-
A
seta
-
B
seta
-
C
seta
-
D
seta
-
E
seta
-
F
seta
-
G
seta
-
H
seta
-
I
seta
-
J
seta
-
K
seta
-
L
seta
-
M
seta
-
N
seta
-
O
seta
-
P
seta
-
Q
seta
-
R
seta
-
S
seta
-
T
seta
-
V
seta
-
W
seta
-
Y
seta
-
Z
seta
Calhau, Fernando
Fernando Calhau (Lisboa, Portugal, 1948 - Lisboa, Portugal, 2002)Sem título, 1974- Untitled, 1974
- Acrylic paint on canvas
- 110 x 110 cm
- Coll. Portuguese State Secretariat of Culture, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 1990
- Attempting to progressively eliminate the artist’s manual brushstroke, through the use of spray paint or industrial paint, this untitled work is one of a series of green paintings produced by Fernando Calhau in the 1970s. He used acid green to avoid the connotations associated to primary colours. The square - the formal matrix of this painting - appears framed by a chromatic gradation that triggers an optical stimulation, thereby destabilizing its geometry: the vertices appear to expand beyond the painting’s surface and the smaller central square appears to advance towards the viewer.Fernando Calhau’s career spanned various disciplines, always marked by a sense of rigour and purity. He began working in the fields of engraving, painting and drawing, and later worked with photography, film and video. In this multiplicity of media, painting is the tool that articulates the different dimensions of his work, circumscribing his interest in mechanical reproducibility and seriality, monochromatism, handmade production or spatio-temporal decomposition by means of photographic reproduction.
Fernando Calhau (Lisboa, Portugal, 1948 - Lisboa, Portugal, 2002)# 99 (Materialização de um quadrado imaginário), 1974- # 99 (materialisation of an imaginary square), 1974
- Colour photograph and Indian ink on photographic paper
- 20.5 x 28.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- Part of an unfinished project, this photographic sequence accompanies the action of the artist’s hand tracing the lines of an impossible task: drawing in space. The geometric rigidity of the square contrasts with the fluidity of the natural elements. Based on a variation of a recurrent motif in Calhau’s oeuvre - the square - this work shows the artist in the original act of creation (and is part of his research into space and time, a theme that appears repeatedly throughout his work), but it could also constitute a reference to the materialization of a new democratic country in the wake of the 25 April 1974 Revolution.Fernando Calhau’s career spanned various disciplines, always marked by a sense of rigour and purity. He began working in the fields of engraving, painting and drawing, and later worked with photography, film and video. In this multiplicity of media, painting is the tool that articulates the different dimensions of his work, circumscribing his interest in mechanical reproducibility and seriality, monochromatism, handmade production or spatio-temporal decomposition by means of photographic reproduction.
Carneiro, Alberto
Alberto Carneiro (S. Mamede do Coronado, Portugal, 1937 - Porto, Portugal, 2017)O mar prolonga-se em cada um de nós, 1968 - 1969- The Sea is Extended in Each One of Us, 1968 - 1969
- Metal, sand, b/w photograph
- 200 x 400 x 800 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- 'O mar prolonga-se em cada um de nós' [The Sea is Extended in Each One of Us] is part of ‘As três extensões da natureza’ [The Three Extensions of Nature], a group of works in which Alberto Carneiro carries out a series of experiments on the perception of natural environments. The two iron structures that constitute this work are related to each other through the items they contain: in one case, a small pile of sand suggests a real landscape; in the second, black and white photographs show a representation of that landscape, a beach with rocks battered by crashing waves. The openness of the work to its environment and the stimulation of memories of a body in contact with nature (through sand) are early indicators of a perceptual and sensorial involvement that the artist would explore more intensely in subsequent works. Alberto Carneiro belongs to the international trend of earth works or land art that, from the late 1960s onwards, took nature and the landscape as the starting point for works created outside the studio and the traditional gallery and museum spaces. The use of raw natural materials, the use of photography as mediator for the relationship between the subject and nature, the anthropological and aesthetic approach to the forms resulting from agricultural activities are some of the means through which Alberto Carneiro has contributed to the renewal of Portuguese sculpture that took place in the second half of the 1960s.
Alberto Carneiro (S. Mamede do Coronado, Portugal, 1937 - Porto, Portugal, 2017)Os quatro elementos - Segunda homenagem a Gaston Bachelard, 1969 - 1970- The Four Elements - Second Homage to Gaston Bachelard, 1969 - 1970
- Iron, plastic, b/w photograph on paper, orange tree, water, soil, charcoal
- 200 x 200 x 200 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- Alberto Carneiro is considered a pioneer of conceptual art in Portugal. Throughout his career he has developed a distinctive sculptural language inspired by the aesthetic relationship between art and nature. 'Os 4 elementos' [The 4 elements] was first shown at Serralves in 1991 in the survey exhibition in the Serralves Villa dedicated to Alberto Carneiro. In this work, the artist addresses nature through the decomposition of its essentials components: air, water, earth and fire. He proposes a space within the space; the cubic iron and plastic structure frames earth, water, carbonized wood and a living tree, making reference to the four elements that are also evoked in the photographs that hang from the metal frame.
