"360º in the Sun" by Sofia Areal – May 2006

The museum's activity is mainly focused on temporary exhibitions, sometimes in partnership with other institutions. Through rotating exhibitions, the museum tries to promote and highlight artists represented in its collection, including local ones.

Trading Stations - November 7th 2008 – January 10th 2009

From the 7th of November to the 10th of January 2009, in the Contemporary Art Museum – São Tiago Fortress, 11 Portuguese plastic artists will be presenting about 45 works of art. Rui Chafes, Adriana Molder, Daniel Malhão, José Loureiro, Rui Vasconcelos, Daniel Blaufuks, João Cruz Rosa, Ana Jotta, Paulo Quintas, João Maria Gusmão e Pedro Paiva present a set of works of film, sculpture, photograph, drawing and painting, some that were specially created for the fort, while other belong to several entities (Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento, PLMJ Collection, Serralves Museum and private collections) and were presented in other Portuguese and foreign localities.

The Vera Cortez Galleries – Art Agency, Cristina Guerra – Contemporary Art, Graça Brandão Gallery, Lisbon 20 Contemporary Art, represent some of the artists who are involved in the exhibition Trading Stations.

A few of these artists are also a constituent part of the Contemporary Art Museum such as Rui Chafes, José Loureiro, João Cruz Rosa and Daniel Blaufucks. This exhibition, with the name of Trading Stations, is in preparation for over a year and can be considered one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary plastic art in Funchal of the last length of time, it will have as commissioner the poet and independent curator João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, who has written the text of the catalogue with Vera Velez design, photographs by Laura Castro Caldas, Paulo Cintra and Daniel Malhão, among other, with the edition of 300 copies. This catalogue will present the list of works in the exhibition and the biographies of the participants.

Some of the artists of the exhibition are well known in the international art panorama, for example Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, who have recently participated in the Allgarve programme, also exhibiting in Galeria do Torreão Norte da Cordoaria Nacional (Lisbon) with Abissologia, or the sculptor Rui Chafes invited by the Portuguese Government and by the Champigny-sur-Marne Town Hall to be the author of a sculpture named "I come from You" ("Venho de ti /Je Viens de Toi"), image of the Portuguese emigration to France, in Parc Departemental de Plateau. The Italian publishing company Charta edited the first international monograph of Rui Chafes and the edition contains an interview with the author and an essay of the German critic Doris von Drathen. Rui Chafes is also represented in the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid).

Adriana Molder, who is presenting three artistic works in this exhibition, participated recently in the collective Bielefelder Kunstverein – Museum Waldhof (Germany), and nowadays, the artist presents an exhibition in Madrid of paintings of considerable dimensions, Indian ink on paper using the face as iconographical image of contemporary society, in Moriarty Gallery (Cavaleira).

Daniel Blaufuks, awarded with BESphoto in 2007, also an artist with a vast artistic curriculum of exhibitions in Portugal and foreign countries, exposes several recent works of the series "The Archivist" and "Album".

Of the artist José Loureiro, who in 2007 exhibited in the National Movie Theatre of Lisbon original drawings in juxtaposition to the whole work of Carl Th. Dreyer resulting in a fine album with texts by João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, Rui Vasconcelos, João Cruz Rosa, first revealed in the Galleru Porta 33, further more, Daniel Malhão and Paulo Quintas presenting 20 oil works on wood and painting, photograph, water colour, drawing and mixed technique.

Belonging to several generations, and of these artists, were organized important exhibitions such as the one organized in the Serralves Museum dedicated to Ana Jotta in 2005, entitled Rua Ana Jotta. Nowadays, this artist exhibits in Lisbon in two galleries, the Espaço Chiado 8 (S / H is Her / e) and Lisbon 20 Gallery (21 Artistes Pour Demain).

Due to the exhibition’s insurance, transportation and making of the catalogue, it was only possible to receive such an event with the budgetary support of the Regional Department of Cultural Affairs and likewise, the support of other entities, namely Funchal 500 Years, Farmácia da Nazaré, Restaurante do Forte and FeirExpo.

However, and unfortunately, the participation is short, by the law of Mecenato, and other entities should get more active in the cultural live of the city, enabling the creation of a permanent calendar of events and projects of indisputable quality.

 Rui Chafes "Tenho Frio"

"reverse memory"

"Register/in that memory/in reverse/backwards/henceforth/ the words/ and then/ spell them / from the end to the beginning"

Carlos de Oliveira, Trabalho Poético

"do Ovo ao Voo"

# in reverse

With no end or beginning, you can observe an elliptical – oval - line, charcoal drawn: an image that seems to make the linearity and seriousness of writing (and reading) suspended and represents (drawing it) an Egg - 0VO.

Raise the sight to meet two oblique lines, united by a convergent point: an almost vertical counterpoint from the previous round image, this letter seems combine the word font in which is central, OVO.

Disarrange the reading order, so that you are able to see "in reverse/backwards/henceforth/the [] word []".

Amazement or mirror is one and identical word, sound to sound, as an echo, an anagram: OVO/OVO. So, it’s about a word - handwritten and drawn - to be read and seen. Shortly, it seems to be here, precisely, the metaphor’s heart that this organic body - the egg - OVO) holds. In one hand, the handwritten representation, which makes its readable, itself round-shaped, it also allows a reverse reading of the writing order presented. On the other hand, the duplication of the name (apparently endless) - OVOOVO - reveals, within that ongoing sound, the beginning of the history that this exhibition tells. Experimental and fun, the verbal game observed, seems to clarify the visual game coming out from Ricardo Barbeito’s concept, when catching a glimpse of the word and image of the egg.

