Praised Labor: Ana Jotta at messieurs-dames

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DATE

28 Jan 2026

AUTHOR

Diogo E S Dietl

Praised Labor: Ana Jotta at messieurs-dames

AUTHOR

Diogo E S Dietl

“And if the venue were already familiar to us, the contents echo that familiarity—the artist returns to images and phrases we have already come across. Returning, rethinking, refocusing, and finishing. Whether the results are unexpected or rediscoveries, they show that at the right moment, the hand does not hesitate; it acts. Reconstruction does not repeat, it resonates, and Ana skillfully and effectively weaves together moments and scenes, artifacts and drawings, words and dreams.”

We feel as if we are inside a bell jar, solidly sheltered from the outside world, which looks slightly distorted—perhaps due to some chemical oscillation of the glass, in a polychromatic range—welcomed into a pleasant and abstruse fantasy. We leave behind the restlessness of the blue figures, the lilac vehicles, the green and yellow windows, and ring the bell.

La Ronde, the fourth exhibition by messieurs-dames, a project by Eva Mendes developed in an unoccupied apartment in Penha de França, feels like an inauguration. Strictly speaking, the same could be said of each of the exciting exhibitions that preceded it, in terms of typology; if an architectural composition in different rooms can immediately facilitate renewed narrative approaches, here I am referring specifically to the formal novelty that each occasion presented. And now, facing the same walls, we are in a space that has been completely rebuilt. Rebuilding is one of Ana Jotta's talents. And if the venue were already familiar to us, the contents echo that familiarity—the artist returns to images and phrases we have already come across. Returning, rethinking, refocusing, and finishing. Whether the results are unexpected or rediscoveries, they show that at the right moment, the hand does not hesitate, it acts. Reconstruction does not repeat, it resonates, and Ana skillfully and effectively weaves together moments and scenes, artifacts and drawings, words and dreams.

¡Algo se partiu! (Something broke!)

Startled, we probe around, peek into other rooms, and find that everything seems intact. We breathe in the serenity and try to embrace the contemplative nature of the retreat. There is as much that is arcane and hidden as there is that which is accessible and magnetic. Ana Jotta's work seems to take place in a setting where the obvious is so illuminated as to become diffuse. A solitary pointer impels us in search of ghosts, 1001 of them, which we find to be quite tangible. We pause before magnanimous objects and assemblages, whilst restless drawings unsettle us. We distinguish crossed dialogues and energetic currents, but also inner and distracted musings.

The past and the now, today, combine in the disintegration of the elements of labor, and while a squirrel drifts across the wall, part calls, part nothing, fields of deep, earthy colors are Pangea on the edge of being.

We ring the bell again. Matrices of future pieces fantasize with the lightness of those who take staying at home as an event in itself. Coming into being, being born, implies pain and wounds, intimate and exposed shards, but the clear-sighted confidence in healing watches over each step forward. Repair. Rediscover the stolen Duchampian fountain returned from memory to time, today a deflated bicycle tire. The determination of being to do brings us back. ¡Krntrschkshh!

The room sheet lists a few nearby tools for reconstruction. If there are not enough nails for everything, that would not be a reason for the artist to deprive us of simple landscapes. Everything fits and balances. With a more solemn focus, a cloud carries an ancient verse, a tribute to the warmth of home, dissipating in a tearful blaze; on the ground, a loaf of bread, wounded by the ritual of soothing pain, rests in a redoubling of magical beings and flickering sparks. The ceremony works: the weather threatens, but inside, the rain does not fall.

In Fontenay-aux-Roses, Yves Klein threw himself into the void. To be is to throw oneself into the void and breathe life into the soul that leaves our mark. In Fontenay-aux-Roses, Ana left her mark. The exhibition title reminds us how even an expected reunion can be an indescribable surprise—in the void, we anticipate the completion of the carousel, the dance wheel, and the return of familiar sights and glances, and... lo and behold, it is so! Once the ride ends, wherever that may be, we can continue, here or there, to do.

La Ronde, by Ana Jotta, is on display at Messieurs-Dames until February 7th.

BIOGRAPHY

Diogo ES Dietl, who holds a degree in History from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, has been following contemporary artistic creation since 2012, occasionally working on its edges through writing, consulting, promotion, production, and co-curating.

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