‘From the History of Images’ with works by Manuel Casimiro inaugurated today
The exhibition ‘From the History of Images’ presents, as of today, about 100 works around the photographic image, by the artist Manuel Casimiro, at the Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Museum in Lisbon.
The artist, who exhibits for the first time in this museum, will exhibit, until March 17, this facet of his work, which has explored various expressions and means, such as sculpture, painting, drawing, installation and film.
In “Da História dos Imagens“, some of his most important photographic series, made between 1972 and 1988, will be visible, constituting a body of work that contributes to the understanding of this period regarding the use of the photographic medium by the artists.
Of note are the series ‘The City’ (1972); ‘Praia da Luz Project’ (1974); ‘Project with Fruits and Vegetables’ (1976); ‘Project for the Port of Nice’ (1976); ‘AutoRetratos’ (made since 1977, namely the ‘Moi, je n’existe pas’ series); ‘Le Cauchemar’, 1980, and ‘Venus and Love’, 1988.
There will also be several photographs and postcards with reproductions of works of reference of the Portuguese culture, “one and others intervened with ovoid, pictorial but also linguistic presences, that mark the process of appropriation and transformation characteristic of the work of Manuel Casimiro”, according to one text on the exhibition.
In the Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Museum there will also be a large work with the image of the “Quilleboeuf à l’embouchure de la Seine” by the painter William Turner, which is part of the Serralves collection.
Some of these works “constitute a singular moment in the course of Manuel Casimiro and highlight fundamental questions such as seriality, the relationship with the cinematographic, the inscription of the reproductive and the aesthetics of appropriation,” the text added.
During the exhibition, the film “Manuel Casimiro: Pintar a Ideia”, dedicated to his life and work, will be premiered with the performance of Isabel Lopes Gomes, who also signs the curatorship of the exhibition.
This documentary reveals much of the work of Manuel Casimiro, conceived during half a century, in a course begun in the late 1960s through painting, photography, installation and sculpture.
Among them are Michel Butor, Jean-François Lyotard, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Vincent Descombes, Jonathan Dronsfield, Pierre Restany, and others, Raphael Monticelli, António Cerveira Pinto and Bernardo Pinto de Almeida.
It will also be presented a book dedicated to the photographic support used by this artist, with an interview with himself and texts by Isabel Lopes Gomes and António Cerveira Pinto.
Born in Porto in 1941, Manuel Casimiro has dozens of solo and group exhibitions in several European countries, in the United States, Brazil, Japan and China.
In Portugal, his work is present in the Center of Modern Art of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Berardo Collection Museum, and the Serralves Foundation, among others.
