helena almeida

PRESS
KIT
#Almeida
HELENA ALMEIDA
CORPUS
February 9th — May 22nd 2016
1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE · PARIS 8 E · M° CONCORDE
WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG
An exhibition organized by Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, in collaboration
with Jeu de Paume and WIELS, Centre d’art contemporain, Bruxelles.
PATRONS
Neuflize Vie is the main sponsor for the exhibition « Corpus ».
MEDIA PARTNERS
A NOUS PARIS, Arte, Marie Claire, Stylist, Time Out Paris
Our thanks to hôtel Chavanel.
TOURING
WIELS, Centre d’art contemporain, Brussels, september 10th – december 11th 2016
The Jeu de Paume receives public funding from the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
and its main corporate sponsors are Neuflize Vie and Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre.
• Cover :
Helena Almeida, Pintura habitada [Inhabited painting], 1975
Acrylic on photograph, 46 × 50 cm. Coll. Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
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HELENA ALMEIDA
CORPUS
February 9th — May 22nd 2016
CURATORS
João Ribas and Marta Moreira de Almeida, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto
CONTENTS
4 — THE EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
6 — THE EXHIBITION
9 — HELENA ALMEIDA
10 — SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
16 — PRACTICAL INFO
11 — THE JEU DE PAUME BOOKSHOP
12 — PRESS VISUALS
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EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
• The exhibition Corpus is the first French retrospective
devoted to the different phases of Helena Almeida’s
career, from her early works from the mid-1960s—where
the deconstruction of the canvas was already in evidence
through the use of photography—to her more recent
creations.
• Helena Almeida’s work heralds the end of a single medium
through her combined use of painting and photography, but
also drawing and video, thereby creating a veritable
porousness between all artistic media. Her experimental
work may be situated within the context of the Modernist
crisis in Europe in the late-1960s. Her works question the
place of the image at a time when the means of
reproduction and diffusion were rapidly increasing.
• Helena Almeida’s work follows on from certain
• Almeida’s most recent works demonstrate a different
appreciation of her body. Her mise en scène, akin to
choreography, in front of the lens of her husband, Artur
Rosa, may only be understood in the artist’s own words, as
a performance. Her photographs capture an instant, a fixed
moment in time, where her body appears and disappears
from the plane of the image. Her body is both the subject
and the medium of her artwork.
projects previously programmed at the Jeu de Paume,
reflecting the institution’s desire to present new narrative
forms around the body and the gesture, as evident in the
exhibitions of works by Cindy Sherman (2006), Claude
Cahun (2011), Lorna Simpson (2013), Valérie Jouve
(2015), and through film cycles devoted to Barbara
Hammer (2012) and Yvonne Rainer (2014).
• Helena Almeida (b. 1934, Lisbon) is considered to be
one of the greatest contemporary Portuguese
artists. Her long career has allowed her to gain a
reputation from the 1970s onward as one of the
leading figures of conceptual art. Countless exhibitions
have been devoted to her work all over the world. The
artist represented Portugal at the Venice Biennales of
1982 and 2005.
• After her combined exploration of drawing,
painting and photography, Helena Almeida turned her
attention to the image, particularly her own image.
Photography provides the artist with a way of embodying
her drawings and paintings.
4
• Helena Almeida, Seduzir [Seduce], 2002
black and white photographs (2 elements), 187 × 125 cm (each). Coll. Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
Photo Laura Castro Caldas and Paulo Cintra, courtesy Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
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THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition Corpus presents an ensemble of works—painting, photography, video and drawing—produced
by the artist from the 1960s to the present day. In these works, the body registers, occupies and defines the
space and plays a central role. The exhibition has a retrospective dimension, spanning the different phases
of the artist’s career, from her earliest pieces dating from the mid-1960s up until her more recent work.
Following her early three-dimensional works, the artist found in photography a means of overcoming the
exteriority of painting, and of allowing “being” and “doing” to coexist in the same medium, “as if I were continuing
to affirm: my painting is my body, my work is my body”. Beyond the poetic and metaphorical readings that this
work can inspire, it can be seen as an attempt at attaining the limits of a medium, whether
photography, performance or sculpture.
