Ângela Ferreira

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

Stone FreeOriginal Source: Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto

Ângela Ferreira’s own life story is woven into her work. She was born in Maputo, known at that time as Lourenço Marques, in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony. She attended university in Cape Town, South Africa, during the Apartheid era. Her work draws upon colonial and post-colonial narratives, proposing a sculptural revisiting of the recent past and the power-based relationships between people and countries.

Stone FreeOriginal Source: Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto

The “end of colonialism, the emergence of new countries and the burgeoning of an independent Africa is the period that most arouses my curiosity,” says the artist, whose work has a particular focus on liberation movements, revolutionary dynamics and the political, social and cultural utopias that proliferated within that context.

Stone FreeOriginal Source: Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto

Stone Free, 2012 
Wood (2 elements); C-print on aluminium (2 elements)
Variable dimensions
Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, inv. FS 2010

Stone FreeOriginal Source: Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto

Stone FreeOriginal Source: Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Ferreira’s artistic practice stems from processes based on historical research, challenges modern discourses and objects, and manifests itself in formally refined installations, where models, texts, drawing, sculpture, photography, sound and video all coexist.

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Variously inspired by mobile and static architecture, buildings and monuments, individually or collectively designed structures, and vehicles for propaganda and counterpower, the artist produces works that celebrate, map, interpret and preserve models of the past, while imagining possible futures.

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Talk Tower for Ingrid Jonker, 2012
Sculpture: MDF, loudspeakers, sound;
280 x 70 x 70 cm
Photograph: C-print on aluminium;
106 x 160 cm;
Drawings: graphite on paper;
11 x (21 x 28 cm)
Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Talk Tower for Ingrid JonkerOriginal Source: Courtesy of the Artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art

Credits: Story

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 Ângela Ferreira's works presented in the context of this exhibition:
All I want: Construction

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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