Alberto Carneiro (S. Mamede do Coronado, Portugal, 1937 - Porto, Portugal, 2017)Ser árvore e arte, 2000 - 2002- Being Tree and Art, 2000 - 2002
- Tree, soil, grass, stone, wood, glass with text
- c. Ø 1600 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2002
- Alberto Carneiro has been developing a remarkable relationship between art and nature. 'Ser árvore e arte' [Being Tree and Art] is characteristic of Alberto Carneiro’s oeuvre in its relationship to nature and the experience of the viewer. Seven holes around a tree lined with stones are covered with glass panels inscribed with text. Beside each hole are piles of earth displaced by the artist’s excavations. The circular arrangement refers to the mandala as geometric representation of man’s relationship to the cosmos. As viewers approach the glass panels, they are able not only to see the reflection of the branches of the tree at the centre, but also their own reflection, establishing a communion between the human body, nature, and art. This work was commissioned for the Serralves Park and installed in 2002 as part of Porto 2001: European Capital of Culture.
Alberto Carneiro (S. Mamede do Coronado, Portugal, 1937 - Porto, Portugal, 2017)Paisagens imaginadas sobre recordações de paisagens com uma imagem do teu ser imaginante (Caderno 1), 2012- 29.4 x 41 cm each
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2015
- While known primarily as a sculptor, drawing has been a mainstay of the practice of Alberto Carneiro (Coronado, 1937) throughout his career. An expression of the artist’s memories of landscape over fifty years, the imaginary landscapes demonstrate Carneiro’s consistency and persistence in working on the role of imagination in artistic creation.With a career spanning five decades, Carneiro has become one of the most representative figures in contemporary Portuguese art. His working process crosses an analytical method of understanding visible reality with a deep and poetic awareness of the gestures giving rise to the artwork. Based always on his own subjective corporeal and mental relationship with the materials that he uses, Carneiro creates works that function as archetypes for the way an individual experiences and inhabits nature.
Carvalho, Zulmiro de
Escultura, 1968- Sculpture, 1968
- Painted iron
- 201 x 105 x 56 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- Zulmiro de Carvalho has developed his work in the fields of sculpture and drawing. After working primarily with iron, the artist has extended the range of materials used to include stone and wood. His work is characterized by formal modular systems, reminiscent of minimalism, and by questioning aspects associated with the tradition of sculpture. The artist’s sculptural work highlights structural detachment and essentiality, characterized by the use of regular lines, textures and colour, and simple and repetitive forms.
Tendente 1.10, 3.10, 4.10, 1969- Dimensions variable
- Coll. of the artist, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 2000
- Zulmiro de Carvalho has developed his work in the fields of sculpture and drawing. After working primarily with iron, the artist has extended the range of materials used to include stone and wood. His work is characterized by formal modular systems, reminiscent of minimalism, and by questioning aspects associated with the tradition of sculpture. The artist’s sculptural work highlights structural detachment and essentiality, characterized by the use of regular lines, textures and colour, and simple and repetitive forms.
Curvatura, 1970- Painted aluminium plates (3 elements)
- 100 x 300 x 200 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2001
- Zulmiro de Carvalho has developed his work in the fields of sculpture and drawing. After working primarily with iron, the artist has extended the range of materials used to include stone and wood. His work is characterized by formal modular systems, reminiscent of minimalism, and by questioning aspects associated with the tradition of sculpture. The artist’s sculptural work highlights structural detachment and essentiality, characterized by the use of regular lines, textures and colour, and simple and repetitive forms.
Sistema H, 1973- System H, 1973
- Painted iron
- 48.5 x 400 x 400 cm
- Coll. Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto. Deposit 1990
- 'Sistema H', one of Zulmiro de Carvalho’s earliest works, belongs to the movement of renewal in Portuguese sculpture that sought, from the mid-1960s onwards, to question and reformulate sculptural tradition. The work shows a clear concern with materials, the use of modular systems, and notions of seriality and industrial production. Figure and subject are replaced with issues intrinsic to the act of sculpting under the influence of minimalism, such as the working of forms, research on colour and the work’s relationship with surrounding space and context. In this case, the sculpture takes over the floor, doing away with the need for a plinth, to become a presence with an anthropomorphic scale in space. By opening itself up to its surroundings, while delimiting a defined space, each of the three elements establishes a relative position among themselves that interferes with their formal meanings and integrates the existing voids to simulate a square within a square. Zulmiro de Carvalho, who studied under Anthony Caro at St Martin’s School of Art (1971-73), belongs to a generation of artists that played a crucial role in Portugal in the understanding and rethinking of sculpture, freeing it from celebratory statuary which was then the prevailing, official sculptural model. In it’s place, Zulmiro de Carvalho emphasizes a clarity of form and volumes, profoundly marked by the rigour of formalist modernism.