The body in Almeida’s work becomes both a sculptural form and a space, object and subject, signifier and
signified. The artist’s work is a summary, an act that has been carefully staged, and one that is highly poetic. The
representations of these actions also show the context in which Almeida positioned herself. Facing the camera,
she refuses that her pictures become self-portraits. She represents primarily her body, but it is a universal body.
Dressed in black, Helena Almeida incorporates elements from her studio into her pictures. She takes position in
poses that she has carefully choreographed, in order to create complex compositions, which are often organized
in series. In 1969, for the first time, Helena Almeida was photographed by her husband, the architect Artur Rosa.
The latter would frequently collaborate with her, as the photographer of his wife’s performances, a highly
mediatized form of self-representation, which would become a characteristic of her work.
• Helena Almeida, Seduzir [Seduce], 2001
black and white photographs (4 elements), 105 × 72 cm (each). Coll. Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
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Unlike other contemporary artists who use the self-portrait and self-representation to stage characters through
elaborate sets and poses—Cindy Sherman, for example—here the starting point is always the artist’s body.
Through photography, Helena Almeida creates a strong relationship between representation (the act of painting
or drawing) and presentation (of her own body as a “medium” of that act). “The real physical body of the artist is
constantly lost, defaced or obscured behind streaks of paint which sometimes extend it, sometimes cover it, enter
or exit (towards or away from) the interior of this body.”
Her more recent works can be characterized by the relationship between the artist’s body and space (no longer
with drawing or painting), and makes use of photography (recurrent in works composed of series) in order to
retrace a performance of the artist within the private space of her studio. Nevertheless, the same question
continues to underlie Helena Almeida’s work: how can the body and the movement of the body (always that of
the artist) succeed in creating a work of art? The intransigence with which Helena Almeida explores this subject
makes her oeuvre, according to Isabel Carlos, “one of the most radically consistent of Portuguese art from the
second half of the twentieth century.”
“I became the painting, I
became my work, I became the
thing created. And, at the same
time, I’m the creator. And I can’t
say why.”
Helena Almeida, An Unfinished
Conversation, de Marta
Moreira Almeida et João Ribas.
7
• Helena Almeida, Sem título [Untitled], 2010
black and white photograph, 125 × 135 cm. Coll. Laurent Fiévet
Photo Courtesy Galerie Filomena Soares, Lisbonne
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HELENA ALMEIDA
Helena Almeida is a Portuguese artist known for her
photographic work, in addition to her performances, paintings
and drawings.
Born in 1934 in Lisbon, where she still lives and works today,
Helena Almeida studied painting at the Fine Arts Department of
the University of Lisbon in 1955. She regularly exhibited her work
from the late-1960s onward. Her father, the sculptor Leopoldo
de Almeida, encouraged her to participate in his studio sessions.
Following her marriage to architect Artur Rosa, Helena Almeida
received a scholarship and moved to Paris.
Helena Almeida. Courtesy de l’artiste.
Her first exhibition took place in 1967. Her earliest three-dimensional work reveals her diverse range of
influences and undermined traditional concepts of painting.
From 1969 onward, Helena Almeida began to work on the notion of self-representation. According to Almeida,
there are no limits between the work and the body of the artist. However, her works are not self-portraits, but
instead vacillate between performance, capturing a fixed moment in time, and body art, where her body is the
subject of the work.
In the early-1970s, Helena Almeida returned to drawing and three-dimensional works, with the use of horsehair, in
order to create the impression of movement within the work.
From 1975 onward, she combined three disciplines; photography, painting and drawing, using either horsehair or
blue and red paint, or black pigment on her photographs.
