Despite Intensions is John Divola's first solo exhibition in Portugal at Galeria Pedro Alfacinha, a gallery established in 2014 in Lisbon dedicated mainly to photography.  The exhibition is a new selection of nine diptychs produced in the mid- 1980’s that articulate recurrent ideas in his work over the last forty years — a fundamental commitment to photography and its idiosyncrasies through processes that transcend the limits of photographic techniques. Permeating his images with gesture and intent, Divola edges onto sculpture, performance and conceptual art, and evokes a staging that cuts across photography’s documental tradition.

Divola was born in Los Angeles in 1949 and received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1974. Since 1975 he has taught at numerous institutions including the California Institute of the Arts and, since 1988, he has been Professor of Art at the University of California, Riverside. Divola is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a California Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, among other awards. His work was featured in group shows at institutions like The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, in New York, LACMA and MOCA, in Los Angeles, and the Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris; and in solo shows at LAXART, in Los Angeles, and the Freiburg Kunstverein, among numerous others.

Photography and exclusive by Aujourd'hui.

John Divola - Despite Intensions
Galeria Pedro Alfacinha, September 24 - November 21
www.pedroalfacinha.pt