Casimiro, Manuel
Estruturas, 1970- Structures, 1970
- Felt-tip pen on paper
- 70 x 50 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Artist's donation 1997
- With the series ‘Structures’ (1968-75), Manuel Casimiro began to explore the elliptical form that subsequently marked much of his work - as a neutral, non-signifying, synthetic element that can generate multiple meanings. In these works, small ink blots organize the pictorial space, drawing colourful, sequential compositions, in which the graphic rhythm of repetition of the initial ink blot reveals the dynamic of the gesture between the organization and disorganization of the composition.
Castro, E. M. de Melo e
Caixa-Objecta, 1961 - 1968- Cardboard, pasteboard
- 10 x 33 x 33 cm (box)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2002
- Presenting a strong interactive component, enabled by the potential manipulation of the work by the viewer, 'Caixa-Objeta' is an object-poem composed of letters, words and images that, by emphasising the dynamism and visuality of writing, moves away from simple visual perception and encourages the spectator to handle the work, even leading to its destruction due to the ephemeral nature of its materials.E.M. de Melo e Casto is the pioneering figure of Portuguese Experimental Poetry, and was one of the initiators of videopoetry in Portugal. His extensive work interwove multiple practices and experimental forms, marked in particular by the relations between the word and the image. For the artist, working with verse, prose, non-verbal signs, conventional graphic media or technological media, was all part of a total process that he called ‘poiesis’, i.e. the production of the artifact, the object, in a permanent experimentation of the possibilities and limits of the artwork.
Castro, Lourdes
Letras, 1962- Letters, 1962
- Wood, tweezer clamp, silver metal box, plastic, acrylic on canvas
- 50 x 100 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Letras' [Letters] is an apparently random assemblage of letters and small objects that were displaced or removed after having been covered in paint, thus revealing the intermediate stages of the process. The combination of three different tones - green, white and the brownish colour of the underlying canvas -, in addition to the aluminium colour, highlights the objects’ outlines. Presaging Lourdes Castro’s future work with shadows, 'Letras' renders absence present: letters are divested of their usual transparency - they are normally meant to build sentences and be read rather than seen - and given a body. The appropriation of everyday objects and the poetic reutilization of urban, advertising reality is one of the main features of the art of the 1960s. Like other works from the same period, 'Letras' resembles a ‘reliquary’ in which industrially produced objects accumulate, rendered obsolete by increasingly shorter cycles of consumption and whose likely end would be the trash bin.
Sombras e chocolates (harmónica), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Harmonica), 1965
- Silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (joaninha), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Ladybug), 1965
- Pencil and silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (lápis), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Pencils), 1965
- Silver foil, wax paper and crayon shavings glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (carrinhos), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Toy Cars), 1965
- Silver foil and magazine cut-out glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (galo), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Cock), 1965
- Silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (vassourinha), 1965- Shadows and Chocolates (Little Broom), 1965
- Silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (Mickey), 1966- Shadows and Chocolates (Mickey), 1966
- Silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombra sentada, 1969- Sitting Shadow, 1969
- Hand-embroidered fabric
- 310 x 180 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- In Madeira, during the summer of 1968, Lourdes Castro made her first lying shadows. After having solved the issue of the formal representation of shadow by resorting to Plexiglas, Lourdes Castro established a new link between art and everyday life not only in the representation of shadows of friends, but this time in bed sheets on which she hand-embroidered the outline of the shadows of people lying down or sitting. The bed sheets enabled her to explore the horizontally projected shadow in a more intimate fashion. The sheets with projected shadows are sometimes shown over unmade beds where the outline of the silhouette of absent bodies ‘presentify’ them as the memory of an ephemeral moment. However, they can also be shown vertically: ‘By hanging a sheet on a wall it is as if shadows begin flying.’Castro used to shadow as a way to reinterpret and rematerialize objects, experimenting with a variety of supports, materials and processes in her research on its visual representation. After silkscreen painting, the artist moved on to canvas, on which she projected the silhouettes of friends, discovering the outline as an essential element of a figure’s ephemeral presence. From the dematerialization of the object, the artist moved towards the dematerialization of its shadow in a series of paintings where only the outlines become visible. This focus on the shadow as an horizon of perception and a questioning of reality is also implicitly linked to a reflection on time and memory.
