/977f92eba02a61682d83260d0b589e739e6d1b5bdc8b8543390074d43085041d/fabiocolaco_untitledxanax_2021_2.jpg" data-mid="123096752" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/977f92eba02a61682d83260d0b589e739e6d1b5bdc8b8543390074d43085041d/fabiocolaco_untitledxanax_2021_2.jpg" /> <img width="5906" height="3938" width_o="5906" height_o="3938" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/07e4f8bf237ae3eaeec55d81374248876c297bc983d81901bed89cfef226ff94/Fabio-Colaco-5.jpg" data-mid="78801788" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/07e4f8bf237ae3eaeec55d81374248876c297bc983d81901bed89cfef226ff94/Fabio-Colaco-5.jpg" /> https://fabiocolaco.com/work Sun, 26 Jul 2020 21:03:47 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/work Bread to the People, 2026 Mirage, 2026 Post-Europe, 2025 Threshold, 2025 Grace, 2025 Flooded Europe, 2025 Fail, 2025 Truth on the Brink of Collapse, 2025 Who Killed the World?, 2025Utopia, 2025 Untitled (timeline), 2024 Untitled (1984), 2024God Shoes, 2024 Untitled (concetto spaziale), 2024 Faust, 2024 Sisyphus Rock, 2024 Dogma, 2024 Untitled (burning vest), 2024 Untitled (face to face), 2024 Protest Paintings, 2024 Pocket Portraits, 2024 Untitled (truth), 2024 Untitled (holding the void), 2024 Untitled (hell), 2023 Untitled (world domino), 2023 Untitled (world if there was no land), 2023Untitled (sad Musk), 2023 Untitled (Prozac), 2023 Untitled (no future), 2023 Untitled (crisis), 2023 Untitled (listening), 2023 The world is full of Kings and Queens, 2023 Climate Holocaust, 2023Untitled (resistance), 2023 Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear, 2022 Untitled (link), 2022 Enigma, 2022 Eclipse, 2022 Untitled (no chance), 2022 Untitled (index), 2022 Untitled (rich and poor), 2022 Untitled (bluf), 2022 Untitled (O), 2022Untitled (public debt), 2022 Untitled (debt), 2022 Untitled (Xanax), 2021 Untitled (bread), 2021 Dream (to Inês), 2021 Dark Cloud, 2021 Portraits, 2021 Untitled (guilty), 2021 Untitled (kiss), 2020 Untitled (dark), 2020 Untitled (he is watching you), 2020 Untitled (todo es imaginario), 2020 Disclaimers, 2020 Safe Box Paintings, 2020 It Is Time, 2020Untitled (cut), 2020 Money Blinds You, 2020Untitled (heavy), 2020Untitled, 2020Untitled (crumpled), 2020 Untitled (concetto spaziale), 2020 Untitled (mousetrap), 2020Plastic Bag Balloon (blue), 2020 One Million, 2020 CMYK, 2019-2020Balaclavas, 2019-2020Covers, 2019-2020Meme Paintings, 2019-2020Lost Fund, 2019God Shoes, 2019-2020 Artist’s Praying Hands, 2019A God Called Money, 2019Untitled (euro banknote colors), 2019Welcome, 2019Tower of Babel, 2019Paramount (White House), 2019Eclipse, 2018Upside Down Depression, 2018Ecce Mono, 2018Golden Cent, 2017 A copper-plated golden cent put into circulation, 2017 Untitled (square), 2017Untitled (incomplete), 2017Money Gets Money, 2017Loop, 2017Dirty Money, 2017Untitled (glup! glup!), 2017Trevum, 2016-2017Ostrich, 2016-2017 https://fabiocolaco.com/bread-to-the-people Wed, 27 May 2026 23:51:47 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/bread-to-the-people <img width="1536" height="1024" width_o="1536" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a5799dad894e6162b151dd8d7b18609e3a9a59cde44a0b53a9d2b2e567e4ebff/fabiocolaco_breadtothepeople_2026_1.png" data-mid="248828540" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a5799dad894e6162b151dd8d7b18609e3a9a59cde44a0b53a9d2b2e567e4ebff/fabiocolaco_breadtothepeople_2026_1.png" /><img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cfea77ed96ab0470a77d9bde0cc12d03caa690aba0b78be0d0fe172b7d2cd31f/fabiocolaco_breadtothepeople_2026_2.jpg" data-mid="248828541" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cfea77ed96ab0470a77d9bde0cc12d03caa690aba0b78be0d0fe172b7d2cd31f/fabiocolaco_breadtothepeople_2026_2.jpg" />Bread to the People 2026Plinth, red carpet, preserved breads50 x 150 x 150 cm (plinth) / approx. 50 x 130 x 130 (bread) All images © Fábio Colaço A square of red carpet rests on top of a plinth, serving as the surface upon which pieces of bread are carefully arranged. The composition is intentionally restrained, allowing the stark contrast between the opulent fabric and the modest food to emerge as the central visual and conceptual axis of the work. The title, Bread to the People, directly invokes political slogans associated with redistribution, justice, and collective dignity. The phrase recalls a rhetoric historically used to legitimize authority and alleviate perceptions of inequality, often offering reassurance without producing substantial structural change. Within the sculpture, this promise becomes deeply ironic. The red carpet, a