Metamorphoses
During the investigations that led José Escada to three-dimensionality and cut-out reliefs, the artista sought new ways of ‘engaging with the audience’, based on physical experience, imagining tactile, manipulable, and ephemeral objects. Between 1965-69, the artist produced collages and three-dimensional reliefs on paper, metal, and plastic, creating objects that proposed a new space-time relationship. Escada would return to this production in 1974, the year of the Portuguese Revolution. In the reliefs and collages, the line is renewed in the colour and the plane through the act of cutting out and cutting up, which ultimately amounts to drawing right onto the colour, thereby attaching value to the anonymous act: cutting, pasting, soldering. At the same time, José Escada stepped up his creation of metamorphosed figures, where the body and the double dominate.
[fcg_custom_gallery order_1=”1″ image_1=”159367″ title_1=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_1=”The silver dream, Paris 1967
Aluminium alloy relief on aluminium foil base
117 x 81.5 x 15.5 cm
São Roque, Antiguidades e Galeria de Arte” order_2=”2″ image_2=”159357″ title_2=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_2=”Untitled, 1974
Nickel tinplate relief on tinplate base
200 x 100 x 14 cm
CGM-MC, inv. 95P347″ link_2=”https://gulbenkian.pt/museu/en/i-do-not-evolve-i-travel/metamorphoses/untitled/” order_3=”3″ image_3=”159359″ title_3=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_3=”The conch shell, 1976
Cut-outs, collage and gouache on paper
10.5 x 17.4 cm
CGM-MC, inv. 82DP1061″ link_3=”https://gulbenkian.pt/museu/en/metamorphoses/the-conch-shell/” order_4=”4″ image_4=”159361″ title_4=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_4=”Untitled, 1971
Indian ink on tracing paper
100 x 70 cm
Carlos A. F. Dias collection” order_5=”5″ image_5=”159363″ title_5=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_5=”Untitled, Paris 1969
Felt tip pen on paper
56.6 x 38.1 cm
Manuel de Brito collection” order_6=”6″ image_6=”159365″ title_6=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_6=”The man crushed by the horse, March 1967
Plastic relief (cellulose acetate)
41.5 x 33 x 10 cm
Private collection” order_7=”7″ image_7=”160103″ title_7=”José Escada (1934-1980)” description_7=”Untitled, undated
Tinplate relief
13 x 40 x 18 cm
São Roque, Antiguidades e Galeria de Arte”]