Jorge Da Cruz’s After Cana may be read as a silent act of sabotage directed at Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana. Veronese’s scene stages Renaissance abundance—architecture, luxury, silk, and the miracle that turns water into wine. Da Cruz retains the banquet and the crowd, but empties them of jubilation. Here the miracle is reversed: water rises across the tessellated floor toward the guests, who continue to raise their glasses, determined to remain inside the illusion of the feast. Celebration and foreboding now share the same table.

This text introduces Drawing Notes from the Far Side of the Moon, a series of drawings by Jorge da Cruz inspired by the hidden hemisphere of the Moon. Because of tidal locking, the same lunar face always turns toward Earth, leaving the far side unseen until the first photographs in 1959. Moving between astronomy and imagination, the text reflects on this invisible terrain as a metaphor for perception and distance. The drawings approach the Moon not as a scientific object, but as a space for reflection on the unseen, the distant, and the landscapes that exist beyond our direct view.

In this text, the author reflects on Jorge da Cruz’s charcoal series Deconstructing Babel through Charcoal. Drawing on the visual legacy of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the works revisit the myth of the Tower of Babel as a fragile structure built through repetition, ambition, and collapse. Through dense charcoal textures, the tower appears layered with time and effort, suspended between construction and ruin. The text reads the drawings as a meditation on human aspiration and its limits, where history, memory, and the persistent urge to build continue to resonate within the image.

Published in the Lithuanian magazine Nemunas (Issue 2023/04), this text accompanies a selection of drawings by Jorge da Cruz and reflects on the idea of landscape through the words of Bernard Lassus. Landscape appears not as a fixed place but as a sequence of fragments—objects, memories, and perceptions that together form a temporary image. Moving between observation and imagination, the text suggests that landscape is less a stable view than a sensory event, where visible elements and inner experience merge to create a fleeting and subjective reality.

Plans to Build a Boat begins with a small handmade photo album found at a Berlin flea market, dated 1937. Its quiet images of a family by a lake contrast with the intensity of life in Berlin and spark a simple question: if one had to build a boat to leave one place and reach another, without knowledge or experience, what kind of boat would that become? Some drawings and paintings already exist, but the work remains an open idea, shared while still searching for its form.

In One Step Before Happiness, Jorge Da Cruz turns to the mountain—not merely as a feature of terrain, but as a vessel of meaning. For millennia, mountains have been regarded as sacred thresholds, places where earth touched the divine. They embodied endurance and grandeur, forming a symbolic bridge between human life and what lay beyond it. In these drawings, that symbolic charge has shifted. The mountain no longer radiates transcendence; it appears worn, stripped of aura, and recast as a challenge to overcome rather than a site to revere.

In this essay, Portuguese philosopher and writer Ivo do Carmo reflects on the work of Jorge da Cruz through the idea of paradise in contemporary society. Drawing on references from Genesis and Max Weber, the text suggests that tourism and leisure have gradually replaced older religious visions of heaven. Modern paradises—resorts, dream destinations, and enclosed spaces of pleasure—mirror ancient ideas of the garden. In dialogue with da Cruz’s images, the essay explores how these cultural myths continue to shape our imagination of happiness, freedom, and the promises of a better world.

This text by the Portuguese philosopher Ivo do Carmo reflects on the work of Jorge da Cruz through the idea that, in contemporary society, tourism has replaced heaven as the modern image of paradise. Drawing on references from Genesis to Max Weber, the essay explores how leisure, travel, and consumer culture reshape older religious promises. In dialogue with the artist’s images, the text proposes that today’s paradises—tourist resorts, enclosed gardens, and dream destinations—mirror humanity’s ongoing search for meaning, happiness, and redemption in a secular world.

In this text, Jule Graf reflects on the charcoal drawings of Jorge da Cruz through the idea of framing—both the image and the act of looking. The works appear suspended between presence and absence, where figures, spaces, and thresholds emerge from layers of shadow and light. Using charcoal’s soft textures and deep blacks, the drawings leave room for ambiguity and silence. Rather than telling a clear story, they invite slow observation and reflection, opening a space where memory, perception, and emotion quietly shape the viewer’s experience of the image.

If the city of Berlin breathes art and culture, then Bethanien is undoubtedly part of its respiratory system. These “lungs of the city,” where living off art is still possible, resemble a miniature Berlin: steeped in history, shaped by many nationalities, and filled with art and culture across disciplines, even down to its graffiti-covered walls. Within this cultural machine, the artist Jorge da Cruz found his own place, developing his work in a setting where histories, languages, and artistic energies continuously intersect and resonate.

Opening speech by Hermann Schifferer, President of the Cultural Club at the European Patent Office in Munich, for Jorge da Cruz’s exhibition Ponts entre les cultures (2011). In this text, Schifferer reflects on works that connect symbols and visual languages from different religious traditions. Through collages and painted compositions, elements from Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism appear side by side, creating unexpected dialogues and inviting the viewer to discover new relationships between cultures.

In these introductory remarks for the exhibition Bridges Between Cultures in Munich (2011), Christine Hubenthal recalls meeting Jorge da Cruz in Pondicherry, South India, where many of the exhibited works were created. Working in a simple beach studio with locally sourced materials, the artist absorbed everyday visual elements—temple pigments, ritual marks, street drawings, and religious symbols. The text reflects on how these observations entered the paintings, transforming them into layered compositions shaped by travel, cultural encounters, and the natural presence of spirituality in South India.

In Instant_Dystopian, Jorge da Cruz reflects on his long fascination with instant photography. Drawn to the unpredictability of instant cameras, he embraces their imperfections, delays, and unexpected results. The photographs function as fragments of a visual diary, created while moving through unfamiliar places and living far from home. Rather than seeking technical perfection, the images capture immediate reactions to landscapes and moments. These photographs also feed back into his drawing practice, shaping the atmosphere and emotional textures that later emerge in his charcoal works.

Jorge da Cruz reiste im Jahr 2006 nach Auroville in Tamil Nadu, Südindien. Dort lebte und arbeitete er drei Monate lang und recherchierte zu Materialien, die direkt vor Ort für Dekoration oder religiösen Kult verwendet werden. Dabei stieß er auf eine große Vielfalt: von Stempeln über Gesichtsmalfarbe bis hin zu Tempelfarben sammelte er alles, was ihm begegnete. Dieser Aufenthalt wurde zu einer intensiven materiellen Recherche und prägte seinen Blick auf lokale Bildsprachen, Rituale, Oberflächen und Formen des Alltags nachhaltig bis heute.

In this text, Lisbon-based writer Berna Valada reflects on My Integration Documents: A Poetic Geography of Memory, a project by Jorge da Cruz developed after his move from Lisbon to Berlin. Combining photography, instant cameras, and paper works, the series explores memory, migration, and the emotional landscape of living between places. Through imperfect images and fragments of observation, the work forms a visual essay on belonging and distance. Valada reads the project as a poetic geography where personal memory and contemporary political tensions quietly shape the artist’s perception of place.