Exhibitions of her work have been held in various venues and locations throughout the world: Kettle’s Yard in
Cambridge (2009), Fundación Telefónica in Madrid (2008), The Drawing Center in New York (2004), Biennale of
Sydney (2004) and the Galician Contemporary Art Centre (CGAC) in Santiago de Compostela (2000). Such
visibility on an international scale has contributed to the artist’s renown outside of her native Portugal. Almeida
now holds an eminent place on the international art scene. She represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale in
both 1982 and 2005.
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• SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1967 – 1968
2001
Galeria Buchholz, Lisbon
1972
A experiencia do lugar, Porto
Thomas Erben Gallery, New York
Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
Galeria Modulo, Porto
Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon
2004
Inhabited Drawings, Drawing Center, New York
1973
14 pinturas de Helena Almeida, Galeria Mamede, Lisbon
2005
1976
Trabalhos recentes, Centre d’art Santa Monica, Barcelona
Intus, 51 Venice Biennal, Portuguese Pavillon, Venice
Desenhos habitados, Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon
Modulo — Centro Difusor de Arte, Porto
2006
1978
Intus, Centro de Arte Moderna, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian,
Lisbon
Caderno de campo, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
Bewohnte Zeichnungen, Galerie Erika + Otto Friedrich, Berne
Galerie Bama, Paris
Modulo — Centro Difusor de Arte, Lisbon
2008
Tela rosa para vestir, Fundacion Telefonica, Madrid
1979
2009
Galerie Horenbeeck, Brussels
Cooperativa Diferença, Lisbon
Venice Biennal, Portuguese Pavillon, Venice
Cuaderno de campo, Museo Extremeo e Iberoamericano de Arte
Contemporaneo, Badajoz
Helena Almeida: Inside Me, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge
(United Kingdom)
1983
2010
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
1984
Helena Almeida: Inside Me, John Hansard Gallery, University of
Southampton (United Kingdom)
Banada en lagrimas, Galeria Helga de Alvear, Madrid
Galerie Dieter Tausch, Innsbruck
Cooperativa Diferença, Lisbon
2011
1985
Travaux récents, Galerie les Filles du Calvaire, Paris
Helena Almeida, Frieze Art Fair, London (Galeria Helga de Alvear,
Madrid)
1982
Helena Almeida, Artur Rosa : Instalação, fotografias,
desenhos, escultura, Galeria EMI — Valentim de Carvalho, Lisbon
2013
1987
Helena Almeida: Frisos, Centro de Arte Moderna, Fundação Calouste
Gulbenkian, Lisbon
1989
Helena Almeida, Galerie Vilaseco-Hauser, La Corogne
Helena Almeida: Transubstanciação, Fundação Leal Rios, Lisbon
Andar e abraar, Espaço BES Arte & Finança, Lisbon
“Helena Almeida”, Espaivisor — Galerie Visor, Valence
2014
Richard Demarco Gallery, Edimbourg
Desenho [Dessin], Galerie Filomena Soares, Lisbon
1995
2015
Dramatis persona: Varia es e fuga sobre um corpo,
Casa de Serralves, Porto
Setting (avec Mirosław Bałka), Viana Art, New York
A minha obra é o meu corpo, o meu corpo é a minha obra,
Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto
1996
Exposio de desenho, Galeria EMI — Valentim de Carvalho, Lisbon
2016
1999
Helena Almeida. Corpus, Jeu de Paume, Paris
Centro de Arte das Caldas da Rainha, Caldas da Rainha
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• JEU DE PAUME BOOKSHOP
Catalogue
An exhibition catalogue is published in coedition by Jeu
de Paume / Fundação de Serralves / WIELS 240 pages,
approx. 200 illustrations.
Available in French, English and Portuguese
Texts by Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, Cornelia H. Butler,
Peggy Phelan, interview of the artist with João Ribas and
Marta Moreira de Almeida.
€39
• Additionnal readings
Lorna Simpson (2013)
Texts by Naomi Beckwith, Marta Gili, Thomas J. Lax,
Joan Simon et Elvan Zabunyan.
Coed. Jeu de Paume et FEP, DelMonico Books-Prestel
Publishing.
