The Foundation’s collection is taking to the road in 2018 and heading to Lisbon!
Composed largely of winning works from the Contemporary Talents competition, the Foundation’s collection, with its unique theme of water, enters into a dialogue with modern and contemporary Portuguese art under the stewardship of curator Paulo Pires Do Vale. Organized jointly with the Museu do Dinheiro (Money Museum), the exhibition is divided into several sections located in two of the city’s iconic locations: the Baroque building of the Bank of Portugal and the old eighteenth-century rope factory on the banks of the Tagus (Torreão Nascente de la Cordoaria Nacional).
Origination, plasticity and the passage of time are the principal motifs via which the different forms of water are addressed. Water itself lies at the heart of humanity: by turns a resource or a lack; a purifier or a thing polluted; a threat or a source of hope. Starting out with the iconic work of Helena Vieira da Silva (Historia tragico maritima, 1944) and the sculptures of Alberto Carneiro (Metaphora da Agua, 1993), the exhibition opens with the metaphor of an initiatory voyage and the different representations of water across the centuries. Francesco Tropa and Hélène Mugot each give a re-reading of the Danaé myth. For Angelo Sousa and Antoine Gonon, water structures the world and gives shape to territories. We find questions of plasticity in the works of Carlos Nogueira and Laurent Faulon, and metaphors for time in those of Fernando Calhau and Gustavo Millon. Many of the artist’s reflections are centred on water’s perpetual movement and adaptability. From the infinitely small, such as Benoît Pype’s sculptures, to Mehdi Meddaci’s huge video installations depicting the difficulty of exile, the interpretations of this elemental liquid are many and varied.
The works of the collection’s 20 artists stand side by side and in resonance with those of 15 Portuguese artists. Books, poems, films, artefacts and philosophical references similarly punctuate the exhibition. A rereading of mythologies, and the consideration of the role of water within the history of mankind, allow the foundation’s collection to be viewed in a new light.
The artists in the collection exhibited: Akmar, Patrick Bailly-Maitre-Grand, Benoit Billote, Yves Chaudouet, Gigi Cifali, Gaelle Callac, Julie Chaffort, Laurence Demaison, Laurent Faulon, Antoine Gonin, Elizaveta Konovalova, Matilda Lavenne, Mehdi Meddaci, Gustavo Millon, Helene Mugot, Benedict Pype, Rashia Sawyer, Alex Seton, Zhang Kechun.
The Portuguese artists presented: Vasco Araújo, Leitão de Barros, Alberto Carneiro, Fernando Calhau, Alexandre Estrela, Giacometti, Canto da Maya, Mello Breyner’s Sophia, João César Monteiro, Carlos Nogueira, Rosa Manuel, Rui Sanches, Francisco Tropa, João Pedro Vale, Vieira da Silva.
In partnership with works from the collections of the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Serralves Foundation.
Museu do Dinheiro
Antiga Igreja de S. Julião, Largo de S. Julião, Lisboa
Mittwoch bis Samstag von 10:00 bis 18:00 Uhr
Galeria do Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional
Av. da Índia, 1300-598 Lisboa, Portugal
Dienstag bis Sonntag von 10:00 bis 13:00 Uhr und von 14:00 bis 18:00 Uhr