Todo o visível vem do invisível at Espaço Coleção da Fundação Altice
Todo visível vem do invisível inaugurates Espaço Coleção, from Coleção de Arte Contemporânea da Fundação Altice. Curated by Adelaide Duarte, the exhibition features works by Alberto Carneiro, Álvaro Lapa, Ângelo de Sousa, Cabrita, Diogo Pimentão, Eduardo Batarda, Fernando Calhau, Helena Almeida, Inês Botelho, Joaquim Bravo, Joaquim Rodrigo, João Vieira, Jorge Martins, Júlia Ventura, Mafalda Santos, Maria José Oliveira, Pedro Cabral Santo, Rita Barros and Rui Sanches.
Bringing together different generations, Todo visível vem do invisível brings together renowned artists in Portugal’s art development. The broad representation of languages and the dialogue between renowned artists – who influenced the development of subsequent aesthetics, crucial for the so-called postmodernism and avant-garde movements in the country – and younger names reflect and expand the lines of interpretation of Coleção de Arte Contemporânea da Fundação Altice.
In the first corridor, Pedro Cabral Santo and Mafalda Santos present two works on communication associated with the web. In Sem título (2006), Mafalda Santos’ brushstrokes exude a buoyancy that lends movement to the painting; in Deep blue (a secret emotion) (1999), Pedro Cabral Santos approaches technology with the blue ecoline, triggered in the viewer’s presence, drawing the sinking submarine in Deep blue (a secret emotion) (1999). The exhibition’s title, Todo visível vem do invisível, comes from Jorge Martins’ work, which in turn quotes the German poet Novalis in the 1973 painting, setting the line of light that goes from blue to red. In Estudo para um enriquecimento interior (1977-1978), Helena Almeida makes the language of painting vanish by swallowing its blue brushstrokes. Nearby are the sweeping movements of Ana Hatherly, in Sem título (1972).
Rita Barros’s Auto-retrato: Fifteen years: Chelsea Hotel (1992) bears traces of the iconic surroundings where the artist lived for a time, in New York. Close to pop art, the photograph portrays some elements and artists of the movement combined with everyday objects. Júlia Ventura also presents a self-portrait, questioning stereotypes of representation of the female figure in the series Geometrical reconstructions and figures with roses (1987). Inês Botelho’s architectural perspective in Sem título (2001) and the light spots generated by graphite stripes in Diogo Pimentão’s Fricção entre dois corpos (2004) follow Maria José Oliveira, who uses fire to build rhythms on paper and draw the viewer into a further dimension in Mas onde nós estamos é a luz (2003). Alberto Carneiro, an important name in Portugal’s development of land art, brings fire into the title of his work, a tree trunk that runs from the gallery’s ceiling to the floor, entitled Sob o fogo I (1996-1998).
Fernando Calhau, in #50 (1988), fuses contrasting materials in a composition flattened by two rectangles. Abstraction reaches Ângelo de Souza’s minimalism, built with crossed lines on monochrome planes in Cruz vermelha (1998) and C-2-2-Q (1998). Rui Sanches features points of light and shadow in the geometric map of Sem título (1999). Eduardo Batarda explores the use of the word and the satirical critique between organic and abstract images in Nothing really (1997), similar to Álvaro Lapa, who also uses the word in Que horas são que horas – descrição de um abismo (1975), as well as Joaquim Rodrigo in Lisboa – Vitória (1970). João Vieira superimposes graphic letters cut out of acrylic glass in PGTL (1999), following Joaquim Bravo’s colourful, vertical plots in Sem título (1983). Cabrita’s pairs of black and white circles attract the viewer’s attention like a magnet, and the exhibition ends with Alexandre Estrela, who conceptually reflects on video and the movement of the gaze in Lazy Eye (1998).
Plastic experimentation, the word as work and reflection, performance and the body in representation and relationship with the artwork are issues brought forward by the artists in Todo visível vem do invisível, at Espaço Coleção da Fundação Altice until August 31, 2023, at Fórum Picoas, in Lisbon.