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Established in 2010 and consolidated in its present form in 2013, Underdogs works with a diversified roster of Portuguese and international artists connected with the urban inspired contemporary art universe, fostering the development of close relationships between creators, the public, and the city with the aim of promoting art as an everyday experience.
Samples and Variations can be seen as part of a bigger quest that Clemens Behr has been conducting over the years into issues such as representation and creation and their relationship with the notions of influence and appropriation.While paying particular respect to hip hop culture and the widespread contemporary practice of sampling, reusing and rearranging other source materials which it gave rise to, the artist presents here what is both “a celebration and a critical review” of the motives behind it.While also playing with the reality of product samples in hardware stores and their random arrangement in displays which can equally be seen as a representation, Behr extends this reflection to his own artistic practice that makes extensive use of discarded materials – revived and rehabilitated in a new arrangement and context –, looking into the concepts of originality and derivation and how thought, discourse and art can become an entanglement of derivations, pieces within pieces, expressing the complexity of intentional variation or randomness in the creative process.
