"Alberto Carneiro: First Retrospective Exhibition in Spain"
2001-07-20 until 2001-09-30
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea
Santiago, , ES Spain

Within the line of their review of the fundamental figures of Portuguese plastic art, which began with Helena Almeida in 2000, the CGAC is now presenting the first retrospective exhibition in Spain dedicated to Alberto Carneiro (Coronado, Portugal, 1937). Through a selection of thirty-odd works stretching over three decades from 1968 - a time in which he was at St. Martin's School in London - to the installation of A sabiduria da Floresta in 2001, this exhibition shows us some of the aspects of Alberto Carneiro's work, his aesthetic identification with the fusion between body and nature, his incessant investigation of the landscape as a place of evocation, as well as the rereading of the Western sculptural tradition which has allowed him to come closer to different aspects of oriental wisdom.

This long process of the transformation of nature into art is demonstrated through interventions in nature NULL documented photographicallyNULLin which his naked body fuses with nature in deep spiritual contact; works such as Um campo depois da colheita para deleite estético do nosso corpo, 1973-76, exhibited in the Săo Paulo Biennial, installed in Double Space, the result of his formal research into rural agricultural activities which provoke an aesthetic perception through all the body's senses; or projects in which the word and he image -through drawings and photographs displayed on panels- define the artistic idea by becoming transformed into a work, like the complex O Corpo subtil, 1981, a mandala in which he develops his ideas and writes down his reflections in the form of aphorisms. In the 1990s, Carneiro's sculptures acquired a more abstract dimension, as he worked with evocations of water, the wind, metaphors which articulate memory and demonstrate a deep impact provoked by oriental philosophies and where he works the wood with great sensuality.

- Cecilia Pereira

IMAGE:
Alberto Carneiro
Un campo depois da coolleita para
deleite estético do nosso corpo, 1973-76

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Spain

Other Important Exhibitions in Santiago