Exhibition: COSMO/POLITICS #6: Cosmos Library
Artists: Elisa Pône, Filipe Pinto, Francisco Pinheiro, João Fonte Santa, Marta Leite, Nuno Barroso and Sofia Gonçalves
Museum of Neorealism
Dates: 2020-07-27 – 2021-01-31
Curatorship: Sandra Vieira Jürgens and Paula Loura Batista
The sixth and last exhibition of the COSMO/POLITICS cycle focuses on the COSMOS Library book collection, an initiative of Bento de Jesus Caraça that inspired this curatorial project. In collaboration with Manuel Rodrigues de Oliveira, founding partner of Edições Cosmos, Bento de Jesus Caraça created this book collection with an emancipatory cultural purpose that played a decisive role in the generalised dissemination of information concerning various areas of knowledge in Portugal, in the first half of the 20th century.
Created in 1941, right in the midst of World War II, the COSMOS Library aimed at building a free mindset and society during the period known as 'Estado Novo' (literally, New State), fostering interest in a set of themes that were neglected or rejected by the regime, investing in the expansion of intellectual and scientific culture among citizens, and promoting a set of initiatives for the democratisation of knowledge, following the path opened by free and popular universities.
Taking as starting point the editorial collection of the Cosmos Library, which is part of the Neorealist heritage, we invited seven creators who work in various artistic areas to design original works based on this collection, which is preserved in the Museum of Neorealism.
Elisa Pône, Filipe Pinto, Francisco Pinheiro, João Fonte Santa, Marta Leite, Nuno Barroso and Sofia Gonçalves were challenged to reflect on the series and on the fields of knowledge represented in this collection: 1.º Sciences and Technologies; 2.º Arts and Humanities; 3.º Philosophy and Religion; 4.º Peoples and Civilisation; 5.º Biographies; 6.º Human Sagas; 7.º Problems of Our Times. In line with the research and lines of work of each invited creator, the exhibition presents artistic projects developed in a free, non-literal way, taking into account the areas and the 106 titles that compose this thematic cosmos. Only in this way, with freedom and creativity, could we pay tribute to this foundational collective gesture, which, in the breath and ambition of its purposes, remains alive and relevant to Portuguese culture to this day.
