Menez at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar
As part of the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar exhibitions programme, Imagem em Fuga: Júlio Pomar, Menez e Sónia Almeida opened to the public on 11 November. This exhibition aims to bring together the work of Júlio Pomar with that of Menez, with whom the artist had a close friendship, and Sónia Almeida, for whom Menez was a source of artistic inspiration.
The title comes from Sónia Almeida’s interest in the panels that Júlio Pomar made for Cinema Batalha in the 1940s and which the PIDE (the Estado Novo dictatorship’s security force/secret police) destroyed shortly after their creation. Only photographic records, drawings and letters now remain of them. Inspired by these panels, which depict the São João midsummer festivities, Sónia Almeida developed a project for this exhibition evoking these celebrations by referencing music, dance and movement.
The CAM is taking part in this exhibition with the loan of seven works by the artist Menez – a sculpture and six paintings – produced between the 1960s and 1980s. The sculpture Objecto (Paralelepípedo) [Object (Parallelepiped)], the focal point of the exhibition, represents an attempt to flee from the traditional support of painting, making a link between Júlio Pomar’s panels and Sónia Almeida’s project.
Another connection between the three artists relates to technique, where thick layers of paint give the colour a three-dimensional aspect. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Ricardo Nicolai and Maria Quintãs and with images of the installation.