Parodies
Paula Rego/ Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro
11th of December 2014 to 2nd of August 2015
Curator: Catarina Alfaro
This exhibition was drawn up within the broad context of indirect
references by Paula Rego, and from the outset was structured based
on a non-illustrative dialogue between the works of these two
artists who used attentive observation of daily life to transmit a
critical view of the Portuguese life and customs of their times.
Paula Rego and Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, separated by over a century
and by the unique characteristics of their individual expression,
use their artistic production as a privileged means of
socio-political denouncing.
The opera and the theatre are artistic dimensions often called
upon by each of them, thus creating sometimes disconcerting
parallels between life and the stage, calling up tragi-comic
dynamics between animalised human characters and humanised animals.
It is this ambiguous and complex universe of interaction among
humans, animals, vegetables and hybrids that at first glance seem
to relate the two artists' creative universes. However, that which
brings them both close is not so much the subject matter they deal
with nor the way they technically developed them. What unites them
is unequivocally the fact that both Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and
Paula Rego made their artistic production an element for diluting
hierarchies and of differentiation between erudite and popular art,
always in communication with the present time through their
critical, often biting and socially intervening voices.
Bordalo Pinheiro's caricaturing gaze that ridiculed the world of
the politics and customs of Portuguese life is the expression of
his free thinking more than a manifesto of his intentions to
transform society. Paula Rego's work often places her beyond
explicit denunciation and transmits the imperious need for a change
in mentalities.