The largest contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the 25th of April runs until 29th June. Carnation Revolution – 50 years of Freedom is a curatorial project by Paulo Mendes, part of Braga 25 Portuguese Capital of Culture. It’s an unprecedented exhibition that will be shown at the 6th Cavalry Regiment, the Nogueira da Silva Museum and the Forum Arte Braga.
Paulo Mendes presents us with an immersive and transdisciplinary project that works on a wide range of works including, for example, the Serralves archive or the State Contemporary Art Collection, as well as the contemporaneity of Fernando Sanchez Castillo and unavoidable names such as Mário Cesariny or Paula Rego.
Transdisciplinary in nature, it brings together important historical works and new creations, accompanied by a variety of documentation from films, photographic archives, books, posters and other graphic material. A set of pieces that dialogue with the social, political and cultural context of the historical period between 1960 and the present day.
Crossing the city’s urban fabric, it spreads across Braga, symbolically starting in a military barracks hangar, in this case the 6th Cavalry Regiment, and continues at the Nogueira da Silva Museum and the Forum Arte Braga. An unmissable itinerary that includes works from important institutional and private collections to visit until 29 June this year.
In the view of Paulo Mendes, artist-curator, the ‘study of history is a critical and subjective confrontation’. At a time of disquiet in which facts and basic principles of freedom are being distorted by populist discourses, this work is a reminder that freedom and democracy are won every day. It emphasises the need to be aware of the past in order to project a future ‘that is intended to be plural and democratic’, says the author.
Carnation Revolution – 50 years of Freedom presents works by Alberto Carneiro, Álvaro Lapa, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Ana Hatherly, Pedro Costa, Yonamine, Ana Jotta, Ângela Ferreira, António Areal, Harun Farocki, Arlindo Silva, Bárbara Fonte, Eduardo Arroyo, Cristina Mateus, Eduardo Batarda, Equipo Crónica, Tiago Baptista, Manolo Millares, Ernesto de Sousa, Santiago Sierra, Fábio Colaço, Fernando José Pereira, Paula Rego, Fernando J. Ribeiro, Jimmie Durham, Hugo de Almeida Pinho, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Fernão Cruz, Hugo Canoilas, João Pedro Vale + Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, João Tabarra, Joaquim Rodrigo, Jonathas de Andrade, José Dias Coelho, Manuel Botelho, Clara Menéres, Manuel Santos Maia, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Mário Cesariny, Miguel Palma, Délio Jasse, Nuno Nunes-Ferreira, Rita GT, Susana Mendes Silva, among other national and international artists.