Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Municipal Museum, July – August 2017
www.amadeosouza-cardoso.pt
Artists:
Basttuz, Inês Henriques, Mariana Mendes Delgado, Pedro Mesquita, Mónica Nogueira, Filipa Silveira, Marlene Teixeira, Fátima Teles.
Coordinator:
António Cardoso
António Cardoso, born in 1932 in Amarante, is an Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, where he taught Art History, directed and guided seminars and Master's courses. He has collaborated in different ways with various magazines and newspapers, and has devoted himself to painting and drawing, with several individual and group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. He is a specialist in the History of Contemporary Art, a researcher and a member of the International Association of Art Critics (Portuguese section). He is also a member of the General Council of the Institute Marques da Silva and is currently the Director of the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Municipal Museum (Amarante).
The advent of the industrial age and its coronation we now seem to be experiencing brought the world and its Humanity achievements truly unthinkable centuries ago. Notable progress in all areas has exceeded past limits, opened new horizons and tightened the contact between Men.
Distances – not physical but temporal – have shortened; the access to information and its updating are within reach of a click! And Art? It followed and benefited from all this movement by incorporating it and adapting to it. For centuries, Europe spurred breaks that always implied evolution and its art was always synonymous with avant-garde.
In its own language, but always understandably creating controversy, abstraction, and, consequently, development, Art was often the only space of respect and appreciation between people. It helped bring down barriers, promote and strengthen ties, and build bridges towards the future.
Today, the call for art to play its role in a Europe caught in a deep mutation process, by incorporation, is strong and vital. The Jeune Création Européenne Biennale is probably the main example of European contact and bonding in contemporary art. It started in three countries, represented by as many cities.
Today, it involves seven countries represented by cities of great cultural diversity, each having an extremely rich heritage, which, together, host this common project that is a point of contact and dialogue over three years.
For Amarante, a cradle of Modernity in the visual arts through Portuguese painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, integrating a project of European dimension and welcoming you in a Museum which has Amadeo as a patron continues to place the city at the dawn of Modernity and on the map of European arts, ensuring a project of unrivalled quality and attractiveness.
The Portuguese selection, centred on eight young artists, takes part in this project with works diverse in terms of both subject-matter and medium, and will surely bring about well-deserved analysis and reflection from all those who, country after country, will turn their the gazes and attention on the exhibition, contributing to the dissemination of Portuguese images and culture.
Not forgetting all those who participated and who, although not selected, have contributed to the appreciation of this process, I now let this invitation come to fruition and take advantage of this civilizational contact point.
Carlos Teixeira