Namban - Retrospective of Cohen Fusé's artistic production - Temporary exhibition at Museu do Oriente, Lisboa - The 19th of July 2015

I headed to Museu do Oriente fairly early so as to see two temporary exhibitions, one of which I had read about. I was almost immediately taken by the explosion of colour and intricate details in Luis Cohen Fusé's paintings.

 

Born in Buenos Aires Fusé has been residing in Portugal for the last three decades and the fact that the exhibition's title is Namban ( a Sino-Japanese word whose generic meaning is alien or outsider) is strongly connected to his life path.

 

In the words of the curator Fernando Alagoa "to contemplate the work of Luis Cohen Fusé implies getting enraptured in the poetry of senses and surrendering to a supreme state of beauty". Whether that resonates with every visitor I don't know but I feel that none will be indifferent to his art, in which the woman is almost always present, in an homage-like type of approach, from oil on canvas or linen to sculpted female figures.

 

I first came across a series of oil on canvas mural type of paintings ...

Amber forever-2011 (left). Blues of desire-2013 (right).

Summer night-2011 (left).

and then another series, this time of oil on linen pertaining to a different period, as I noticed most of the paintings had been painted from 1987 through to 2012 ...

The shining of the wisterias (left). The courtesan of the roses and wasps (right).

The courtesan of the yellow lilies (left). The song of the cicada (right).

The peony courtesan (left). Sayonara dreaming (right).

White and blue-2005 (left). Among the lilies-2011 (right).

Symphony-2014

Lying on a sofa with a black shawl-2013

Sensuality-2010 (left). Odalisc with mirror-2006 (right)

Lost Paradise (left). Nostalgia - water (right)

                                                                   Oniric Instinct





And finally the puppet-like sculpted female figures ...

 

"The Divine Comedy" engravings by Salvador Dali - Temporary exhibition at Colombo Shopping Mall, Lisboa - The 18th of July 2015

I had been wanting to visit the cultural space devised for temporary exhibitions in one of the most visited shopping malls in Lisbon and although I had not specifically intended to visit this temporary exhibition during the weekend ended up doing so because of a minor traffic problem.

The name of Dali brings about memories of when I visited his House Museum in Figueres and though I was not expecting his engravings on the Divine Comedy of Dante to be as exquisite as some of the paintings and artistic oeuvres I came across then, they were nevertheless a rather unique journey through what critics consider the bringing together of different stylistic aspects of the painter and a milestone in his career.

 

Embedded in a gallery-like structure the exhibition was divided in three parts as according to the themes (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise) created by the artist. I didn't follow the sequence in which Dali is said to have immersed in (the layers that Dante scaled) but strolled randomly around the various inner galleries in my personal journey of "colour".

 

 

 

In the Heaven of Mercury (left). Beatrice resolves Dante's doubts (right).

The lustful (left). The ascent to Venus (right).

Dante purified (left). Dante re-awakes (right).



















 News of the lower depths of hell (left). The Minotaur (right).

Arachne (left). The Simoniac (right).

Ugolino and Ruggieri (left). Lucifer (right).

The Law of Ascension (left). Our Lady of the Annunciation (right).

The angels of the Empyrean (left). The Apparition of St. James (right).

 Charon