José De Guimarães International Arts Centre Collections

Lokapala is a Sanskrit word that means guardian of the world, referring to the Four Heavenly Kings responsible for protecting each of the four cardinal points against evil spirits.

Buddhist guardians are usually depicted at the gates or at the entrance to temples. The Lokapala are depicted with a terrifying facial expression and wearing the armour according to the style used by the military of the Tang dynasty.

Rui Toscano designs low-tech but high quality compositions on a large scale, creating immersive environments. We think of a science fiction story, in which one could return to our time from a distant future and rediscover the traces of a new space-time dimension. "Ankh" refers to an ancient Egyptian symbol meaning "life".

Somewhere between the experiments of the "support-surface" group and the Cut-Outs of Matisse, between Mondrian and Hélio Oiticica, lies the practice of deconstruction and reinvention of painting by Tomás Cunha Ferreira. At CIAJG, the artist proposed a dialogue of his mobile and portable painting with the various spaces and works of the museum. Particularly, with an installation by José de Guimarães entitled "Museum of Luanda”, and originally exhibited in the Angolan city.

Rodrigo Hernández's projects are characterised by the articulation of complex spatial situations. Paintings, sculptures, floors, wall paintings, environments and wallpapers produce dissonant and polyphonic dialogues. In his exhibition "Pasado", the artist reflects on the condition of museums, not with the purpose of articulating an institutional museological narrative but to constitute a game of fragments where "other" times coexist.

Pedro Henriques’ intervention takes place in the African "Hall of Masks" with a number of sculptures that suggest a game between the interior and exterior of the plane, the cut-out and the quality that covers the surface, or, as the artist calls them: the verb (the shape) and the adjective (colour, texture, rhythm). Materiality regains importance and seems to embody possible non-human subjectivities.