Papers by Leonor Oliveira
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies
This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements... more This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements of civic agency in the Portuguese revolutionary process. It argues that Portuguese visual artists, who had been exploring new media and forms of expression since the late 1960s, anticipated and championed the Portuguese revolution as a democratic project. In doing so, they also proposed new forms of civic action, which intersected artistic practice with political engagement. I will specifically address the mobilization of the artistic and cultural community in Oporto for the creation of a “living” museum of modern art in this city. This project caused a rupture with the institutional apparatus of the dictatorship and effectively promoted a debate about cultural democratization and decentralization. This article conceives visual arts and action as a force for a more plural and progressive regime. It explores collective interventions in the public and institutional space; the configuration of democratic participation in the transformation of former dictatorial structures; and the envisioning of continuing change in order to consolidate democracy. The article thus advances a critical redefinition of the relationship between artistic practice and political mobilization and contributes to the dynamic dialogue between creativity and democratization in Portugal.
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SIAM. Series Iberoamericanas de Museología. Año 3, Vol.
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UID/PAM/00417/2013A História das Exposições tornou-se num dos temas mais discutidos e valorizados... more UID/PAM/00417/2013A História das Exposições tornou-se num dos temas mais discutidos e valorizados nos campos da História da Arte e Museologia nos últimos tempos. Esta nova disciplina está a contribuir para uma revisão crítica da historiografia da arte e das práticas museológicas e também das políticas de promoção artística e valorização patrimonial. O projeto Catálogo Raisonné das Exposições da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian insere-se no amplo debate internacional que se gerou em torno do tema das Exposições, participando numa tendência recente de valorização patrimonial destes eventos e salvaguarda da sua memória. A fim de ultrapassar a natureza efémera da exposição, este projeto está a seguir o exemplo do Centre Pompidou, procedendo à inventariação, estudo e divulgação da memória expositiva da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian através da proposta metodológica do catálogo raisonné. Para além de dar a conhecer os objetivos, estrutura e metodologia de trabalho deste projeto, este texto pret...
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Portuguese Artists in London, 2019
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Patrimonialização e Sustentabilidade do Património: Reflexão e Prospectiva, 2018
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Portuguese Artists in London, 2019
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No campo das artes, processos de migração, voluntários ou forçados, desempenham papel crucial na ... more No campo das artes, processos de migração, voluntários ou forçados, desempenham papel crucial na criação e difusão de ideias, conceitos e novas formas de expressão artística, rompendo barreiras entre "centro" e "periferia", estilhaçando cânones e modelos. A circulação e mobilidade de artistas e agentes culturais nas mais diferentes regiões do globo promoveu a constituição de redes criativas e de coletivos artísticos que cruzaram, por isso, diferentes experiências de desenraizamento cultural, experimentalismo bicultural, projetos artísticos individuais e programas de solidariedade política e social. A associação entre artistas e galeristas, curadores e colecionadores (muitas vezes também eles em migração) nos países de destino deu visibilidade e estruturou essas colaborações criativas, tornando o seu papel relevante em contextos distintos, os de partida e de chegada, articulando deste modo múltiplas realidades e práticas artístico-culturais. Este dossiê sublinha o...
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Portuguese Studies
The 25 April 1974 Revolution in Portugal overthrew the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and... more The 25 April 1974 Revolution in Portugal overthrew the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and allowed new socio-political actors to intervene publicly. Performance art became instrumental in redefining the presence of women in the public and political space. This article confronts ideological and legislative definitions of woman with the creative interventions of women artists in the years following the revolution. In the historiography of the period, gender discrimination and violence, and women's rights have been dissociated from artistic intervention. By historically contextualizing women's performative actions, this article highlights their contribution for sociopolitical debate, configuration of democratic aspirations, and for reviewing the impact of revolutions in a wider social, cultural and political perspective.
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Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies , 2023
This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements... more This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements of civic agency in the Portuguese revolutionary process. It argues that Portuguese visual artists, who had been exploring new media and forms of expression since the late 1960s, anticipated and championed the Portuguese revolution as a democratic project. In doing so, they also proposed new forms of civic action, which intersected artistic practice with political engagement. I will specifically address the mobilization of the artistic and cultural community in Oporto for the creation of a “living” museum of modern art in this city. This project caused a rupture with the institutional apparatus of the dictatorship and effectively promoted a debate about cultural democratization and decentralization. This article conceives visual arts and action as a force for a more plural and progressive regime. It explores collective interventions in the public and institutional space; the configuration of democratic participation in the transformation of former dictatorial structures; and the envisioning of continuing change in order to consolidate democracy. The article thus advances a critical redefinition of the relationship between artistic practice and political mobilization and contributes to the dynamic dialogue between creativity and democratization in Portugal.
