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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.
If technology and connectivity have never given us this much comfort, they also constitute powerful triggers to an unbridled consumption that has become symptomatic of our times. The control that seems to lie at the tip of our fingers is shattered when we are constantly reminded that we can do more. We are faced, at all times, with our own shortcomings and with how hard it is to keep afloat amidst all this.
While being affected, for the second time in less than two years, by the property crisis prevailing in Lisbon, Wasted Rita embraces in her artistic practice obsessiveness and escapism as conscious manipulations of her reality. Finding comfort in the act of magnifying these tactics of resilience and in the oscillation between dualities such as irony and sincerity, incredulity and hope, nihilism and the search for a meaning.
As a reaction to the formalism established in art, Wasted Rita is moved by references from pop culture commonly viewed as unsophisticated. In this exhibition, the artist delves into topics like blind items, vegan snack culture, manifesting, niche dramas on the world wide web, toxic positivism, memes, hustle culture, meta cringe, as objects of study and fascination.
In The desperation of the desperate desperately despairing for this desperation to heal, words take over the space in order to create new possibilities of false hope and momentary relief. Absorbed by an echo of disquiet and despair, Wasted Rita set out to mobilise in search of virtual and physical comfort. Using art as an escape.
