Michael Müller is devoting himself to one topic for the first time. “Mensch, der / Körper, der die, das” illuminates various facets of physicality and our feeling for the body - a highly virulent question in times of genetic reproductions and operative optimization of the body, which leads to interesting insights.

You’ll Find Your Peace with Me is a screening programme of videos from the Mudam collection, organised to accompany Enfin seules. Photographs from the Archive of Modern Conflict. An atmosphere of anxiety towards the natural world is cultivated by João Penalva in Kitsune (2000), which depicts fog clearing across a desolate landscape as two men trade disquieting stories about a shapeshifting fox spirit. 

The exhibition Cangiante – Based on the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection, curated by Antonia Gaeta, brings these elements together and promotes a dialogue between the various works, techniques and materials of the artists represented in the Collection. The exhibition’s curatorship is an open one and permeable to the work of the guest artists Ana Manso and Dayana Lucas about something that already exists, but which now has the possibility of being different.

How did we think about this 'Choreography of Attention'? How did we create a collective voice, from each other's perspectives? What ideas, negotiations and choices were made? In this guided tour, we will share the process of this collaborative curatorship project and introduce multiple ways of looking at the set of contemporary works of art that make up this exhibition.

Featuring new and recent works on paper by leading international artists, the Biennial showcases every imaginable technique and represents artists from a range of generations, backgrounds, and heritages.

Provisional artist list: João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Sven Johne, Mark Lewis,
Melvin Moti, João Penalva, Philippe Parreno, Raphaël Zarka

Curated by Lauren Wetmore, Curatorial Reasearch Fellow

Screenings: 10.6.21 and 11.6.21, 15h to 18h
Online: 12.6.21 to 19.9.21

The exhibition Que horas são que horas: uma galeria de histórias is the result of an invitation made by the Galeria Municipal do Porto to three curators to reflect upon the historical landscape of Porto’s art galleries – inscribed between the apparent post-WWII cultural opening and the retraction of the cultural sector after the recent economic crisis. Looking at this time period enables us to understand the many different sides of the civitas, and the transformative complicities that exist between the city’s artists, cultural agents and audiences that shape it.

RED LIGHT presents a selection of works from the Norlinda and José Lima Art Collection, having as a common point the approach to sexuality, unfolded in multiple topics, both presented in a counterpoint complement and in a jarring confrontation: the representation of the body, male and female nudity , eroticism, fantasy, desire and pain, object and subject, pleasure and domination, the places of female representation, the male gaze, voyeurism, exhibitionism and self-representation in art.

Curated by Bronia Iwańczak

Curated by Ana Rito and Hugo Barata

When applied to the curatorial situation, the concept of the constellation accounts for the dynamic definition of the relations formed between all those involved. On the one hand, it denotes the different contexts in which each obtained their previous meaning and function (which then change as a result of this transfer from other times and places into the specific new encounter). On the other hand, it implies that those involved and their participation are also characterized by temporalities of their own—historicity, sequence, duration, timing, rhythm—creating a corresponding dynamic in their interrelations.

The international art project ROHKUNSTBAU is celebrating its 25th edition titled „Tenderness. About Common Living“. This year’s summer exhibition features artists that have been part of ROHKUNSTBAU in the last 25 years – ROHKUNSTBAU 2020 will be a celebration of coming together, of reunion.

In 2016 the Companhia Nacional de Bailado (CNB), the National Ballet Company of Portugal, performed “Quinze Bailarinos e Tempo Incerto” (Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo), a ballet created and directed by João Penalva in collaboration with the choreographer Rui Lopes Graça. The performance is available to watch on the CNB website until 3PM, Friday 10 April. 

Pigskin sandals, commissioned by Festival Cumplicidades, presents a new version of João Penalva’s work Wallenda, from 1999, in which the artist whistled the entirety of The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. 

In this live performance version, combining voice with video projections, texts and recorded sound, João Penalva juxtaposes the history and process of his enterprise with the experience of dancers who were interpreters of the recreation of the 1913, original Nijinsky choreography of The Rite of Spring, by dance historians Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer for the National Ballet of Portugal, in 1994.

With Annabelle Barnes, Catarina Lourenço and Brent Williamson, dancers from the National Ballet of Portugal, and Rui Lopes Graça.

Image: João Penalva 

The Prime Minister's Official Residence opens on 5 September at the Palace of São Bento with a selection of contemporary art from the Norlinda and José Collection Lima and curated by Isabel Carlos, including three works of João Penalva: Untitled (Brown), 1997, Interior (Print), 1991 and Repertorio (Balls), 1990. The works will occupy the main rooms of the Residence for a year. 

