It is impossible not to think of what Amadeo de Souza Cardoso could have been had he not died at age 30. “It is very annoying, because he is always thinking of new directions and dies to develop a brilliant job,” says Helena de Freitas, curator of the exhibition dedicated to the Portuguese modernist painter (1887-1918), which opens on Wednesday in the Grand Palais, an emblematic area of Paris. “It’s very annoying to think of what could have been, but not much worth it.”
It is inevitable that the conversation appears around the liveliest unpublished work of this exhibition, Amadeo wants to return to the city of Paris and set up a Portuguese painter internationalization strategy, trying to enter it in the world art history. We are in the last room of the exhibition in front of the glue on cardboard with 15 by 24 centimeters that the family showed Helena de Freitas no more than two years after the find in the famous house Manhufe, one of the mythical sites in the artist’s biography and which is still in the hands of Amadeo descendants of Souza-Cardoso.
we see three legs with women’s stockings overlapping, an “S” that identifies the Singer sewing machines, the word “ woman “, taken from the American women’s magazine stuff McCall’s . It’s probably one of his last works, a new research on the relationship between art and advertising.
The collage is shown among his best-known paintings, the final phase, which all belong to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ( except the Ilídio Pinho collection), which organizes the Grand Palais this exhibition, one of the major events designed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of foundation in Paris.
“it takes the theme of women. One sees your identity. Many of these paints have already advertising marks. Here one sees the use of words as graphic symbols, which already came back mixed with their own personal promotion elements. “If Laurent Salomé, the artistic director of the Grand Palais, uses the word” pop “to speak of this work in catalog, Helena de Freitas, who in 2006 organized an exhibition at the Gulbenkian Amadeo that compared with the avant-garde of his time, says it can not be said that the Portuguese artist anticipate Pop art. “We can say that he has anticipated moments” and return to the new directions that Amadeo is always a test. “It is certain that he wants to have a strong authorial identity. In Manhufe could not see things that others were doing, as in Paris “
Helena de Freitas even thought to put this unprecedented collage. – There are two more similar they are in poor condition, which They were not recovered in time – next to a work by German artist Kurt Schwitters, but did not get the required loan. And he cites a phrase from Amadeo to speak of this identity search – “I do not myself imitate me” – to speak of a very free artist who did not want to be cubist or futuristic, but, paradoxically, also claimed to be all that. Helena de Freitas says that it should not forget that we are talking about a young artist, “which was reaching maturity when he died.”
A discovery
the exhibition that the Gulbenkian show in Paris is very different from that Lisbon saw in 2006 and surpassed the hundred thousand visitors. This is to speak of Amadeo who do not already know. There are only a message, but many: “That’s a very complex character. The message is plurality, the experimental direction. “
The exhibition begins, moreover, with the famous phrase” I have more phases than the moon, “alongside a slideshow with various photographs of the artist in various poses. If the title is only the painter’s name, the subtitle could be “one of the best kept secrets of modernism”, and it is there that has passed the exhibition marketing. One of the secrets, relativize the Commissioner, not “the secret”.
Speaking to journalists at the end of a tour of the exhibition, Laurent Salomé, director of the Grand Palais, stressed the sense of discovery “This exhibition is a completely new chapter in art history,” he said, stressing the “essential role” of Amadeo in artistic vanguards before the First World War, paper “that is completely forgotten.” And added: “It is a rare moment and an important opportunity” could show their works
As it is just to show someone who is unknown, the exhibition “is very focused on the work of Amadeo”. says the Commissioner, being represented only other international artists with whom he had personal relationships, as Brancusi, the couple Delaunay and Modigliani. Among the more than 200 works of Amadeo, there are a dozen other artists. “In the exhibition feels the spirit of Amadeo with all its complexity. He is able to develop different experiences at the same time in his work. “
After the introduction, the visitor soon discovers three of the eight paintings that were the Armory Show (1913), in New York. Paysage , Le Saut du Lapin and Château Fort , and which belong to the Art Institute of Chicago. If you look to the left side, is also Avant la Corrida , which in addition to this exhibition was before in Paris, the X Salon d’Automne in 1921, exactly at the Grand Palais (now part of the art collection modern Gulbenkian). The four paintings were not together since 1987, since Le Saut du Lapin was not the major exhibition in Lisbon in 2006.
