galeria Antiks Design There is an artistic quality to the air in the streets around the Antiks Design gallery. The area is home to the Cinemateca, the National Fine Arts Society, the Casa-Museu Fundação Medeiros de Almeida as well as more ‘experimental’ art houses, such as Liberdade 211 and Kunsthalle Lissabon. It is a privileged location for a renowned gallery that has taken us on an emotional journey through the world of modern and contemporary Portuguese art for most of the last 20 years.
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t all began with the private collection of António Júlio Santos Almeida and his wife Maria Amélia in São Paulo. It was the latter, the current owner and gallerist, with one of her daughters, Zambeze Almeida, a conceptual/contemporary art jeweller, who had the idea for the Antiks Design gallery. The exhibitions they organised rapidly became known as “temporary museums”. This large exhibition space was conceived to safeguard and extend the family collection, a place where both gallerists, women with lots of personality and keen sensibilities, can let their personal identities shine through, not only as regards the artists and works chosen, but also in terms of the passion with which they study the history behind each work. “The gallery has always been about having only the best works by artists from the various periods of Portuguese art; it is not just about names,” says Zambeze Almeida as she points to paintings by Paula Rego and others. She adds: “Art, especially nowadays, is a very good investment if you know what to look for, and that is our speciality. There are also some more contemporary artworks that we suggest to clients.” 18 · con vida liberdade
Prestigioius names from various eras hang sideby-side on the walls of this eclectic gallery, tempting both the art collector and the investor. The list of Naturalists includes artists such as José Malhoa, Sousa Pinto, Silva Porto and Carlos Reis; the range of Modernists covers Eduardo Viana, Mário Eloy, Almada Negreiros, Amadeu de Souza Cardoso, Vieira da Silva/Arpad Szenes, the KWY Lourdes Castro group, René Bertholo, Escada, “OP” Eduardo Nery and Nadir Afonso, followed by more contemporary artists such as Paula Rego, Júlio Pomar, Niizuma, Julião Sarmento, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Pedro Calapez, as well as those represented by the gallery: Uwe Lindau, Axel Heil, Carlos Henrich, Nelson Cardoso and Shintaro Nakaoka. After a tour of the collection, what you begin to realise is that the relationship the gallerists have with each artwork is such that, besides the actual aspect of selling them, their major concern is to safeguard their future by ensuring their acquisition by reputable collections and art lovers. The gallery’s most recent exhibition, “Confrontations”, by the curator Rajele Jain, neatly encapsulates the spirit and philosophy. The combination of artworks from different eras and the unexpected relationships established between renowned pieces demonstrate an openness and irreverence but above all a deep-seated knowledge of the artists and their work, something that can only stem from a higly developed sensibility and artworks of the finest quality.•
Rua Mouzinho da Silveira, 2 Tel. 21 314 1279 · www.antiksdesign.com segunda a sábado / monday to saturday 11h00-20h00 · por marcação/by appointment 93 644 3673 · 93 301 0565