Image: João Penalva, Interior (Print), 1991

The National Ballet of Portugal will perform Fifteen dancers and changeable tempo, by João Penalva and Rui Lopes Graça.

Directed and designed by João Penalva

Choreography by Rui Lopes Graça

Sound by David Cunningham

Lighting by Nuno Meira

Photograph: Bruno Leitão

Annette, Adele, and Lee is the title of the new ballet by Rui Lopes Graça and João Penalva for the National Ballet of Portugal. 

The three proper names of the title may suggest a love triangle, but this is not a narrative ballet. They are, in fact, the names of three tap dance dancers recorded in a London sound studio in order to produce the material with which David Cunningham was to compose the sound for this ballet.

The classical ballet trained dancers we see dance to the sound of their tap dancing peers. As for these, we can only imagine them and wonder what they may look like. However, the thirty minutes of great complexity of sound and choreographic patterns in which their presence is continuous will make their names memorable.

It could be said that Annette, Adele, and Lee is, after all, a story of dancers.

For more information, please click here. 

“What you are basically deep deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself” - Alan Watts

Deep deep down, far far in (and out) is an exhibition curated by Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues, that presents a selection of sixteen works by twelve artists, among them João Penalva, all belonging to the collection of the Fundação Leal Rios, arranged along two floors and four environments. Deepening the relationship between two different movements, one introspective and the other expansive, the notion of focus shares the stage with the idea of inclusiveness, and each work calls for both an individual and a collective reading.

For more information, please click here.

Installation View: João Penalva, Deep deep down, far far in (and out), Fundação Leal Rios, 2019 

Photo credit: © João Penalva and Fundação Leal Rios 

Photography: Bruno Lopes

This display in the first floor galleries of the Fire Station focuses on some of the artists, that ensured that The South London Fine Art Gallery had a permanent home, among them João Penalva, their belief in social reform through art, literature and learning, and the ongoing legacy of their work.

For more information, please click here. 

Image: João Penalva, The Hair of Mr Ruskin, 1997, collection of the South London Gallery

Photo credit: Courtesy the artist and the Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal.

Photography: Mário Valente

In October 2018, Caixa Geral de Depósitos employees joined curator Filipa Oliveira’s project of putting together an exhibition of works of the CGD Collection, among them João Penalva's work. The purpose was to go through the method of curating an exhibition and to show how works of art are understood, chosen and installed. It is now time for the 21 amateur curators to show the results of their learning and their findings.

For more information, please click here. 

Image: João Penalva, Piet Mondrian, (YOU — To be read as “ME”?), 1997

Photography: Laura Castro Caldas / Paulo Cintra

The Gaze of Things: Japanese Photography in the Context of Provoke shows a selection of works from the Per Amor a l’Art Collection, that constitutes the most important private collection of Japanese photography between 1957 and 1972 outside Japan. The exhibition brings together a selection of images that focuses on the artists, among them João Penalva, involved in the formation of VIVO (1959-1961), as well as the collective responsible for Provoke magazine (Provocative Materials for Thought) (1968). 

Exhibition & online fundraising auction of over 200 unique works on paper, including João Penalva's work. 

Auction: 11 March 10am – 26 March 9.30pm

For more information, please click here. 

Image: João Penalva, Piet Mondrian, Monsieur, 2019

João Penalva alludes to the life and work of Stanley Brouwn through a collection of measuring tools and devices, photographs, Brouwn’s artist books and catalogues, and a new artist book produced for this exhibition.

For more information, please click here.  

On the occasion of his major solo exhibition at MUDAM Luxembourg, the National Ballet of Portugal will perform Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo at the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg on 15 September - a ballet created and directed by João Penalva. As an introduction to the performance João Penalva will be in conversation with choreographer Rui Lopes Graça and researcher Carla Montez Fernandes at MUDAM on 12 September.

For more information, please click here.  

João Penalva’s project for Culturgest in Porto addresses the history of the exhibition space, a renovated former bank designed by seminal Portuguese architect Pardal Monteiro. The original space is represented by theatrical interpretations by scenic painters and prop makers and the original bas-reliefs, which were removed from the building to make room for a new white cube, return for Penalva’s exhibition.

For more information please visit the Culturgest website.

Mudam Luxembourg will present a major solo exhibition of work by João Penalva. The exhibition will present a wide range of work alongside largescale installations, and will combine a diverse range of materials and media from photography and documents, to text and sound. 

 For more information, please click here.  

Ornament = Crime? is the first public presentation of the Per Amor a l’Art collection at Bombas Gens Centre d'Art. Curated by Nuria Enguita and Vicente Todol&i…

A group exhibition organized on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Malmö Art Academy and including work by Jim Shaw and João Penalva. For more inf…