Luisa Cunha E um Oceano galeria miguel nabinho 1024x659 1

Luisa Cunha

Lisboa, 1949
Lives and works in Lisbon

Particularly interested in the philosophy of language and the mechanisms of perception and communication, Luisa Cunha develops work in drawing, video, photography, objects, interventions and performance, and especially in the form of texts and sound sculptures, creating proposals that break down the boundaries between public and private, and that take on the intimate tone of the voice that enunciate them, often that of the artist herself.

The devices of her works are minimalist and contained, and their discretion allows viewers to focus all their attention on the details of the written text or spoken word, filling the space with mental images and creating environmental sculptures. As simple as they are brazenly out of the ordinary, her messages challenge the listener in the form of whispers, murmurs and secrets.

Expressions like “É aqui!” [It’s here!], “Shh”, “Luisa”, “Não, não é ele” [No, it’s not him] or “Senhora! Toda a gente sabe!” [Madam! Everybody knows!] surprise viewers during the exhibition, while others such as “Turn around” or “Os visitantes que vêm a esta exposição são gentilmente convidados a permanecerem numa posição erguida e a manterem-se em silêncio” [The visitors who come to this exhibition are kindly asked to stay in an upright position and remain silent] comment on and induce public behaviour and subvert institutional protocol. Repeated in a loop, these expressions lose their initial emotional charge and sense, and open to the imagination and meaning of the listener.

Lígia Afonso
[Plano Nacional das Artes and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian]
Curator, teacher and researcher born in Lisbon in 1981
Text originally written for Google Arts & Culture apropos the exhibition “All I Want, Portuguese Women Artists from 1900 to 2020”, curated by Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand