http://vimeo.com/107574313

The Liberty of Image: Design and Visual Communication in Portugal (1974-1986) is an exhibition promoted by the Portuguese Government that is integrated in the Comemorações dos 40 Anos do 25 de Abril (25th April’s 40 Years Commemorations) and part of the program 2014/15 Ano do Design (2014/14 Year of Design). The exhibition is produced by ESAD – College of Art and Design with the Culture Department of Porto Council and the support of several institutions, such as Serralves Foundation, Casa da Música and the 25th April Documental Centre of the University of Coimbra.

The exhibition comprise approximately 500 pieces that are representative of a aesthetical vanguard production that is characteristic of a period – 1974 to 1986 – of profound political, cultural and social transformation in Portugal. This 12 year period incorporates a change of meaning, status and function in artistic and practice production.

If during the early 1970s there was the emergence of great disruptions in language, with Democracy there is the change in production, distribution and consumption processes. The potential of communication is augmented, ways of understanding and participating in the communication process are modified and its strength and range are reinvented. The arts and graphic design participate in the political thought of the construction of a festive, plural and participative society. It is an era of celebration, of militancy, of experimentation; of reclaiming the street as a space of creation; of collective projects; of research and of experimentation. In the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s, the revolutionary drive gives way to new aesthetic, political and technological configurations. The post-revolution flux crosses with post-modern flux resulting in burgeoning pop culture, individualism and globalisation. From Emília Nadal’s pop sculptures to Ana Hartherly’s collages, from João Abel Manta’ political posters to José Brandão’s record covers, covering Salette Tavares’s visual poetry and Ernesto de Sousa’s Fluxus movement projects, the exhibition aims to present a critical mapping, of the crossing of a political and cultural revolution, that asserts the liberty of image.
José Bártolo, exhibition curator

exhibition places

• Casa do Infante;
• Museu Romântico Quinta da Macieirinha;
• Palacete dos Viscondes de Balsemão;
• Casa Museu Guerra Junqueiro;
• Galeria Municipal Almeida Garrett;
• Sala VIP da Casa da Música;
• Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/esadmatosinhos/albums/72157644684804841

Créditos