Communication with the purpose of culturally promoting artists included in the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Collection, works protected by intellectual property rights. Their total or partial reproduction or processing by any means, or their transmission or cession in any form is forbidden without the authorisation of the holder of the rights to the works.
Desenho
TECHNICAL DATA
Author: Helena Almeida (Lisbon, 1934)
Title: Desenho
Year: 2012
Technique: photograph in black and white.
Size: 125.5 x 130.5 cm
This work is part of one of the best-known recent photographic series by the veteran Helena Almeida, and was acquired by the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation at the 2013 International Contemporary Art Fair (ARCO) in Madrid for its contemporary art collection. The background of this series, shown on numerous occasions, was the flooding of her workshop after heavy rainfall, when the wet floor was transformed into a large mirror that transfigured the space.
This everyday incident is part of the creative leit motiv of this Portuguese artist whose drawings, paintings, photographs or performances take inspiration from her real-life situations. The mishap was used as an excuse for intervening in spaces where everything is later controlled apart from the initial cause. Almeida is a real poet of image, who achieves an intense aesthetic impact through this scenography, conveyed here in black and white to provoke visual and conceptual contrasts. It is avoids mere self-portraits by using fragments of her body, which is subtly and delicately altered, defaced or de-contextualised.