Fernanda Fragateiro
Learn about the artist's universe through a text accompanied by a selection of works from the exhibition “All I want – Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020”
By Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes
Crossing sculpture, installation and architecture, Fernanda Fragateiro's works enter into dialogue with the museological, public, natural and landscape spaces they occupy. The works establish relationships of scale, environment, matter, balance and narrative with the elements surrounding them, sparking performative actions such as entering, walking or sitting.
They articulate heavy commonplace building materials such as wood, plaster, cement, brick and aluminium with smooth, mirrored, polished and chromed surfaces, proposing, in their extreme economy and formal rigour, the enhancement of their conceptual foundations. As the artist herself says, "I want the material, the earth, the stone, the wood, to be content. (...) I want the material to be as close as possible to the idea, to the thought."
Expectation of a landscape of events #3 (2009) by Fernanda FragateiroCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Expectation of a landscape of events #3, 2009
Aluminium
1000 x 264 x 3 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 09E1599
Blue Window (2018) by Fernanda FragateiroOriginal Source: Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
Blue Window, 2018
Painted iron and safety helmet
30 x 248 x 108 cm
Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
After Clara Porset and Xavier Guerreiro drawing for "Muebles de bajo costo" / "Competition Low-Cost Furniture", MoMA, 1950 (2013) by Fernanda FragateiroOriginal Source: Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
After Clara Porset and Xavier Guerreiro drawing for "Muebles de bajo costo" / "Competition Low-Cost Furniture", MoMA, 1950, 2013
Titanium lacquered iron and steel wire rope
96 x 66,5 x 166,5 cm
Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
If some of her projects result from direct collaborations with artists, landscape architects or performers, others take as their starting point critical and political engagement with the work of architects and designers who have marked breakthroughs, inflections and ideological failures in the history of modernism. This framework is reinforced by a reference to the idea of the library and to the constant use of books, often rare editions selected for the relevance of their content as well as for their form.
(Demo) (2017) by Fernanda FragateiroOriginal Source: Private Collection, Lisbon
(Demo), 2017
White lacquered stainless steel, handcrafted notebooks with fabric covers, inkjet prints of the cover of the book Demo, Eine Bildgeschichte des Protests in der Bundesrepublik (Nikolaus Jungwirth, Belyz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel, 1986) and shirt
200 x 100 x 20 cm
Private Collection, Lisbon, inv. 8392
Measuring E1027 (2011) by Fernanda FragateiroOriginal Source: Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
Measuring E1027, 2011
Plexiglas, handcrafted notebooks with fabric covers, pages of the book E1027 Maison en bord de mer (Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, facsimile edition, Éditions Imbernon, Marseille, 2006; original edition in L'Architecture Vivante, Éditions Albert Morancé, Paris, 1929)
150 x 550 x 25 cm
Collection Fernanda Fragateiro
Learn more about the artist:
Interview with Fernanda Fragateiro | O Plano do Chão (in Portuguese)
“A Minha Obra e Eu” – Fernanda Fragateiro, Caixa (Desmontagem) 2 | Museu Coleção Berardo (in Portuguese)
Memória Culturgest #1 – Fernanda Fragateiro (in Portuguese)
Manuel Aires Mateus in conversation with Fernanda Fragateiro | Citymaat (in Portuguese, English subtitles)
Selection of works presented at the exhibition All I want: Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020, in its first moment at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, within the scope 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).
Curators:
Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand
Text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes
Selection of online resources Maria de Brito Matias
Learn more about Fernanda Fragateiro's works presented in the context of this exhibition:
All I want: Construction
