Curated by Rita Maia Gomes, it opened on September 26, at the Torreão Nascente of Cordoaria Nacional, in a collaboration between Lisboa Cultura and Millennium bcp Foundation.
Millennium bcp Foundation presents an unprecedented exhibition on Tapestry, providing a seductive and surprising journey through the universe of Portuguese tapestry. There are 86 works, 27 artists, and more than 50 documents in an unique exhibition approach that aims to highlight reference figures, institutions and events that constitute important milestones in the history of Portuguese tapestry from 1946 onwards.
On floor 0, Millennium bcp Collection will be featured, which has a remarkable set of tapestries produced by Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre (Portalegre Tapestry Manufacture). The visitor will thus be able to learn about the quality of the manufacture work, contemplating tapestries produced from originals by artists: António da Costa Pinheiro, Artur do Cruzeiro Seixas, Graça Morais, Lourdes Castro, Luís Pinto-Coelho, Manuel Cargaleiro, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, José de Almada Negreiros, José de Guimarães, Júlio Resende, Júlio Pomar.
The exhibition will be an excellent opportunity to get to know the ex-libris of the Millennium bcp tapestry collection – a work by Guilherme Camarinha, a unique piece from 1961, which was recently cleaned and restored and can now be appreciated in all its splendour.
Parallel to the work developed and the notoriety achieved by Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre throughout its 78 years of activity, tapestry has been asserting itself in another way, and which is disclosed on the 1st floor using works from institutions, private collections and artists’ assets. The exhibition narrative illustrates and documents the research and experiences of artists who were interested in exploring the plastic potential of tapestry – which is no longer exclusively the transposition of a painting, moving towards an author’s tapestry in which the artist is simultaneously the one who conceives and who executes. A tapestry that expands in terms of techniques, materials and possibilities of spatial presence and is not conditioned to the wall and the two-dimensional register.
From the end of the 1940s to the present day, this history will be anchored in works by: Altina Martins, Alves Dias, Amândio Silva, Charters de Almeida, Eduardo Nery, Flávia Monsaraz, Gisella Santi, Helena Lapas, Isabel Laginhas, João Abel Manta, Júlio Pomar, Margarida Reis, Maria Isabel Barreno, Mário Dionísio, Paula Rego and Teresa Segurado Pavão.
As part of the exhibition’s curatorial project, and in line with one of the structuring axes of the Millennium bcp Foundation’s action, a collaborative educational project was proposed and developed with the artistic schools António Arroio (Lisbon) and Soares dos Reis (Porto), which took place during the 2023/2024 school year, with 12th grade students. Throughout the exhibition, the public will also be able to get to know the work of students from the Audiovisual Communication Course – cinema/video specialisation and photography specialisation. This work was developed at the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre where the students studied and captured the spaces, the raw materials, the people, the long and complex process of producing the tapestries, unveiling a less visible side of the mysterious and complex art of weaving. The exhibition ends with a display of works produced by students of the Artistic Creation Course – textile specialisation, who responded to the challenge of creating objects in dialogue with the Portalegre tapestries of the Millennium bcp Collection. The selection presented aims to envision possible directions for textile art in Portugal, underlining the contribution of these two artistic schools to the appreciation and vitality of tapestry.
António Monteiro, Chairman of the Millennium bcp Foundation, points out: “It is with great expectation that we announce the exhibition “Não vá o diabo tecê-las! A Tapeçaria em Diálogo a partir da Coleção Millennium bcp”. This exhibition takes us on a journey through contemporary tapestry in Portugal from 1946 to the present day. The works on display translate the dialogue between the handmade and the conceptual, expressing, through threads and weaves, the depth of emotions and the complexities of contemporary life. We invite the public to immerse themselves in this textural universe and discover the versatility of tapestry as an appealing and innovative art form”.
The exhibition can be visited:
From Tuesday to Sunday,
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
and
From 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Free Entrance.
On display until January 12, 2025.
