Art in the Garden

Embassy of Portugal in Brazil, Brasília: 09 May to 17 October 2024

The ‘Art in the Garden’ exhibition opens a dialogue with the values, tensions and aspirations raised by the Revolution of 25 April 1974.

This exhibition, curated by Benjamin Weil, director of CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, and Marcelo Gonczarowska Jorge, a representative of MAB – Museu de Arte de Brasília, seeks to create links between contemporary art and the events of 1974.

The exhibition is divided into three parts or movements. The first group of seven works, in the movement ‘Fears, aspirations and desires’, is devoted to the causes of the Revolution. This part of the exhibition route shows works that raise political, social and racial questions that echo the revolutionaries’ hopes and dreams, making an association between that historic moment and the present day.

The Tensions movement displays a series of works that enter into dialogue with the emotions and pressures of the events that unfolded on the 24, 25 and 26 April 1974. Despite the fact that, retrospectively, the ‘Carnation Revolution’ is regarded as pacific, the process provoked tension, fear and apprehension among those who experienced it. The sound works allude to the fundamental role that radio played in this process, as well as to the secret communications between revolutionaries.

Finally, the ‘Awakening’ movement presents a brand new work, commissioned to the Portuguese artist Márcio Carvalho, that reflects the outcomes and aspirations of the Revolution: the desire for change, the recognition of plurality, the guarantee of democracy in the 1976 Constitution, the return of political prisoners and exiles and the revived hope associated with 25 April.