The long-term exhibition highlights Portuguese design in dialogue with foreign pieces, spanning the years 1900 to 2020, and its title takes the form of a question posed to visitors: What are things for?.
“This exhibition reinterprets the history of design and its heritage, seeking to create dialogues over time, through 19 exhibition centers, to understand how objects transformed or reflected their time, contributing to futures that, at that time, were perspective ”, he explained this Wednesday. the director of MUDE, Bárbara Coutinho, visiting journalists.
In total, there are 500 pieces that cover the diversity of the museum’s collection, almost half of which have never been publicly exhibited, including pieces of product design, fashion and graphic design, scenic materials and contemporary jewelry, by authors from different generations and origins. .
Among the unpublished works is the illustrated collection in eight volumes by Bordalo Pinheiro “Paródia Comédia Portuguesa”, from the beginning of the 20th century, and the wooden carousel from the 1950s that was found inside the old Loja da Rampa, in Lisbon, “an example of rescue, restoration and preservation” carried out four years ago, according to Bárbara Coutinho.
This iconic piece by architect Francisco da Conceição Silva was donated to the museum in 2020, “and defined the spatiality of the upper floor of the store, visible from the street through the large window,” he recalled, about the large carousel considered part of the historical heritage. and cultural of Lisbon.
For Bárbara Coutinho, the title of the new long-term exhibition – with five hundred pieces extracted from the 17 thousand pieces of the MUDE collection that will be renewed in the next two years – also aims to question society about “the need for economic decline.” ”. “It should be discussed further.”
Against works, deadlines and controversies, the historic building wants to be the protagonist of the reopening of the MUDE
To set an example of “fighting waste and reducing costs,” the director challenged a team of designers from Coletivo Warehouse to reuse materials from old exhibitions or that were considered waste during the remodeling of the building, and with them the bases and supports were created. for himself. the pieces in this new exhibition: “It is one of the most economical exhibitions to date,” he highlighted during the visit.
Asked by journalists about the reason for the name change from Museu do Design e da Moda to Museu do Design, Bárbara Coutinho explained that the previous name “had to do with the reality of that moment.”
“It does not mean that fashion has lost importance in the museum as an area of work, but it is, at the end of the day, just another discipline of design, among all the others,” he said, pointing out that the proposal to change the name came from the direction, and the decision was made by the Lisbon City Council, which oversees the museum.
According to its manager, since its reopening in July of this year, the MUDE has received 36,293 visits to date.
Other new pieces that visitors will be able to see in What are things for? They are a modernist wooden display, created by Vitor Palla and Bento de Almeida (1956) for a hairdresser in Chiado, bedroom furniture by the Portuguese painter Maria Keil (1914-2012) and a dozen hats selected from the collection from which one hundred are preserved. from MUDE, from various collectors, including stage props from the former Teatro da Cornucópia.
Foreign design is represented, among others, a mirror with a wrought iron frame by Gilbert Pillerat (1948), the reissue of fabric pieces by the professors of the German avant-garde art school Bauhaus, Gunta Stultzl and Otti Berger, and dozens of pieces. fashion, furniture and photography.
According to the director of MUDE – which was closed for eight years, maintaining its activity “in the open air” –, unlike previous long-term exhibitions, “design culture in Portugal takes on greater prominence, to contribute to its real knowledge , to debate and development.”
Bárbara Coutinho also highlighted that the exhibition centers, the chronological organization and the selected pieces constitute a whole created to “launch reflection on the various dimensions that things have today”, from the meaning of design ideas and their materialization, the meanings that they have acquired or lost over time, or the purpose of collecting.
In addition to the chronological/thematic sections, the exhibition presents a section specifically dedicated to design as a project discipline, based on the recent incorporation of personal archives of designers to the MUDE collection, highlighting four works by Carlos Galamba, José Brandão, Maria Gambina and Cristina Reyes.
In this core, the intersections of design with music, theater and cinema are also highlighted, added the museum director.
The person in charge also indicated that the book is in the final phase MUDE Collection — Various design expressionsin co-edition with Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, on the entire collection of the museum located in the former headquarters of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, in Baixa Pombalina, remodeled with new features, such as the specialized library.
Work on the building was interrupted from 2018 to May 2021, due to the insolvency of the construction company, which forced a review of the entire project and the opening of a new international public tender in May 2021.
Dedicated to all expressions of design, which are reflected in its collection, MUDE currently has almost 17,000 pieces and, of them, 1,362 are included in the Francisco Capelo Collection, acquired from the collector by the municipality of Lisbon in 2002.
Inaugurated in 2009, MUDE received, until the closing date of the headquarters building, almost two million visitors, in almost 60 exhibitions and around 170 events related to its collection.
The inauguration of the exhibition “What are things for?” It is scheduled for Thursday, at 7:00 p.m., and the opening to the public for Friday.
What are things for? You will have free entry until November 3.
Source: Observadora
