Portuguese Artists Abroad
exhibition curated by João Pinharanda
for EDP Foundation & Presidency Museum
Opening Jan 16th, 9.30 pm
Electricity Museum, Lisbon
Ana Cardoso
text by Joao Pinharanda
Behind these paintings, there are compositional and thematic models that annul and subvert each other. The sleeping bodies of Courbet's women have lost their original aura of scandal, just as their skin tones are no longer differentiated as tan and fair. They are there to evoke for us the history of that painting, revealing in their simplicity of means the essential lines of the geometrical composition that contains the bodies. The accompanying geometrical paintings evidently enhance that, without, however, taking us back to the prior figurative content, revealing instead, through lush chromatic enrichment, the extent of abstraction's incompatibility with any indoctrination or dogma. The artificial lightning equipment, which connects itself freely and from a different plan (on the floor) to the set of paintings, reinforces the desire of freeing them from all illustrative purposes.
in LA FORA exhibition catalogue
EDP Foundation and the Presidency Museum of Portugal, 2009
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