Adriano Costa's London exhibition at Emalin's Clerk's House explores material transformation through scavenged objects

Adriano Costa's exhibition at Emalin's new London space, The Clerk's House, features a 2024 film showing the artist in his studio struggling with pyjamas amid Tesco bags while Eero Aarnio's 'Ball Chair' sits cleanly behind him. The show includes bronze casts of discarded foundry moulds transformed into precious bas-reliefs and architectural mockups called 'Casas' (2023–24) made from household rubbish displayed on a plinth modeled after Oscar Niemeyer's Edifício Copan in São Paulo. Costa's work creates tension between scavenged materials and refined modernist references, with pieces like 'Chorus' (2024) featuring particle board panels propped by gold-buffed bronze clay wedges that appear animated. The exhibition runs through 13 July at the eighteenth-century East London venue, where discarded objects like a bent sawblade and smashed black pot populate the domestic interiors. Costa references Carl Andre's floor sculptures but subverts them by making materials seem alive rather than industrial, with particle board replacing metal plates. The artist's hometown of São Paulo informs the architectural references, while his practice emphasizes the expressive potential of discarded materials through careful transformation.