Mise en Place, by Margarida Gil
The Exhibition Gallery of the Citadel Palace of Cascais presents a selection of ceramic sculptures by the renowned Portuguese artist and filmmaker Margarida Gil, gathered in the new exhibition "Mise en Place," which is part of the Bairro dos Museus program.
Curated by André Almeida e Sousa, the exhibition brings together 30 ceramic works by Margarida Gil, best known as one of the most influential Portuguese filmmakers since the 1970s, but who also explores sculpture in ceramics and painting as vehicles for her artistic expression. The exhibition also includes a sound sculpture specially created by musician Paulo Abelho in conversation with Margarida Gil's works. The texts accompanying the exhibition are signed by the curator, writer Luísa Costa Gomes, and art historian Pedro Arrifano.
"Mise en Place," the title of the exhibition, comes from "mettre en place," which means "to organize," "to arrange in order," "to prepare." For Margarida Gil, this is the predominant act that precedes mise en scène, commonly used in cinema because it puts in place all the elements that, endowed with movement, will interact to compose a scene.
In the mise-en-place presented at the Exhibition Gallery of the Citadel Palace of Cascais, the artist seems to want to bring order to disorder, not without recognizing the irony in announcing the preparation for everything to take its place when the environment is one of constant change. In the words of curator André Almeida e Sousa, "the supposed order implies several people, several sensibilities, relating and reverberating with each other like sculptures. Mise en Place asserts the difficulty of a plan for the reunion with the fundamental place – the place of the human."
The shapes and colors of Margarida Gil's ceramics gathered in this exhibition evoke motifs such as water, mountains, minerals, the earth's and beings' entrails, corals, and birds, but they are also imbued with mystery, almost alchemical, touching on mythology and fables. The ordering she guides us through is a journey full of puzzles but also humor, which for the artist is an antidote. In a ceramic piece representing a smiling bird, the visitor will recognize a political figure familiar to all, for example.
Margarida Gil has been sculpting since her youth, first encouraged by a former philosophy teacher who introduced her to this art. And what she does is indeed sculptures, not merely functional ceramic pieces, which is the most common use of clay. "I detest the frivolity with which ceramics are often treated; I have never had any tolerance for amateurism in Art; but for me, this is sculpture, and I think if life had been different, I would have pursued Sculpture. It is an activity absolutely natural for me."
Maria Margarida Gil Lopes was born in Covilhã in 1950. She graduated in German Philology from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. She is an Invited Assistant at FCSH of Nova University. Since the 1970s, she has been dedicated to filmmaking and television production. More recently, her film "Mãos no Fogo" was the only Portuguese film competing at the 2024 Berlin Festival. In addition to filmmaking, she dedicates herself to the visual arts, having studied engraving, drawing, painting, and ceramics at Ar.Co in Lisbon.H
Learn more on the website of the Dom Luís I Foundation: HERE
More information: +351 214 815 660 | geral@fdl.pt
Organization: Câmara Municipal de Cascais | Fundação D. Luís I | Bairro dos Museus