conventional emblem of prestige, spectacle, and institutional power, becomes the surface on which bread is displayed. Bread, perhaps the most basic and fragile signifier of human subsistence, occupies a space typically reserved for the performance and celebration of privilege. This juxtaposition exposes the tension between elevated political language and the modest, often insufficient, material conditions to which such language refers. The work also draws upon the Roman concept of panem et circenses (“bread and circuses”), a political strategy through which food and public spectacles were offered to citizens in order to secure social stability and discourage political dissent. By providing basic sustenance alongside continuous entertainment, power could redirect attention away from structural inequalities and civic participation. In Bread to the People, the red carpet evokes this logic of spectacle, while the bread functions as a reminder of how material needs can become entangled with symbolic gestures designed to preserve existing systems of power. The work suggests that the management of public discontent often relies not on addressing underlying conditions, but on carefully orchestrating what is made visible and desirable. The work resonates with Lauren Berlant’s assertion that crisis is not an exceptional rupture but a continuous condition embedded within everyday life. For Berlant, ordinary existence is shaped by ongoing pressures, structural precarity, and normalized forms of endurance. In this context, the bread does not signify abundance; rather, it embodies the bare minimum required to persist within systems that continually defer meaningful social transformation. Positioned upon the elevated surface of the red carpet, the bread becomes a symbol of necessity framed as spectacle, revealing how political promises frequently operate as images rather than concrete interventions. The piece reflects the persistent gap between what is proclaimed and what is materially lived. It stages the relationship between power and need not as a dramatic confrontation, but as a quiet and enduring condition. The bread remains understated and vulnerable, yet it occupies the central locus of display, prompting viewers to consider how societies rely on symbolic gestures to obscure ongoing deprivation. Ultimately, the work suggests that conditions of need are neither exceptional nor distant; they are embedded within the very structures that societies elevate, ceremonialize, and continue to trust. https://fabiocolaco.com/mirage Mon, 18 May 2026 19:19:01 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/mirage <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/defa1fec3ebe240caedb9e8a91266a93dcea6cd670a1a92c2996d496354275ba/fabiocolaco_mirage_2026_1.jpg" data-mid="248446024" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/defa1fec3ebe240caedb9e8a91266a93dcea6cd670a1a92c2996d496354275ba/fabiocolaco_mirage_2026_1.jpg" />Mirage 2026UV print on shoesVariable dimensions All images © Fábio Colaço “Mirage” (2026) continues the artist’s recurring use of shoes as both sculptural objects and conceptual devices. In this work, the soles of a pair of shoes are UV-printed with a photograph of the sky, creating the uncanny impression of walking directly upon clouds. A familiar and mundane gesture, walking, is transformed into a poetic and destabilising act in which orientation, gravity, and symbolic order appear inverted. The work proposes a subtle yet incisive reflection on perception and truth in contemporary society. By placing the sky beneath the feet, this piece reverses one of the most enduring metaphors of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who in “Truth and Politics” described factual truth as “the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.” For Arendt, factual truth constitutes the shared framework that allows collective reality to exist, a stable horizon against which political and social life can unfold. Without agreement on basic facts, the world loses coherence and reality itself begins to waver. The piece stages the collapse of this stability. The sky, traditionally associated with transcendence, orientation, and openness, is relocated to the sole of the shoe, becoming something stepped on, worn down, and carried across unstable terrain. Truth no longer appears as a fixed horizon above us, but as an inverted and fragile surface vulnerable to distortion and erosion. In this sense, the sculpture becomes an image of the contemporary condition, an era in which truth is increasingly replaced by competing assumptions, mediated perceptions, and speculative