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Midas, 2013
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Portuguese Studies, 2022
The 25 April 1974 Revolution in Portugal overthrew the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and... more The 25 April 1974 Revolution in Portugal overthrew the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and allowed new socio-political actors to intervene publicly. Performance art became instrumental in redefining the presence of women in the public and political space. This article confronts ideological and legislative definitions of woman with the creative interventions of women artists in the years following the revolution. In the historiography of the period, gender discrimination and violence, and women's rights have been dissociated from artistic intervention. By historically contextualizing women's performative actions, this article highlights their contribution for sociopolitical debate, configuration of democratic aspirations, and for reviewing the impact of revolutions in a wider social, cultural and political perspective.
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RIHA Journal, 2013
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Arte, Individuo y Sociedad
Portugal and Spain never shared such a distinctive place in recent European history than in the p... more Portugal and Spain never shared such a distinctive place in recent European history than in the post-war period. Despite the end of the Second World War and the Nazi-fascist defeat, the Iberian dictators, Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain, managed to retain their power. This article analyses the creative and theoretical responses of Portuguese artists to the political situation in the Iberian Peninsula taking into particular consideration their approaches to an Iberian identity. It argues that Paula Rego, Barto dos Santos and Ana Hatherly carried out a reinterpretation of cultural and artistic heritage, iconographic memories and historical narratives and, as a result, formulated alternative views of the past and the present that opposed the Iberian dictatorships’ discourses of a glorious, imperialistic legacy that legitimated their ruling. By proposing to look at the references to Spain in Portuguese artists’ work, this article evidences how Portuguese artists sympathized with...
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Papers by Leonor Oliveira
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In addition to being friends in their private lives, Paula Rego and Salette Tavares were also close colleagues in the art world, as evidenced by the letters that they exchanged and the texts that were written by the latter about Rego’s work. This encounter is framed specifically in the decade of the 1970s, which in the Portuguese context corresponds to a complex period of political transformation that was marked by the Revolution of 25 April 1974, which put an end to almost fifty years of dictatorship. In that period and bearing in mind the visibility and recognition of Paula Rego’s work, and Salette Tavares’s activity as an art critic and as president of the Portuguese Section of the International Association of Art Critics, the focal figures of this exhibition were agents in the cultural and artistic redefinition of the country. Organised as part of the IHA seed-project Mapping feminine creativity, 1974-1979, the exhibition and its catalogue reveal how both artist and art critic created a space of visibility for Portuguese women that today enables their inclusion in the narrative and reflections on the historic moment of transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Leonor de Oliveira examines the contributions of the work of Paula Rego, Barto dos Santos, João Cutileiro and Jorge Vieira, among other artists, to shape referential images of Portuguese identity that not only responded to the purpose of breaking with dominant iconographic and aesthetic representations but also incorporated a critical perspective on contemporaneity.
This title will appeal to scholars interested in art history, Portuguese and European art, and the mid-twentieth-century art scene.
The discovery and national acclaim of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso’s work in this period bring forward an example of the State’s appropriation of Portuguese modern art in order to claim its standing in post-war Europe and, at the same time, defend a national identity and aesthetic. Souza-Cardoso also inspired a new generation of artists to reflect on Portuguese artistic and cultural reality and to find their places in an international artistic context.
This thesis aims at determining the impact of the CGF’s activity in Portuguese artistic milieu from the mid-50s until 1969. The analysis of the artistic context as well as the political events of this period are particularly relevant for this account.
Among the major initiatives undertaken by this Foundation, I took into particular consideration the organisation of exhibitions of Portuguese contemporary art, especially the first two editions of the Exhibition of Fine Arts (1957 and 1961). These events synthesised the CGF’s main purposes in the artistic field and also included other initiatives such as the acquisition of works of art from the Portuguese artists. The CGF’s arts grants programme, which enabled the Portuguese artists to continue their artistic activity in international centres is also examined in this study.
The assessment of the CGF’S activity was complemented by a broad analysis on the artistic panorama of the period, particularly, with regard to the work of other institutions devoted to the Portuguese contemporary arts, namely the National Secretariat of Information and the National Society of Fine Arts.
This thesis also establishes a parallel between the CGF’s intervention in Portugal and its support to the British arts carried out through its delegation in London.
This study proposes a reassessment of the artistic dynamics in Portugal during the post-war period, thus contributing to a new perspective on Portuguese artists activity and institutional promotion of Portuguese arts.