All I want: Starting Point
Discover the selection of works that integrate this thematic section of the exhibition “All I want – Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020” followed by the curators' text.
By Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Curators: Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand
Section 1 – Starting Point
The central body of all the works gathered in the first third of the show, this section brings together issues that are germane to the entire exhibition. Aurélia de Sousa's 1900 Self-Portrait, the earliest of all the works exhibited, signals a first historical moment of the female authorial stance. Through her assertive, outwardly directed gaze, Aurélia affirms the passage of women's place in art from muse to author.
Self-Portrait (c. 1900) by Aurélia de SousaOriginal Source: Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis
Self-Portrait, 1900
Oil on canvas
45,6 x 36,4 cm
Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, inv. 878 Pin MNSR
The encounter of this founding gaze with La Scala ou Les Yeux, by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, creates a fundamental, symbolic and irradiating tension between authorial singularity and the modern kaleidoscopic vision.
La Scala ou Les Yeux (1937) by Maria Helena Vieira da SilvaOriginal Source: Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris
La Scala ou Les Yeux, 1937
Oil on canvas
60 x 92 cm
Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris, inv. CR 224
These sophisticated paintings are juxtaposed with a group of ceramics by Rosa Ramalho. Popular and grotesque in nature, Ramalho's works intuitively meld the utilitarian with the decorative, masculine with feminine, human with animal, Catholicism with paganism.
Man with plough (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Man with plough, 1960
Inorganic material, painted clay
10,9 x 21,4 x 8 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 153
Animal (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Animal, 1960
Inorganic material, painted clay
14,6 x 7,6 x 8,8 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 05.3.33
Adapted goat (1965) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Adapted goat, 1965
Inorganic material, glazed clay
17 x 21,6 x 10 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 1693
Plate with monogram (1965) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Plate with monogram, 1965
Inorganic material, glazed clay
20,6 x 20 x 2,4 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 1673
Monkey with chain (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Monkey with chain, 1960
Inorganic material, glazed clay
25,5 x 15,3 x 8,1 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 03.1.15
She-monkey (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
She-monkey, 1960
Inorganic material, painted clay
13,2 x 8,2 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 03.1.47
Big-headed man (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Big-headed man, 1960
Inorganic material, painted clay
27,6 x 13,1 x 12,8 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 03.1.21
Big-headed woman (1960) by Rosa RamalhoOriginal Source: Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos
Big-headed woman, 1960
Inorganic material, painted clay
20,2 x 11,2 x 12,5 cm
Museu de Olaria / Município de Barcelos, inv. 03.1.24
If Susanne Themlitz' derisory sculptures update this universe by reminding us of the contemporary awareness of the body as a composite and fragmentary entity, Ana León tests the limits of the metamorphoses rehearsed by all these pieces through a film in which animated figures merge and fuse together, at times disappearing into formless matter.
From the series "At Eye Level" (2008) by Susanne ThemlitzOriginal Source: Courtesy Galeria Vera Cortês
From the series "At Eye Level", 2008
Terracota, ceramic and plywood
58 x 36 x 35 cm
Courtesy Galeria Vera Cortês
Jeux…Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Jeux…, 1998
Video, colour, sound, 4:3, PAL, 3'01''; Ed. 2/4
Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, inv. FS 1651
Jeux…Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
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Moi, réflechissant sur la peinture (1936/1937) by Maria Helena Vieira da SilvaOriginal Source: Collection Fundação Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva
This exhibition brings together about two hundred works by forty female Portuguese artists. Its primary objective is to assist in rectifying the systematic erasure that works by these artists – like so of their sisters elsewhere in the world – have suffered since time immemorial.
Focusing on works produced between 1900 and 2020, All I Want unfolds along a number of axes that reveal the artists' clear desire to assert themselves in the face of the dominant systems of consecration:
the gaze, the body (their body, the bodies of others, the body as a political entity), the space and the way in which they occupy it (house, nature, studio), the means by which they cross disciplinary boundaries (painting and sculpture, of course, but also video, performance and sound) and the determination with which they advance within an ideal of construction that transforms, both themselves and those in their orbit.
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Continue the visit to the exhibition by accessing the following section:
The exhibition All I want: Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020, in its first moment at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, is part of the cultural program that takes place in parallel to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2021.
Exhibition organized by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in co-production with the Center of Contemporary Creation Olivier Debré, Tours, and with the collaboration of the Plano Nacional das Artes (Portugal).
Curatorship and text:
Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand
Get to know in detail the universe of artists presented in this section through a text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes:
Aurélia de Sousa
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Rosa Ramalho
Susanne Themlitz
Ana León
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