narratives about reality. Through the simplicity of its gesture, the work transforms an everyday object into a philosophical proposition. Walking on clouds becomes both impossible and strangely plausible, a mirage sustained by technology, imagination, and belief. The sculpture oscillates between irony and melancholy, suggesting a world in which certainty has dissolved and even the most elementary coordinates of reality can be reversed. https://fabiocolaco.com/post-europe Mon, 03 Nov 2025 09:15:56 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/post-europe <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6fe10758546895b54b48734782778f64ff98a259e4c85939c308dc97716b4372/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="240183915" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6fe10758546895b54b48734782778f64ff98a259e4c85939c308dc97716b4372/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_1.jpg" /><img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9e9f206184b6ea186ccb6656b77c631b7ca42a5af3edbff8224d6a63384c6190/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_2.jpg" data-mid="240183916" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9e9f206184b6ea186ccb6656b77c631b7ca42a5af3edbff8224d6a63384c6190/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_2.jpg" /><img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fb1d46af5e32f718fbe2ea7b0136294628ebc7743d69aafd404a1aa4153a189e/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_5.jpg" data-mid="240184329" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fb1d46af5e32f718fbe2ea7b0136294628ebc7743d69aafd404a1aa4153a189e/fabiocolaco_post-europe_2025_5.jpg" />Post-Europe 2025Plinth, broken transparent glass2 x 193 x 293 cm (sculpture) / 10 x 200 x 300 cm (plinth) All images © Fábio Colaço “Post-Europe” (2025) presents the European Union flag reconstructed from shards of glass, transforming a familiar emblem of unity into an image of rupture and fragility. The work confronts the viewer with the unsettling reality of a project that, once envisioned as a symbol of integration and solidarity, now bears the visible scars of fragmentation. The broken glass destabilizes the flag’s geometry, its sharp edges evoking both danger and irreversibility. What was designed as a shared identity appears fragile, precarious, and violently disrupted. The piece resonates with contemporary anxieties about nationalism, economic disparity, and the erosion of collective ideals, reflecting the collapse of cohesion in a political entity once imagined as unbreakable. Through its stark materiality, Post-Europe transforms a symbol of belonging into a monument to disillusionment. It asks not only what has been destroyed, but also whether anything can be reassembled from the fragments left behind. https://fabiocolaco.com/threshold Mon, 03 Nov 2025 09:28:09 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/threshold <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7bf45639e8d474383dc34ad50439e7a4e0f3a2e641519b4bf0062d8c4b766e4a/fabiocolaco_threshold_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="240184340" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7bf45639e8d474383dc34ad50439e7a4e0f3a2e641519b4bf0062d8c4b766e4a/fabiocolaco_threshold_2025_1.jpg" />Threshold 2025Rock, arrow79 x 59 x 33 cm All images © Fábio Colaço The work stages a confrontation between solidity and force, permanence and disruption. The work consists of a stone pierced by arrows, an image that destabilizes the natural associations of stone as immovable, impermeable, and eternal. By allowing the arrows to penetrate what seems unyielding, the piece becomes a metaphor for breaking barriers, surpassing limits, and reaching beyond the impenetrable. The stone symbolizes ideological rigidity and entrenched systems, while the arrows embody the impulse to resist, question, and challenge dominant currents of thought. “Threshold” is both violent and liberating: an act of wounding that simultaneously opens space for transformation. Threshold asserts that even what appears untouchable can be changed, and that no wall of certainty is impervious to resistance, critique, and the act of crossing into new possibilities. https://fabiocolaco.com/grace Tue, 13 May 2025 19:39:13 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/grace <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d540fff4e4d01b9c14efe8a4cf35a1bc9568cff8d9c9bf7cd08994b37e2372f1/fabiocolaco_grace_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="233155777" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d540fff4e4d01b9c14efe8a4cf35a1bc9568cff8d9c9bf7cd08994b37e2372f1/fabiocolaco_grace_2025_1.jpg" /><img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/386a8283560fcc29383f086cbd9de7576986ab37155f65082a67b79cf9dfcf2c/fabiocolaco_grace_2025_2.jpg" data-mid="233155778" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/386a8283560fcc29383f086cbd9de7576986ab37155f65082a67b79cf9dfcf2c/fabiocolaco_grace_2025_2.jpg" />Grace 2025Wall plinth, knife, metal stand, leather cable, natural diamond70 x 15 x 15 cm All images © Fábio Colaço A diamond rests with geometric rigor on the center of a white wall plinth. Above it, a sharp throwing knife is suspended by a steel cable, a millimeter away from the stone. The work stages a tense stillness, where the visual serenity hides a latent and imminent threat. What looks like equilibrium is actually suspension: a state of waiting before the possibility of collapse. This sculpture operates as an allegory of the present, an era defined by systemic precariousness, in which the structures of power and production maintain the appearance of stability, even as they are collapsing from within. The diamond here is more than a symbol of luxury or value: it embodies the promise of solidity that underpins the capitalist imaginary. However, as Mark Fisher proposes through the concept of capitalist realism, this promise has become an ideological prison, where we cannot conceive of alternatives, even in the face of the ethical, ecological and economic bankruptcy of the current system. The suspended knife embodies the structural threat hanging over this order, not as an act of violence, but as a permanent possibility. It is precisely in this inactive presence that we recognize a model of power that is not necessarily exercised through direct force, but through the organization of a regime of surveillance, discipline and anticipation. The work's tension lies in this architecture of containment, a device that controls through the possibility of cutting, not through its execution. And it is within this tension that the notion of cruel optimism emerges. Lauren Berlant explores this concept through an analysis of the economic, political and affective changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, especially in the United States, but with global echoes. Cruel optimism appears as a subjective response to crises - people continue to cling to promises of security, progress and happiness even when these promises are unsustainable. The attachment to fantasies of progress, success and stability that, instead of liberating us, keep us trapped in a system that is structurally hostile to a dignified life. The diamond, in this sense, also represents this contradictory desire, beautiful, shiny, but perhaps complicit in the very blade that threatens it. Grace thus summons us to confront the present not as a time of stability, but as an instant suspended between appearance and collapse. The grace that the title evokes is neither divine nor saving - it is fragile, temporary and deeply political. https://fabiocolaco.com/flooded-europe Tue, 13 May 2025 20:11:53 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/flooded-europe <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/68b63c76839c1bf17ca77baf449a7a33b81af47c640677f4fa2100e4b8e20676/fabiocolaco_floodedeurope_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="233157598" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/68b63c76839c1bf17ca77baf449a7a33b81af47c640677f4fa2100e4b8e20676/fabiocolaco_floodedeurope_2025_1.jpg" /><img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e8a90b36b1099c8bcf119cb01c008d6326bcd88e816a741b8be93b2cbdf3d085/fabiocolaco_floodedeurope_2025_2.jpg" data-mid="233157599" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e8a90b36b1099c8bcf119cb01c008d6326bcd88e816a741b8be93b2cbdf3d085/fabiocolaco_floodedeurope_2025_2.jpg" />Flooded Europe 2025Glass cup, water, one-euro coin, wall plinth9,5 x 6,5 x 6,5 cm (sculpture) / 5 x 15 x 15 cm (wall plinth) All images © Fábio Colaço “Flooded Europe” (2025) is a work that comes from the logic of ready-made, consisting of a simple yet powerful arrangement: a glass full of water (to the limit) with a one-euro coin resting at its bottom. This minimal composition encapsulates a profound critique of the European project, exposing its fractures, contradictions and constant, often invisible, tensions. The glass, transparent and fragile, becomes a metaphor for the lack of clarity in European politics, where ideological divisions, economic disparities and unresolved crises remain concealed beneath an apparent unity. The coin, partially obscured by the water, evokes a sense of drowning, an economy