Francisco Tropa, exhibition: The Pyrgus from Chaves

ConversationsSpace is a project by the Portuguese artist Francisco Tropa (Lisbon, 1968) in which he brings together contemporary sculpture and archaeology, in collaboration with the archaeologist Sérgio Carneiro.

The exhibition starts with a bronze “pyrgus” or “dice box” found in the recently discovered Roman Baths of Chaves (a city in northern Portugal). This sculptural piece of the Roman Empire is a kind of tower that was used to throw dice.

Francisco Tropa places this sculpture in the centre of his project, in which he evokes the perception of time, origin, history and chance, bodies and death.

The artist places this object at the centre of his project, evoking notions of time and origins (beginning with the origins of sculpture itself); history and chance; the body, play and death.

Francisco Tropa is a Portuguese artist with an established career since the 1990s. Recently, Francisco has gained increasing critical and institutional attention on the international circuit, with appearances at the Venice Biennale (2011), the Istanbul Biennial (2011), Manifesta (2000), the Melbourne Biennial (1999) and the Biennial of São Paulo (1998).