Ten artists reinvent aesthetic modes to see themselves as figures immersed, distinct, or concealed in disparate landscapes. When observing pictorial or three-dimensional compositions, traces may be detected, or they may harbor figurations of diverse beings—real or imaginary. Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic beings are portrayed, familiar or somewhat exotic. Yet all are recognized in our shared desire to celebrate art! Beings and presences emerge from the history of European and Brazilian art, proving that artistic thought is indomitable and never reaches a conclusion: it will always be open to new creative appropriations.

Beings and figures entwine with us, possess us, or we offer ourselves to them, nourishing both truth and fantasy. They are familiar or unknown, just as we see them—here and there—just as visitors encounter them while strolling through the gardens, the park, and the pathways of Quinta da Boa Vista – Fundação Gramaxo. We step back in time, imagining these fields where agriculture once prevailed and domestic animals coexisted with people. Stories and episodes are envisioned, carried on the lips of those who recount or suppose them. Let us do the following: seek the narratives perhaps half-hidden within the canvases and sculptures. Claim them, receive them with affection. Fabricate new circumstances, dreams, and utopias to experience time and the places that the artists present to us.

The contemporary works in Figures in the Landscape, seen from the inside out, affirm their proximity to the rooms inhabited by the pieces from the Maria de Fátima Gramaxo Collection, curated by the architect Álvaro Siza Vieira. This curatorial dialogue intertwines with the exhibition program for 2024, structured as a diptych—acting as a counterpart and projecting itself in succession and/or confrontation with Colors Seen from the Inside Out.

Among the artists in this exhibition, generations engage in conversations with each other and with us, challenging the plurality of artistic tendencies and aesthetic languages. However, some common denominators are easily found: genuineness, excellence, and the conviction that through the action of thought, one influences the life of each person, benefiting all.

Thus, the museum building welcomes contrasts, strangeness, and beauty, prompting active reflections on the coexistence of people and ideas, both chronologically and geographically contextualized, while contributing to the development of cultural routines. The motivations and effects of collecting are considered, listening to intelligible affections, personal tastes, and fostering engagement from the community. Even the extent to which location and surroundings—both interior and exterior—enhance and recreate the interpretation of contemporary works is pondered.

The grand entrée moves through time, shifting from the landscaped gardens into the architectural space, imbued with wisdom and conceptual refinement. Art historiography is rediscovered through enigmas and challenges. Figures, almost imperceptible or assertive, stand out within the pictorial environments identified in various paintings from the Founder’s collection.

Figurations of people and animals coexist within their respective compositions, either subtly concealed or standing out between fiction and reality.

In the poetics of beings and spaces, mythologies, imaginations, and simulacra come into view: anthropological and aesthetic memories are active heritage. The diversity and typologies of art objects call for a mirrored vision of the present—one that reverberates with unexpected and sublime discoveries.

Maria de Fátima Lambert. Naples, september 2024