weighed down by its own structures, a currency burdened by inequities between nations and a political system sinking under the weight of indecision. This piece addresses the rise of Eurocentrism, the persistence of financial imbalances and the paralysis of EU governance. It speaks to a continent flooded with fallacies, uncertainties and corruption. Its stillness invites contemplation and reflection on whether Europe will remain afloat or succumb to the forces it has created. https://fabiocolaco.com/fail Tue, 13 May 2025 20:11:59 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/fail <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9495698372e690f099dd8339ce67c6ce09c9463e694e568ae6cbd5d141995e3c/fabiocolaco_fail_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="233157633" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9495698372e690f099dd8339ce67c6ce09c9463e694e568ae6cbd5d141995e3c/fabiocolaco_fail_2025_1.jpg" /><img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4464f71a14ca802c9c0fe86fff89cb5e582ebce496d94f0f473c98650752c1d9/fabiocolaco_fail_2025_2.jpg" data-mid="233157634" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4464f71a14ca802c9c0fe86fff89cb5e582ebce496d94f0f473c98650752c1d9/fabiocolaco_fail_2025_2.jpg" />Fail 2025Bronze2,8 x 7 x 3,4 cm (sculpture) / 100 x 30 x 30 cm (plinth) All images © Fábio Colaço This is a sculptural intervention that reimagines a miniature Tesla Model S Plaid Hot Wheels car, meticulously cast in bronze and displayed on a wall plinth in an overturned position, evoking the aftermath of an accident. This seemingly playful yet deeply ironic work serves as a critique and a symbol of contemporary disillusionment, in the context of the growing wave of protests against Elon Musk. By translating a mass-produced toy, an object associated with childhood fantasies of speed and technological marvel, into a heavy and immutable bronze artifact, the piece subverts its original connotations of progress and aspiration. The deliberate staging of the overturned car amplifies this rupture, transforming an icon of success and innovation into a symbol of failure, instability and unintended consequences. Charged with political and cultural resonance, this work deals with the contradictions of modern techno-utopianism, where promises of a brighter future often collide with the realities of power, labor exploitation and corporate overreach. In this frozen moment of wreckage, the work invites reflection on the fragility of unchecked ambition, questioning the narratives that drive contemporary capitalism and the mythos surrounding its most polarizing figures. Curiously, the first time this work was presented on the first day of ARCO Lisboa 2025, it gained a new layer of meaning because Elon Musk announced his exit from the US government role after breaking with Trump on tax bill. https://fabiocolaco.com/truth-on-the-brink-of-collapse Tue, 29 Apr 2025 22:45:37 +0000 Fábio Colaço https://fabiocolaco.com/truth-on-the-brink-of-collapse <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f6170603091703f05838fcb51aec460ec534c944510c6896b070975c8a45cc66/fabiocolaco_truthonthebrinkofcollapse_2025_1.jpg" data-mid="231727637" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f6170603091703f05838fcb51aec460ec534c944510c6896b070975c8a45cc66/fabiocolaco_truthonthebrinkofcollapse_2025_1.jpg" /><img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4895e87072084d8ed50656b613c610243c90219456aea416431863722c82fa9d/fabiocolaco_truthonthebrinkofcollapse_2025_3.jpg" data-mid="231727639" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4895e87072084d8ed50656b613c610243c90219456aea416431863722c82fa9d/fabiocolaco_truthonthebrinkofcollapse_2025_3.jpg" />Truth on the Brink of Collapse 2025Playing cards 210 x 120 x 17 cm (sculpture) / 6 x 130 x 27 cm (plinth) All images © Fábio Colaço Standing at 210 cm high and 120 cm long, "Truth on the Brink of Collapse" (2025) is a delicate and precarious sculpture composed entirely of playing cards, like a fragment of a wall. Its structure is based on the logic of a house of cards, an unstable and fragile construction on the verge of collapse. The piece serves as a physical and conceptual barrier, momentarily separating two spaces, two times and two opposing forces. The choice of playing cards as a construction material underlines the illusion of solidity. Each card carries signs of chance, deception and strategy, reinforcing the uncertainty that defines the wall's existence. At any moment, a single disturbance could collapse the entire structure, mirroring the precarious nature of visible and invisible power structures.