In What is the Thing, What is It, the shapes, objects and bodies are tense, compressed like springs or rubber bands. The textiles are tight, stretched beyond their limits, almost to the point of rupture. Structures are always tourniquets of something else; they always tighten a little more after the strenuous relaxation and exhalation. The bodies are pushed to the limits, closer and closer to a sharp blade.

Everything presents a vaguely dangerous or cautious movement, in these apparently playful, dynamic structures, similar to that of a knife that opens and closes.

What is the Thing, What is It, according to the riddle, is both a philosophical interpellation and a visual and linguistic charade that makes fun of us. Blade on the tongue, metallic taste, cold steel. The irons bend and hang – free but precise drawings in space.

According to Marta Mestre, curator of the exhibition, “we see drawing as an active thought in the realm of objects, which underlines or appeases the violence of the metal, the plate and the sharp edges of the pieces – symptom of an invisible world at work in materiality”. And, in fact, What is the Thing, What is It is a brief compendium of Sara Bichão’ artistic proficiency in drawing, but also in color and textiles, efforts previously rehearsed in various collective exhibitions.

Meanwhile, the tourniquet tightens, the spring stretches, causing the metronomic sound of that insidious machine. The bone shakes and vibrates in the metal, forwards and backwards, the crank turns clockwise – an instrument of maximum alienation, which says: There is one eye that rotates to the left and another that insists on fixing the right.

What is the Thing, What is It, by Sara Bichão, would be at the Galeria Filomena Soares until May 9, were it not for the indefinitely propagation of COVID-19. If visiting it is not possible, below is the video of the exhibition, showing the restlessness and tension of the artist’s objects, which portrays the effort most artists and gallerists are making in order to make art accessible for all.