Manuel Casimiro

Painter, sculptor, photographer, designer, and film director Manuel Casimiro was born in Oporto (Portugal) in 1941. He went to France in 1976 for two years thanks to a scholarship of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, with the idea of making research on visual arts.

Casimiro ended up staying out of Portugal for eighteen years, except for short returns from time to time to his native country.

Manuel Casimiro is the son of film director Manoel de Oliveira.^{[citation needed]}

Works

Manuel Casimiro has always given priority to investigation in the developing of his work, a mental thing, (la cosa mentale) instead of the careerism, the tactic and the strategies of the market. In 2004, for an exhibition of his own, called Chocolate, he wrote a critical review of the system around art. This text also includes a number of the author's reflections on his work and images of his varied and abundant creation, gathered into a monographic book entitled Neither Antique, Nor Modern, published by Ed. Gemeos in 2005.^[1]

In 1978, he lived in New York where he received a warm welcome. That same year, Artists’ Postcards chose one of his intervention works, Oedipe Explaining the Enigma, to be part of a postcards’ collection to be published in 1979, along with artists such as Robert Motherwell, Douanne Michaelis or David Hockney. The originals of the invited artists were exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. This show was exhibited from New York to Tokyo, London, Paris and Berlin.

In 1978, he was offered a contract by an important art gallery in New York,^[2] which meant financial stability and a promising career. But Manuel Casimiro chose liberty, adventure, and travels instead. The selling of his works while he was in New York enabled him to travel to North Europe countries and spend some time in Italy, in particular in Venice, where he got to meet and photograph Peggy Guggenheim in her foundation a few months before she died in 1979.

He represented France in many international events : in 1980 in Germany, in Berlin at the D.A.A.D.,^[3] for the exhibition Nice in Berlin, and in 1981 in Sao Paulo, Brazil in an exhibition related to the Biennial, organized by the Museum of Modern Art of the Sao Paulo University. In both cases, catalogues were published.

In Nice, in 1986, Casimiro joined an exhibition made of individual shows Peindre Photographier where names such as Christian Boltanski, Louis James, Annette Messager, Robert Rauschenberg were seen at his side. To each artist was devoted a space he/she had previously chosen, and a catalogue was available to the public, either concerning one artist or in a common box containing all five catalogues. Casimiro chose the Jules Chéret Museum for, beyond his exhibition entitled The Nightmare (Le Cauchemar), he did two interventions on two large Orientalist paintings that were part of the museum collection. On both paintings, one being by Cabanel, the artist intervened on them by using erasable paint, which created a great scandal. Every day, the artist had curious and intense debates with numerous visitors who came eagerly: those debates triggered deep questioning regarding art in general. The number of visits rose, which led the museum director to extend the duration of the exhibition.

In 2002, he was invited by the University of Salamanca – CFUS, to open the Salamanca European Capital of the Culture 2002, with two exhibitions : Bridges and The Imaginary Museum. The University of Salamanca published a monograpyh about the author in Catalan language.^[4]

In 2000, The pt:Galego Center of Contemporary Art (GCCA) of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, bought a number of his serigraphies, based on photographs, dated from 1972 and entitled City. These pictures embody the memory of the existence of an object, which has since disappeared and which had never been exhibited during its short life, because it had been systematically refused by institutions and galleries. Since 2000, the GCCA has exhibited them in various events, either inside or outside the museum itself. The images of this work are published in different books and catalogues.^[5][6] At the 2003 exhibition organised by the GCCA and entitled Playing with scale, these works, created 34 years before, showed how much they had resisted time, as they came side by side with works created by very young artists. More recently, in 2007, a group of nine of these serigraphies, which were part of the pt:Berardo Museum Collection, could be seen at the opening of this new museum in the Belem Cutural Center, in Lisbon. From December 2008 to February 2009, this Museum dedicated an individual show Caprices to Manuel Casimiro. On this occasion, a book was edited with famous writer Michel Butor and Manuel Casimiro’s texts.^[7]

In June 2006, the city of Bari, Italy, invited Manuel Casimiro to exhibit The Ghosts of King Sebastian, a collection of works about the Portuguese myths, which were shown in 1988 in the National Museum Soares dos Reis, in Oporto.

Manuel Casimiro participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in galleries or museums in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Brazil, U.S.A and Japan. His works are present in private and public collections as well as in museums of various countries.

Jean-Hubert Martin organized his first retrospective at the Serralves Foundation in Oporto in 1996/1997. Serralves published a voluminous catalogue with more than two dozens of pertinent analysis texts over the work of this artist.^[8]

The entire body of the artist’s writings about his original and independent work- where a strong and very personal imaginary world of universal tenor is reflected- is extent and rich of abundant concepts and ideas of an open work of art which does not let itself be reduced to any figure. Names such as Jean-François Lyotard, Vincent Descombes, Giulio Giorello, pt:José Régio, Michel Butor, Jean-Noel Vuarnet, Raphael Monticelli, José Lués Molinuevo, Pierre Restany, José Augusto França, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Eduardo Lourenço, Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, pt:João Fernandes, appear in it.

See also

Bibliography

• Caprichos, Michel Butor [1] (2008) ISBN 978-972-8955878
• Manuel Casimiro, Fátima Lambert (2006) ISBN 972-2117122
• Nem antigo nem moderno (2005) Dep. Legal 229419/05
• Pontes. Manuel Casimiro (2001) ISBN 972-8451210
• Manuel Casimiro (1998) ISBN 972-9402558
• O Jardim Pintado. Três Montanhas e Cinco Montes (1996) [2]
• Manuel Casimiro, José Augusto França (1996)
• Manuel Casimiro. Retrospectiva 1964-1996 (1996)

External links

• Manuel Casimiro : works

References

1. ^ Nem antigo nem moderno / Manuel Casimiro. - Porto : Gémeo, 2005
2. ^ Galerie OK Harris
3. ^ Deutsch Akademischer Austausch Dienst
4. ^ Pontes : Manuel Casimiro, University of Salamanca ISBN 978-847-8008284 ISBN 978-847-8008285
5. ^ A arañeira. 100 artistas da colección CGAC, collection Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela 2004
6. ^ Playing with scale, collection Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela 2003
7. ^ Caprichos, Michel Butor, 2008 ISBN 978-972-8955878
8. ^ Manuel Casimiro Restrospectiva 1964-1996, Fondation Serralves, 1996

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Name	Casimiro, Manuel
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Date of birth	1941
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