PORTOGALLO
INTUS
Helena Almeida
Commissario: Isabel Carlos. Sede: Scoletta dei Tiraoro e Battioro, Santa Croce, 1980 (San Stae)
www.iartes.pt/bienalveneza2005


Helena Almeida represents Portugal at the 51st Venice Biennale with the exhibition Intus, curated by Isabel Carlos and organized by the Institute of the Arts of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.

The Scoletta Tiraoro e Battioro (S. Stae, next to the Grand Canal) is the venue for the exhibition of Helena Almeida’s most recent photographic series, I Am Here, and the video titled The Experience of the Place II. The work constituting the exhibition Intus – a Latin word meaning “within” – are the continuation and in-depth examination of the relationship between body and space, specifically her studio space, that the artist has been developing since the 1990s.

Helena Almeida was born in 1934 in Lisbon, where she lives and works. Her work has since the 1970s shown itself to bear an effective confluence of disciplines and attitudes. Photography, video, performance, sculpture, painting and drawing come together in an artistic practice sealed by self-representation. The uniqueness of her work characterizes her as one of the most intense contemporary artists.

The curator of the Portuguese Pavilion, Isabel Carlos, states with regard to Intus that "Helena Almeida’s recent works, perhaps unlike any previous project, possess an almost religious and sacrificial aspect, a register of animist celebration and ritual; a sort of subjective and individual promise made not at a time of difficulty or pain, but in a jubilatory moment.

The limits of the body, but also the limits and bounds of different artistic languages, are clearly present in Intus, by means of a certain amount of humor but also the artist’s complete devotion to herself and her work."

Intus is the subject of a catalog published by the Institute of the Arts and by Civilização Editora. The catalog visually documents the artworks of Helena Almeida and includes critical texts by the exhibition curator, Isabel Carlos, and by the art theorist Peggy Phelan.