# memory

Cubes as if they were houses, houses as if they were cubes. Egg trays eggs without eggs. Three-dimensional structures made of wood and metal, placed as a staircase and in a (almost) human scale. Contrasting with the egg’s organic unity, which contains an animal origin (invisible to one’s eyes), are the various (if we can say so) artificially build up production processes by which the egg goes through.

In this installation – which might be eventually interpreted as (a chance for) a narrative journey of motion and invisibleness – the emptiness of mechanisms, seem to refer to a presence (of the eggs) to which we are allowed (or not) to access. From the past remain the sound and lights, audible and visible, shades and halos of a memory from a (winged) passage of pre-conceived creatures’ ab OVO - from "the beginning, the origin, the egg".

# "from the end to the beginning"

As in the centre of a (repeated) word that originates the idea for this exhibition, it also contains, in itself, a promise of motion - OVOOVO – this installation seems go on, room to room, step by step, towards the (continuous) generation process (natural and human).

Indeed, in one hand, the combination (lost in space), of the different parts installed allows you to see to the naked eye the production process of a poultry factory. On the other hand, when dialoguing with these mechanical structures, are exhibited (graphite) drawings and graphic exercises, which turn to the word egg – OVO, for a visual game.

From the birth and hatch remain tracks (of eggshells) containing the embryo’s memory and traces of the flight – VOO. Or, better saying, in reverse - " from the end to the beginning" – of the flight – VOO - started and invisible to the egg/OVO, simply remain, fragments, the only material reality out of this process.

As if it were impossible to follow, in real time, or interrupt such creative transformation, the hand (the art) represents what the nature transforms (flies). As a drawn line is unique and unrepeatable, so are the different random cuts in each eggshell. Perhaps here nature and art will come together, in their both unique and original features.

Diana Pimentel

"O Andar Modelo" by Filipa Venâncio - May 15th to June 30th

"Andar Modelo"

In her arts curriculum, Filipa Venâncio expresses a persistent exploration of painting. The main subjects are inner spaces and the objects found in them. This exhibition does not represent the human being, neither the body nor the image, but constantly points towards them through solitary inner areas, although presumably experienced by people. When the artist observes small objects of everyday life, does it in order to enhance historical, personal and social references, advancing towards the pop universe of an apparently trivial dignity, as a masses product result. Those references are also emphasized through the symbolic recovery of objects and forgotten actions, though replete of an intense poetical interpretation.

Once again, as a summary, in this installation, Filipa uses spaces and objects, and undoes the house identity, including «painting and everything» (as expressed by Isabel Santa Clara at the House-Museum Frederico de Freitas in the 90s). The artist suggests a journey through a space that remains (un)changed, which went from being a fortress to become a museum. Now, it’s not a house, apartment or fortress, but still a museum – if we have in mind what’s a museum approach, considering the objects display in order to create a semiotic specific environment.

The dialogue between the painting, as a "hanging object", part of the inhabited inner space, and the used furniture, is a round dialogue, in a spiral confrontation between representation and material reality (of the painting and objects). The walls and floor emptiness is filled with colorful and volumetric liveliness occupying the area, in a "waft" manner. Carrying on the road, already mentioned in previous exhibits, the artist plays with motion, with the interference and accumulation of non-contextualized memories, creating a strangeness of different sounds and shades, along the "rooms" "dressed" as a home.

In this context, the participation of Carlos Valente (me) introduces motion and the video image time, the other’s image (who am I), and the image of those who observe and extend their critical point of view – verbally accomplished in these lines - about the exhibition itself. The video is like a piece of furniture, a flat-screen TV. It is also equipment that belongs to the same family of objects designed to occupy private and home areas, as well as others.

The design of interiors is "almost" visible, thanks to the existing small environment notes. The collaboration of the store Intemporâneo, as an active supplier of this project, having the artist as a real client, has allowed the possibility of creating environments, which are not easy to recreate in a furniture store, not even in a house, but are out on a limb. These remain halfway, between the commercial exhibition areas of tables, chairs, rugs and lamps, and the forever temporary space that is home.

The impact is subtle, in the confrontation between new and tradition. This "force measurement" between furniture pieces is reflected in the painting which, ironically, questions the relationship’s different "subtle shocks". The dialogue between objects from different stylistic and temporal origins, either present or represented, have humor and a strong retro taste, obvious in the artist's choices, which we will come across along her artistic journey.

In paintings no one lives in spaces, unless by represented images within objects such as the TV. Each painting recalls a study, a precise hypothesis, or maybe, a presence from long ago; an occupation lost in the imaginary of a fictitious time impossible to track down. The walking through the floors suggests an expanded model of housing, consisting of rooms, sometimes contiguous and other times interrupted by austere connection areas striped of intervention.

Filipa Venâncio takes the once-fortress-now-museum and offers us a selected overlook at the camouflaged objects: creating unfinished tasks, sketches of being, resting, waiting, eating, sleeping and dreaming a (un) pure and smooth dream as the ones we have from time to time, leaving us with the uncertain sensation of having been there, with all the clearness of the real world, but inevitably, in a dream.

Carlos Valente

May 2009

"Preâmbulo" - July 10th to September 30th