All I want: The Place of the Artist
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 2 – The Place of the Artist
This exhibition opens with an encounter between two artists who, though a century apart, both examine the place of women in art history through approaches and styles that might be thought of as diametrically opposed – a play between presence and absence, recurrent in the strategies of many other artists.
Self-Portrait “with black bow” (c. 1895) by Aurélia de SousaOriginal Source: Collection José Caiado de Souza
Self-Portrait “with black bow”, c. 1895
Oil on canvas
67,5 x 47 cm
Collection José Caiado de Souza
Self-Portrait (c. 1895) by Aurélia de SousaOriginal Source: Collection José Caiado de Souza
Self-Portrait, c. 1895
Oil on canvas
36 x 26,5 cm
Collection José Caiado de Souza
Study (Hands of the Artist) (not dated) by Aurélia de SousaOriginal Source: Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis
Study (Hands of the Artist), not dated
Oil on canvas
34,3 x 30 cm
Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, inv. 706 Pin MNSR
Aurélia de Sousa questions and challenges us through obsessive self-representation, whereas Rosa Carvalho removes the female model from rigorous copies of historical paintings (Danae, by Rembrandt, 1636-1647; L’Odalisque blonde, by François Boucher, 1751; Portrait de madame Récamier, by Jacques-Louis David, 1800), emptying the image and sabotaging the latent male desire and voyeurism of the originals.
Danae (1992) by Rosa CarvalhoOriginal Source: Collection Jorge Silva Lopes
Danae, 1992
Oil on canvas
140 x 180 cm
Collection Jorge Silva Lopes
L’Odalisque blonde (1992) by Rosa CarvalhoOriginal Source: Private Collection
L’Odalisque blonde, 1992
Oil on canvas
140 x 180 cm
Private Collection
Re-Récamier (2020) by Rosa CarvalhoOriginal Source: Collection of the Artist
Re-Récamier, 2020
Oil on printed canvas
140 x 200 cm
Collection of the Artist
Untitled (1997) by Rosa CarvalhoOriginal Source: Collection Gil Heitor Cortesão
Untitled, 1997
Mixed media on paper
56 x 34,5 cm
Collection Gil Heitor Cortesão
At the entrance, Armanda Duarte questions the place, time and identity of the work of art taken as a body (cabeça, tronco e membros [head, torso, and limbs]), a body that is also a measure – the artist’s height – to be sanded and transformed into dust in a performative action that takes place over the days of the exhibition.
head, torso and limbsOriginal Source: Collection of the Artist
head, torso and limbsOriginal Source: Collection of the Artist
head, torso and limbsOriginal Source: Collection of the Artist
head, torso and limbs, 2012
Balsa wood strip, sandpaper and small shelf
172 x ø 0,5 cm (balsa strip)
0,5 x 55 x 6,5 cm (shelf)
Collection of the Artist
two exhibitions (2010) by Armanda DuarteOriginal Source: Collection Luís Torgal Ferreira, Lisbon
two exhibitions, 2010
Two paper envelopes on MDF shelf
16 x 20,5 x 6 cm (envelopes)
16,6 x 21 x 2,6 cm (shelf)
Collection Luís Torgal Ferreira, Lisbon
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Cover of the exhibition catalogueCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
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.
You are in section 2 of 14.
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
Rosa Carvalho
Armanda Duarte
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