I managed to see two temporary exhibitions at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum where I spent part of the morning last Sunday. One of them was on Houses in the Museum's Modern collection and the other one on carpets.
The one on houses included rather different approaches as to what houses are, whether they are chaotic spaces or intimate dwellings filled with memories. I took a few photographs, all of which related to the latest referred approach. I was impressed by the photo installation on wooden tables, called Botanica. I couldn't help noticing the fact that had all of those portraits had been clearly taken in former Portuguese colonies and depicted the superiority of the settlers as opposed to the slave servants.
Quiet Time - 1985 oil on canvas by Esperanza Huertas (1925-2014).
A ladder in the corner - 1982 oil on canvas by Manuel Amado (1938).
Untitled series of acrylic painted on wood canvases by Jorge Varanda (1953-2008).
Digitalised metal-framed photographs on wooden tables by Vasco Araújo (1975)
The one on Kum Kapi carpets, whose name is associated to a district in Istambul where in the 19th century various Armenian master carpet makers ares said to have settled to create richly knotted silk carpets inspired in the Classic Persian carpets was equally insteresting. The exhibition displayed carpets made by two different Armenian artists - Hagop Kapoudjian (1870-1946) and Mekhitar Garabedian (1977) in what be called a "dialogue" between tradition and its reinvention.
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