Os Lusíadas, 1971- Plexiglass book with embroidered letters
- 15 x 40 x 2.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- In her embroidered books Lourdes Castro draws close to a possible idea of a shadow, by successively embroidering the reverse image of the initial word, in which each page is a transformation of the previous one, diluting the book’s didactic function. In this specific case, a possible political meaning is also introduced through deconstruction of the title of the epic poem by Camões, a symbol of Portuguese identity during the dictatorship period.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (moedas), 1974- Shadows and Chocolates (Coins), 1974
- Colour pencil and silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (letras em 'chocolat aux noisettes'), 1972 - 1974- Shadows and chocolates (Letters in 'chocolat aux noisettes'), 1972 - 1974
- Paper outcut mounted on paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (carrinho), 1972 - 1974- Shadows and Chocolates (Toy Car), 1972 - 1974
- Silver foil, wax paper and printed paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras e chocolates (castanhas), 1976- Shadows and Chocolates ( Chestnuts), 1976
- Silver foil and wax paper glued onto paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Sombras à volta de um centro (Lilases II), 1980- Shadows around a Centre (Lilacs II), 1980
- Crayon on paper
- 50 x 66 cm
- Coll. LC, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2003
- In this series of crayon drawings, Lourdes Castro records the outlines of several plant species found in her garden. The artist simply arranged vases of flowers, placed them on the paper and drew the outlines of the vase and the projected shadows of the flowers. These vases are always different because the variety of flowers requires different vessels, including simple test tubes, flasks and inkstands. The centre to which the title alludes is simply the bottom of those ’vases’. The series of drawings (all 45 of which are in the Serralves Collection) is a sort of catalogue of the botanical abundance of the Madeira Island where the artist was born and continues to live and work after having spent periods in Munich and Paris.Lourdes Castro is one of the most singular Portuguese artists of the last five decades. Her artistic practice, at first centred on the poetic potential of industrial objects on which the artist intervened, would later focus, particularly in the 1960s, on making and representing shadows, first of people close to her and then those of objects, namely plants and flowers.
Sombras à volta de um centro (Geranium Robert), 1984- Shadows around a Centre (Geranium Robert), 1984
- Indian ink and colour pencil on paper
- 38.5 x 57 cm
- Coll. LC, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2003
- In this series of crayon drawings, Lourdes Castro records the outlines of several plant species found in her garden. The artist simply arranged vases of flowers, placed them on the paper and drew the outlines of the vase and the projected shadows of the flowers. These vases are always different because the variety of flowers requires different vessels, including simple test tubes, flasks and inkstands. The centre to which the title alludes is simply the bottom of those ’vases’. The series of drawings (all 45 of which are in the Serralves Collection) is a sort of catalogue of the botanical abundance of the Madeira Island where the artist was born and continues to live and work after having spent periods in Munich and Paris.Lourdes Castro is one of the most singular Portuguese artists of the last five decades. Her artistic practice, at first centred on the poetic potential of industrial objects on which the artist intervened, would later focus, particularly in the 1960s, on making and representing shadows, first of people close to her and then those of objects, namely plants and flowers.
Sombras à volta de um centro (Miosótis), 1984- Shadows around a Centre (Forget-me-nots), 1984
- Pencil on paper
- 37.5 x 55 cm
- Coll. LC, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Deposit 2003
- In this series of crayon drawings, Lourdes Castro records the outlines of several plant species found in her garden. The artist simply arranged vases of flowers, placed them on the paper and drew the outlines of the vase and the projected shadows of the flowers. These vases are always different because the variety of flowers requires different vessels, including simple test tubes, flasks and inkstands. The centre to which the title alludes is simply the bottom of those ’vases’. The series of drawings (all 45 of which are in the Serralves Collection) is a sort of catalogue of the botanical abundance of the Madeira Island where the artist was born and continues to live and work after having spent periods in Munich and Paris.Lourdes Castro is one of the most singular Portuguese artists of the last five decades. Her artistic practice, at first centred on the poetic potential of industrial objects on which the artist intervened, would later focus, particularly in the 1960s, on making and representing shadows, first of people close to her and then those of objects, namely plants and flowers.
Sombras e chocolates (Fragmento de "Tabacaria" de Fernando Pessoa), s.d.- Shadows and Chocolates (Fragment of 'Tabacaria' by Fernando Pessoa), s.d.
