lisbon this month
The Possibility of Everything
João Paulo Feliciano: selected works 1989-1994
Exhibition until 30th of December 2006
This exhibition offers an extensive presentation of the work of João Paulo Feliciano between 1989 and 1994, watersheds in a particularly fruitful and influential period. Adamant in his refusal of any structuring orientation or discipline-based affiliation and a true experimental practitioner, Feliciano explored a variety of materials and expressive media during this period, pushing the boundaries of his field of creative possibilities. The works gathered here are characterized chiefly by the incorporation of elements from rock culture and music, the combination of erudite art references with mass popular culture themes and a host of materials, images and meanings, tied to everyday, contemporary life and arranged in a versatile, concise and ironic game of associations.
See also website.
Museu do Chiado-Stargate by Alexandre Estrela
7th July 2006 – 17th September 2006
floors 2 and 2A
The work of Alexandre Estrela (b. 1971) was first shown to the public at the beginning of the 1990s in group exhibitions like Artstrike (1991), Independent Worm Saloon (1994) and Wallmate (1995), among many others, that brought together some of the most significant artists of a new generation. Taking the conceptual practices of the 1970s as its starting point and developing them at a moment of radical technological change, this generation reconfigured the artistic subject and radically altered the horizon of Portuguese art.
While some of the artists of this generation oriented their work towards a political nature discursivity, Alexandre Estrela rejected the narrative dimension so recurrent in contemporary art practice. Working with perception, appropriation and the structural, his artistic subjects reveal the very fissures, dislocations and differences in these categories which through them make the predictable and the unpredictable, the immediate and the non-mediate, the irreversible and the reversible converge in the figure of the uncanny who returns familiar and disturbing.
His works produced in the technological context of information promote a continuous dislocation between aesthetic forms and categories, on the one hand, and the possibilities traditionally consigned to the media with which he works, on the other. In this interplay of dislocations, both aspects contaminate each other and produce infinite re-connections to each of these polarities, as if forms and media were continuously engaging and re-engaging in a network. Thus, when watching Alexandre Estrela’s videos, we always ask what? instead of who? as his images depend on this network of connections produced by the inscription and the interval.
This exhibition is Alexandre Estrela’s first large show. It brings together a sizeable collection of works that have been produced especially for this exhibition, alongside some older work from his huge oeuvre that fit within the concept governing the show: science as fiction, or science fiction like a protension of the artistic gesture.
Pedro Lapa
Director of the Museu do Chiado – Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea
See also website.
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian-From Paris to Tokyo: Art of the Book in the Calouste Gulbenkian Collection
19 July to 8 October of 2006
Temporary Exhibition Gallery
This selection of books, revealing a less known facet of Calouste Gulbenkian as a leading bibliophile, was exhibited in Istanbul during April and May. As from 19 July, it will be on display at the Museum’s Temporary Exhibitions Gallery.
The exhibition includes the masterpieces from the library that Calouste Gulbenkian assembled between 1899 and his death. The manuscripts and books selected illustrate the work produced in different geographical areas – Europe, Persia, Turkey, Armenia and Japan – expressing the collector’s eclectic tastes and sensitivity to both Oriental and Western culture.
See also website.
CowParade-101 Cows on the Loose
Public Street Exhibition
Until the end of August, Lisbon will be even livelier and more fun than usual with the presence of 101 colourful and original cows decorating the city’s most important streets and squares. Each one of the cows has a unique name and decorative style, from the patriotic “Cow-Mões”, a tribute to the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões, to the “Calçada Portuguesa”, the typical Lisboa paving. There are also tasty cows such as the “ChocoCow” and the dreamy ones like “Clowds”. There are also the more cosmopolitan cows such as “CowCity” and the more avantgarde ones like “CowPuter” and “High-Tec Cow”. Also very original is one entitled “CowHerd”, an installation of cowbells that form the body of a cow. In fact, there are so mooooooooney cows to put a smile on the faces of all those who visit and live in Lisbon. Want to find them all? Follow the map of Lisbon with the exact location of each cow wich can be bought at the tourism offices.
See also website.
Great Masters at the Museu Naçional de Arte Antiga
Temporary Exhibition until September 17th
The National Museum of Ancient Art presents an exhibit of exceptional quality, featuring 95 paintings by fundamental artists of European art history, from the early Italian Renaissance to the 1940-50’s decade. Almost half the works form part of a chronological arc that dates from the 15th century to the 18th century, featuring the Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Dutch schools. Visitors can admire works by masters sauch as Fra Angelico, Bernadino Luini, António Solario, Guido Renni, Canaletto, Tiepolo, Porbus, Van Goyen, Van Ruysdael, Gerad Dou, Siberechts, Cranach, Philippe de Champaigne, Largillière, Boucher, Latour, Greuze, Fragonard, Robert, Vigée-LeBrun, El Greco, Ribera, Reynolds and Gainsborough. The remaining paintings feature mostly painters and artist movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. These include impressionism, symbolism and nabis, fauvism and expessionism.
See also website.