Enigma – Portuguese Art in the Berardo Collection

Enigma – Portuguese Art in the Berardo Collection opens this evening at Museu Coleção Berardo. This exhibition brings together works by Rui Chafes, Jorge Molder, João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, Pedro Cabrita Reis, João Tabarra and Ana Vieira. Produced in different periods and each with its own specific concern, they share an awareness of an issue transversal in the arts: the enigma as both core element and radical uncertainty.

Between the freedom inherent to the work and its constraints as a particular in the world, a paradox arises that defines its existence as an uncertainty. Not that these works have become uncertain in their social role, but because their social role has become the means by which they affirm their uncertainty.

The enigma with which they operate lies in their refusal to affirm a self-evident meaning. It draws an indiscernible that inhabits its core and establishes within the visible an interval of assumptions that threatens the integrity of the visuality of the work. Another array of raised issues consists in the exposure of thought to the unknown. Visibility and thought or invisibility and the unthinkable, constitute that uncertainty.

This exhibition aims to present the moment of uncertainty at the core of artistic work as a fundamental element of art against its own instrumentation. Hesitating thoughts on its existence become fundamental for its very existence, as what is at stake in the enigma of each work is that of art itself.

Curated by Pedro Lapa.