Thierry Fages, which has the cultural blog Phaco Blog , is visiting the exhibition this morning dedicated to the press before the opening scheduled for 18:30, where he was the Portuguese Prime Minister. It is the first time you see Amadeo, who considers “very interesting.” Cites similarities with Picasso, Delaunay, Modigliani and Braque, and says that “it is completely international.” “An unknown artist to be exhibited at the Grand Palais, but Portugal is currently fashionable is rare.”
Leonor Oliveira, who worked with Helena de Freitas in the exhibition, says it is a starting point for an international circulation the work of Amadeo. Because, says Helena de Freitas, “the [world] art history is written and the name of Amadeo’s not there.”
But how do you internationalize an artist whose work is mostly in Portugal, mainly in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which has only five works in foreign museums? In addition to the Art Institute of Chicago, there is a work at the Centre Pompidou and the other in Muskegon Museum of Art, also in the United States, if we speak of institutional collections. “This is a very delicate question. I think the widow for having chosen a Portuguese museum, turned out to condition the artist visibility “because they are the best known international institutions that ultimately build and legitimize the discourse of art history. “But for an artist to be known it has to be seen. He was, in fact, forgotten and are here to be discovered. And although the French always be to ask who first made, that does not worry me at all, because the work is very good and the artist is very solid, “says the Commissioner.
Art History says another journalist and critic visiting the exhibition who declined to be identified, “is very imposing.” “We must let him free. He took cubism things, but has a special way to do. He was very impressed by Futurism, but their things are more organic. . It is not a follower “
The fact that an unknown” may be sorry for Amadeo, but these are the art history of the rules, “he adds:” It is unfortunate that has to always confirm with Cubism and futurism, because so are telling us to close our eyes when we make our artistic approach to Amadeo. It’s refreshing to see someone who is completely unknown. But the family history of art eventually will eat it and eventually that time will be a success “
Christophe Fonseca film Amadeo de Souza Cardoso:. The Last Secret of Modern Art , passing on Wednesday in RTP and May 8 on French television, takes exactly the story of the painter who is discovered to be to grab the audience. There are several international experts who enter the narrative, the director calls “sweeping”.
100 000 visitors
The Grand Palais, one of the last exhibition dedicated to the painter of Marie Antoinette , Vigee Le Brun, had 237,000 visitors, the first retrospective is dedicated to the French artist (is now at the Metropolitan in New York). Already one on Picasso had 393,000. For Amadeo, and second Sandrine Mahaut, the press office, are expected about a hundred thousand visitors.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, who reserved the statements to the end of the opening, told reporters that it was “a fantastic exhibition.” “It’s a great opportunity to show another great Portuguese artist in France. At this point, it gives the fact that here under several major exhibitions: a large exhibition of architecture, a major exhibition of Helena Almeida and now this Amadeo. Show well in several generations and at different times, the creativity of the country. “This continued António Costa,” is very important to improve the image of Portugal in France “.
President of the Gulbenkian, which left the opening of the exhibition shortly after the Prime Minister said the investment to bring Amadeo Paris, included in the operation of 50 years, it will be revealed in due course, after to count the box office. Artur Santos Silva, very “happy” with the result, be recognized responsibility of the foundation “promoting the work of this extraordinary artist,” as it holds a very important part of the artist’s collection. As for the future of Amadeo internationalization, Santos Silva did not work any more initiative, but noted they were two years to be able to bring him to Paris. “And fortunately we found this space of the Grand Palais”
PUBLIC traveled at the invitation of the Gulbenkian Foundation
No comments:
Post a Comment