- Dry-transfer lettering on paper
- 32 x 49.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- 'Sombras e chocolates' [Shadows and Chocolates] is comprised of a set of approximately seventy delicate, coloured collages. Chocolate wrappers and pencil shavings are the remains of trivial acts, such as indulging gustative pleasures and sharpening a pencil. To these elements were added painted forms outlined in graphite, which constitute the shadows of the bits of reality included in these collages. Lourdes Castro explores here the communicative potential of the symbols of contemporary culture and bourgeois comfort, such as Mickey Mouse and the Volkswagen Beetle. The inclusion of an excerpt of the poem ‘Tabacaria’ [Tobacco Shop] by Álvaro de Campos (one of the heteronyms of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa), which alludes to the value of life found in the small everyday gestures, demonstrates that the light and playful tone of these collages is not entirely without seriousness.Initially influenced by Nouveau Réalisme, in terms of appropriation and recontextualisation of everyday objects, Lourdes Castro focused her artistic work on exploration of shadows from the 1960s onwards, constantly questoning their visual representation using a wide array of different materials and practices.
Cepeda, André
André Cepeda (Coimbra, Portugal, 1976)Bairro de São Victor, Porto, 2014- Inkjet print (6 elements). Ed. 1/1
- 44 x 54 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2015
- The photographic series produced by André Cepeda (Coimbra, 1976) are the result of a commission made within the framework of the exhibition ‘SAAL Process: Architecture and Participation 1974-76’, held at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014. SAAL is an acronym for Serviço de Ambulatório de Apoio Local (Local Ambulatory Support Service) and involved the post-revolution development of social housing projects in Portugal that relied upon the active participation of the communities for which they were being built. Cepeda photographed the current appearance of two neighbourhoods: São Victor, designed by architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, and Antas, by architect Pedro Ramalho. Cepeda refrained from taking photographs that showed the architectural complexes as a whole. He shows us instead how the local inhabitants, over time, customized their homes with different doors and windows or simple plant arrangements.
André Cepeda (Coimbra, Portugal, 1976)Bairro das Antas, Porto, 2014- Inkjet print (7 elements). Ed. 1/1
- 44 x 54 cm (each)
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2015
- The photographic series produced by André Cepeda (Coimbra, 1976) are the result of a commission made within the framework of the exhibition ‘SAAL Process: Architecture and Participation 1974-76’, held at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014. SAAL is an acronym for Serviço de Ambulatório de Apoio Local (Local Ambulatory Support Service) and involved the post-revolution development of social housing projects in Portugal that relied upon the active participation of the communities for which they were being built. Cepeda photographed the current appearance of two neighbourhoods: São Victor, designed by architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, and Antas, by architect Pedro Ramalho. Cepeda refrained from taking photographs that showed the architectural complexes as a whole. He shows us instead how the local inhabitants, over time, customized their homes with different doors and windows or simple plant arrangements.
Cerqueira, Mauro
Porto Morto, 2010- Dead Porto, 2010
- Video, colour, sound, pal, loop, 18’25’’. Ed. 1/3 + 1 A.P.
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2011
- Literature, the everyday and the transformation of urban spaces and communities are some of the elements present in the work of Mauro Cerqueira. In his video 'Porto Morto' [Dead Porto] Cerqueira reflects on the failure and decline of an area of Porto (Baixa) with emptied housing and few residents, where the artist lives and works. 'Porto Morto' shows the building where Cerqueira had his studio, together with other artists, before it was demolished. A central element of the video is the recording of a skateboarder inside a building. Footage of the skateboarder in action alternates with images of ruin, decorative details, detritus, destruction and the gigantic pit of surrounding new constructions. The practice of skateboarding has almost always implied a rejection of authority and conventions. The city is not just a place to work and consume. It can also be a locus of pleasure, where the human body can express its emotions and energies. Deliberately lacking in any technical virtuosity, the video proposes a raw essay on our built environment as a symbol of lost time and uncertain futures.
Twins, 2014- Metal vases
- 143 x 60 x 60 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2014
- As a collector of discarded, whimsical objects, Mauro Cerqueira gathers in his studio objects that are considered to be obsolete and which no longer fulfil their original function (or whose role is no longer considered to be relevant in the contemporary world). He often materializes his critique of the idea of progress through the creation of authentic monuments to precariousness. 'Twins' (2014) is an example of his use of simple gestures: the act of piling up two old rubbish bins that gives rise to a column where simple forms are evocative of abstract sculpture, most notably that of Brancusi.Its title simultaneously refers to the idea of duplication and the name of the place where the artist got the bins: the mythical Twins nightclub. Twins was known to all Porto night owls, who voted it one of their favourite dance floors in the 1980s. As usual in his work, Cerqueira highlights the changes in the city, from precariousness to gentrification: since its time as a nightclub, Twins has been a strip bar and restaurant.
Transmissão por tinto, 2014- Car stereo, red wine on marble
- 10 x 100 x 100 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2014
- In 'Transmissão por tinto' [Transmission by Red], Mauro Cerqueira (Guimarães, 1982) combines an old car radio and a wine-stained marble plaque. Despite the humble and precarious nature of the composition, emphasized by the fact that it is placed directly on the ground, the sculpture serves as a monument to a fast-disappearing world: the small taverns in the old parts of Porto (where marble countertops are common) and their customers are disappearing from the city. Cerqueira produces compositions by using found waste that he rearranges in new configurations, disrespecting their original function and form. Reviving the notion of the readymade, the artist uses, with little changes, objects and materials that maintain a close relationship with the historical and urban context of downtown Porto, in which he lives and works.
Chafes, Rui
Rui Chafes (Lisboa, Portugal, 1966)Penumbra II, 1990- Dusk II, 1990
- Painted iron, polyester
- 50.5 x 89 x 170 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- The ‘Penumbra’ [Dusk] series consists of four metal sculptures painted, according to the artist, in a tone of decomposing flesh very similar to that used in the paintings of the Portuguese surrealist António Dacosta. Two of the sculptures include small containers with polyester, one white and the other brown, a reference by the artist to Novalis and his description of mankind sleeping between two rivers: one of milk, the other of honey. The painted structures and rigid form of the work, while suggesting a certain violence, are intended by the artist to express ideas of aggressiveness that emphasize a notion of insecurity and the frailty of being in the world. Since 1989 Rui Chafes has been creating objects that constrain and imprison the body, an element that is always invoked but always absent in his oeuvre. German literature and art, namely the gothic style and Romanticism - particularly the medieval sculpture of Tilman Riemenschneider, the poetry of Novalis and Hölderlin, or the painting of Philipp Otto Runge - are constant references for Chafes. The artist himself works and moulds the iron through mechanical processes. He never resorts to casting, a method that does not allow for the same control of the end result. Once moulded, the sculptures are given a metal heat treatment and usually painted black or grey, which conceals the materiality of the iron, masked by the paint. Chafes frequently states that he is not interested in the objects themselves and is rather seeking depurated forms that function as writing characters. The titles of the works, often coinciding with his exhibitions and publications titles, allude to a personal, sublime and lyrical universe and never illustrate or intend to offer additional information for the reading of the work.
Rui Chafes (Lisboa, Portugal, 1966)Penumbra III, 1990- Dusk III, 1990
- Painted iron
- 41 x 70 x 185 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- The ‘Penumbra’ [Dusk] series consists of four metal sculptures painted, according to the artist, in a tone of decomposing flesh very similar to that used in the paintings of the Portuguese surrealist António Dacosta. Two of the sculptures include small containers with polyester, one white and the other brown, a reference by the artist to Novalis and his description of mankind sleeping between two rivers: one of milk, the other of honey. The painted structures and rigid form of the work, while suggesting a certain violence, are intended by the artist to express ideas of aggressiveness that emphasize a notion of insecurity and the frailty of being in the world. Since 1989 Rui Chafes has been creating objects that constrain and imprison the body, an element that is always invoked but always absent in his oeuvre. German literature and art, namely the gothic style and Romanticism - particularly the medieval sculpture of Tilman Riemenschneider, the poetry of Novalis and Hölderlin, or the painting of Philipp Otto Runge - are constant references for Chafes. The artist himself works and moulds the iron through mechanical processes. He never resorts to casting, a method that does not allow for the same control of the end result. Once moulded, the sculptures are given a metal heat treatment and usually painted black or grey, which conceals the materiality of the iron, masked by the paint. Chafes frequently states that he is not interested in the objects themselves and is rather seeking depurated forms that function as writing characters. The titles of the works, often coinciding with his exhibitions and publications titles, allude to a personal, sublime and lyrical universe and never illustrate or intend to offer additional information for the reading of the work.
Rui Chafes (Lisboa, Portugal, 1966)Penumbra I, 1990- Dusk I, 1990
- Painted iron
- 55 x 163 x 60 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- The ‘Penumbra’ [Dusk] series consists of four metal sculptures painted, according to the artist, in a tone of decomposing flesh very similar to that used in the paintings of the Portuguese surrealist António Dacosta. Two of the sculptures include small containers with polyester, one white and the other brown, a reference by the artist to Novalis and his description of mankind sleeping between two rivers: one of milk, the other of honey. The painted structures and rigid form of the work, while suggesting a certain violence, are intended by the artist to express ideas of aggressiveness that emphasize a notion of insecurity and the frailty of being in the world. Since 1989 Rui Chafes has been creating objects that constrain and imprison the body, an element that is always invoked but always absent in his oeuvre. German literature and art, namely the gothic style and Romanticism - particularly the medieval sculpture of Tilman Riemenschneider, the poetry of Novalis and Hölderlin, or the painting of Philipp Otto Runge - are constant references for Chafes. The artist himself works and moulds the iron through mechanical processes. He never resorts to casting, a method that does not allow for the same control of the end result. Once moulded, the sculptures are given a metal heat treatment and usually painted black or grey, which conceals the materiality of the iron, masked by the paint. Chafes frequently states that he is not interested in the objects themselves and is rather seeking depurated forms that function as writing characters. The titles of the works, often coinciding with his exhibitions and publications titles, allude to a personal, sublime and lyrical universe and never illustrate or intend to offer additional information for the reading of the work.
Rui Chafes (Lisboa, Portugal, 1966)Penumbra IV, 1990- Dusk IV, 1990
- Painted iron, polyester
- 56 x 114 x 109 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1993
- The ‘Penumbra’ [Dusk] series consists of four metal sculptures painted, according to the artist, in a tone of decomposing flesh very similar to that used in the paintings of the Portuguese surrealist António Dacosta. Two of the sculptures include small containers with polyester, one white and the other brown, a reference by the artist to Novalis and his description of mankind sleeping between two rivers: one of milk, the other of honey. The painted structures and rigid form of the work, while suggesting a certain violence, are intended by the artist to express ideas of aggressiveness that emphasize a notion of insecurity and the frailty of being in the world. Since 1989 Rui Chafes has been creating objects that constrain and imprison the body, an element that is always invoked but always absent in his oeuvre. German literature and art, namely the gothic style and Romanticism - particularly the medieval sculpture of Tilman Riemenschneider, the poetry of Novalis and Hölderlin, or the painting of Philipp Otto Runge - are constant references for Chafes. The artist himself works and moulds the iron through mechanical processes. He never resorts to casting, a method that does not allow for the same control of the end result. Once moulded, the sculptures are given a metal heat treatment and usually painted black or grey, which conceals the materiality of the iron, masked by the paint. Chafes frequently states that he is not interested in the objects themselves and is rather seeking depurated forms that function as writing characters. The titles of the works, often coinciding with his exhibitions and publications titles, allude to a personal, sublime and lyrical universe and never illustrate or intend to offer additional information for the reading of the work.
Cointet, Guy de
Guy de Cointet (Paris, França, 1934 - Los Angeles, EUA, 1983)Grey peak of wave, wave, 1976- Ink and crayon o paper
- 65 x 102 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2013
- Exploring the value of the word as form, ‘Grey Peak of Wave, Wave’ unsettles the visual relationship between language and meaning. A core feature of Guy de Cointet’s oeuvre, in which calligraphy and typography usually produce visual and legible forms, this is developed using codification or textual abstraction systems, recognisable both in his writing and drawing, or in his scenic objects, true living paintings close to theatre and visual poetry.Encompassing an extensive production of drawings, stage plays and literary texts, De Cointet’s oeuvre is rooted in a fascination for language and its use in the contexts of popular, literary or everyday culture. The artist repeadedly explored different language abstraction procedures for intersecting text, form and colour, to generate an infinity of meanings that are conceptually playful, familiar, absurd and enigmatic, constructed through codes and optical tensions between language and image.
Costa, Luís Noronha da
Sem título, 1968- Untitled, 1968
- Wood, mirrored glass, acrylic paint
- 12.5 x 25 x 9.5 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Donation by Nuno Noronha da Costa 2004
- Noronha da Costa’s objects, paintings and films reflect a thorough investigation on the relationships between reality and the space of representation, between the real image and the projected image. This work belongs to a series of objects that the artist initiated in the mid-1960s and which constitute the early body of his research on human perception and our visual relationship with nature. Through the application of paint on mirrored glass the artist confers an apparent immateriality to the mass and volume of the wooden elements, transforming sculpture into a landscape.
Sem título, 1972- Untitled, 1972
- Acrylic paint on canvas
- 200 x 160 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2000
- This work by Noronha da Costa stands between landscape painting and architectural painting. In a style that is deliberately impersonal and precise, the artist depicts an implausible situation in which immaculate white walls (seen through a greenish filter evocative of the passage of time) seem to replicate the walls of a museum gallery. Allowing the ‘outside’ landscape to be seen, the absence of a ceiling originates the blurring of inside and outside, through which nature creeps its way into the museum.
Croft, José Pedro
Sem título, 1985- Untitled, 1985
- Limestone
- 200 x 28.3 x 28 cm
- Coll. Portuguese State Secretariat of Culture, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 1990
- ‘Untitled’ alludes to the funereal tradition of sculpture. José Pedro Croft excavated a solid block of limestone to create an inner space from which emerges the suggestion of a human figure that appears to be unfinished or, instead, in an advanced state of decomposition. The formless appearance of the sculpted stone, its vague resemblance to a statue in ruins and the association of the whole piece with a vertical tomb or with a column convokes a series of anthropologic references linked to rites of recollection that twentieth-century art, with its anti-narrative and anti-historical tendency, questioned. More than referring to death, time and memory, ‘Untitled’ addresses the visual and material forms that mankind has sought throughout history to represent vanished beings and things.