49,95 €
Cindy Sherman (2006)
Texts by Jean-Pierre Criqui, Régis Durand
and Laura Mulvey
Coed. Jeu de Paume, Flammarion
50 €
Jeu de Paume bookshop
1, place de la Concorde, Paris 8e
Tuesday (late-night opening) : 11 h-21 h
Wednesday to Sunday : 11 h-19 h / Closed on Monday
t. 01 47 03 12 36 / [email protected] / www.librairiejeudepaume.org
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PRESS VISUALS
The copyright-free reproduction and display of the following selection of images is permitted solely as
part of the promotion of this exhibition at the Jeu de Paume and only while the exhibition is in progress.
1 • Helena Almeida, Pintura habitada [Inhabited painting], 1975
Acrylic on photograph, 46 × 50 cm, Coll. Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
2 • Helena Almeida, Sem título [Untitled], 2010
black-and-white photograph, 125 × 135 cm, Coll. Laurent Fiévet
Photo Courtesy Galerie Filomena Soares, Lisbon
12
4 • Helena Almeida, Desenho habitado [Inhabited drawing], 1975
black and white photograph, Indian ink, horse hair, 60 × 55 cm
Coll. Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado, Lisbon, Photo Mário Valente, courtesy MNAC – Museu do Chiado, Lisbon
3 • Helena Almeida, Sem título [Untitled], 1968
Acrylic on canvas and wood, 130 × 97 cm, Coll. Fundação
de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
5 • Helena Almeida, Saída negra [Black Exit], 1995
black and white photographs (5 elements), 71 × 48 cm (each), Coll. Norlinda and José Lima, long-term loan to Núcleo de Arte da Oliva Creative
Factory, S. João da Madeira, Photo Aníbal Lemos, courtesy Núcleo de Arte da Oliva Creative Factory, S. João da Madeira
13
6 • Helena Almeida, Seduzir [Seduce], 2002
black and white photographs (2 elements), 187 × 125 cm (each), Coll. Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
Photo Laura Castro Caldas and Paulo Cintra, courtesy Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
7 • Helena Almeida, Estudos para a série “Seduzir” [Study for the series
“Seduce”], 2002, paint and pastel on paper, (29 elements), 30 x 21 cm (each)
Col. Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
14
8 • Helena Almeida, Tela habitada [Inhabited canvas],
1976, black and white photograph, 205 × 128 cm
edition of 3
Coll. Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
9 • Helena Almeida, Seduzir [Seduce], 2001
black and white photographs (4 elements), 105 × 72 cm (each), Coll. Helga de Alvear, Madrid/Cáceres
Photo Filipe Braga © Fundação de Serralves, Porto
15
10 • Helena Almeida, Dentro de mim [Inside me], 1998,
black and white photograph, 185 × 122 cm, Coll. Fundação
Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, long-term loan
Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea,
Porto, Photo : Laura Castro Caldas et Paulo Cintra, courtesy
FLAD, Lisbon
11 • Helena Almeida, Seduzir [Seduce], 2002
black and white photograph and acrylic, 199 × 129,5 cm
Coll. CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
Photo José Manuel Costa Alves, courtesy CAM – Fundação
Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbonne
12 • Helena Almeida, Pintura habitada [Inhabited painting],1976,
black and white photograph, acrylic, 40 x 30 cm,
Coll. Fernando d’Almeida
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PRACTICAL
INFO
#Almeida
OPENING TIMES
Tuesday (late-night opening): 11 am – 9 pm
Wednesday to Sunday: 11 am – 7 pm
Closed Monday
ADMISSION
Exhibition : 10 € / Concession : 7.50 €
VISUALS FOR PRESS
Copyright-free press visuals can be downloaded from www.jeudepaume.org
login: presskit I password: photos
CONTACTS
Press : Annabelle Floriant
t. 01 47 03 13 22 / 06 42 53 04 07 / [email protected]
Communication : Anne Racine
1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE · PARIS 8 E · M° CONCORDE
WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG