Pedro Neves Marques's 'In Space It’s Always Night' at Casa Di Marino, Naples

Pedro Neves Marques (Lisbon, 1984) presents 'In Space It’s Always Night' at Casa Di Marino in Naples, his first solo show with the gallery since his 2010 group exhibition 'The horizon line is here / tornare per partire'. The exhibition draws conceptually from Mariapaola Fimiani's 1974 theories on logical future and historical time, and extends the artist's 'Vampires in Space' project, with which he represented Portugal at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The show features eight digital prints from 'Vampires in Space' (2023) and five new 'Vampire Poetry' works on canvas and cotton paper, including 'New Beginnings', 'Vitamin D', 'Chosen Families', 'Gut Feelings', and the eponymous 'In Space It’s Always Night'. These works incorporate Gothic graphic elements—phallic forms that in Venice defined the spaceship architecture—and explore themes of body, gender, sexuality, reproduction, mutation, and gestation through the vampire as a literary device. The poems narrate the inner journey of vampires, the artist's own sexual transition, and reflections on waiting, survival, and transformation. The exhibition transforms Casa Di Marino into a narrative environment along a 'Milky Way of poetry', evoking melancholy and the loss of grace. Curated by Antonello Tolve, the show runs through July 2023.