Sem título, 1990- Untitled, 1990
- Painted bronze
- 155 x 165 x 90 cm
- Coll. Portuguese State Secretariat of Culture, long-term loan to Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto. Deposit 1990
- José Pedro Croft uses the traditional sculptural technique of plaster modelling and bronze casting to create a work that alludes to domestic space and everyday experience. In this case, a cone segment evokes a washtub. The shape in the work, as well as the white paint coating the bronze, create a bridge between the simplicity of domestic objects and the grandiloquence of geometric solids, which renders the objects useless due to its weight. By resorting to figuration, the formal elements of funerary sculpture, and to architectural typologies such as the column and the portico, Croft explores notions of ruin and fragment that reveal his suspicion of the logics of the monument and the normative and narrative character of traditional sculpture. In recent years, Croft’s sculpture has shifted from an emphasis on the object towards an attention to the relationship of his pieces to architecture and their reception by the viewer. His most recent sculptures propose complex perceptual experiences, resulting from a deliberate destabilizing of space that is to a large extent attained through the use of mirrors and a play with the scale and weight of the various objects that constitute them.
Sem título, 1997- Untitled, 1997
- Wood, glass, galvanized iron
- 102 x 202 x 218 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1999
- Since the 1980s, José Pedro Croft has applied to his sculptural practice a critical approach to the idea of monumentality, the tradition of statuary and the relationship between architecture and sculpture.This work from 1997 is mainly related to what might be described as a poetic of the domestic in active situations of disequilibrium. The artist’s use of materials such as plaster or glass, in contrast with the material of objects taken from our everyday environment, such as a table and a stool, stimulates a physical and evocative response that go beyond the purely visual. Space is sculpted, moulded, configured, and defined around something that already exists.
Sem título, 1997- Untitled, 1997
- Plaster, wooden stool
- 252 x 60 x 45 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 1998
- José Pedro Croft's art trajectory has developed around a formal questioning of sculpture itself as a medium, but mostly of the various uses it has been put to throughout history. To that end, Croft gave central stage in his practice to certain themes such as ruin, monumentality or funerary statuary alongside concepts such as time and space, weight (dis)equilibrium, presence, spatial division, form, content and density and techniques such as the juxtaposition of materials. This work from 1997 is composed of a vertical volume made of plaster, standing in apparently unstable equilibrium on a wooden bench whose dimensions are disproportionally small. The volume of the plaster, made of two opposite faces in a right angle, duplicates the corner of the exhibition space in a strategy that is common in Croft’s works: to activate areas that are usually ignored in the surrounding architectural space, such as corners, floors and ceilings. Among other exhibitions organized by the Museu de Serralves, this piece was featured in the exhibition ‘Serralves 2009: The Collection’.
Sem título, 2010- Untitled, 2010
- Iron, glass, mirror
- 220 x 140 x 140 cm
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2011
- Since the 1980s José Pedro Croft has developed a body of work relating both to the formal questions of sculpture and to the various uses this medium has undertaken thoughout the history of art. Central to his artistic pratice are themes such as: ruin, monumentality, funeral statues, alongside concepts of time and space. Many of José Pedro Croft’s recent works are transparent volumes or containers defined by iron edges (perforated at first but, more recently, smooth and dark) holding mirrors and glass. Free to define their field of vision and being included in it or not, viewers have a crucial role in the object’s visual reconstruction. By accentuating areas that are usually neglected, such as the floor, the corners or the skirting-board, these works directly confront the space they inhabit as well as the viewers that share it with them through an array of devices: mirrors that reflect the ceiling; vertical planes of transparent glass creating an ambiguity in relation to the movement of the viewer; or simply metal edges that define a new space.
Cunha, Luisa
Luisa Cunha (Lisboa, Portugal, 1949)Words for Gardens, 2006 - 2007- Words for gardens, 2006 - 2007
- Headphones, CD player, recorded voice (5’42", loop)
- Dimensions variable
- Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Acquisition 2009
- In 'Words for Gardens', Luísa Cunha creates a relationship between viewer and landscape through spoken word. Viewers/listeners participate in the construction of a landscape as so many lines on a page, blades of grass as a series of distinct points on a plane. In the work, the narrator describes a set of instructions for drawing a landscape. ‘You can draw grass,’ states the narrator, ‘Starting where you want? Take any direction. Let the intensity of your gesture fade away leaving behind a short fading and slightly curved line. Draw another intense point.’ Language, a prevailing feature in Cunha’s work, is conveyed, in most pieces, by audible recordings in which the viewer becomes an idealised partner. Her works reveal an awareness that the things of the world depend on the complicity that we may build, conceive, or share with them. Cunha’s choice of places to present her works: schools, gardens, greenhouses, abandoned factories, cloisters or libraries. While often conceived as site-specific, her works can be re-installed elsewhere, acquiring different emotional or cognitive layers.
|
.jpg)
