This publication documents artist Leonor Antunes's installation at Lisbon's CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian.
The newest installation by Portuguese contemporary artist Leonor Antunes is a large, crossable "floor sculpture" commissioned for the opening of CAM Lisbon's Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian.
CAM's building—designed by Sir Leslie Martin with his collaborators and opened to the public in 1983, has undergone a major renovation by Kengo Kuma & Associates, and opened to the public in September this year. Speaking to the history of the building, Antunes's installation began with an investigation into the almost unknown career and work of British architect, designer, and writer Sadie Speight (1906–96), a central figure of the Modernist movement in the United Kingdom, whose participation in the design of CAM's original building was entirely overlooked.
Focused on Antunes's installation and research into Speight's body of work, this book brings a new critical reading of Antunes's work, anchored on feminist theories and art history narratives. With texts by the exhibition curator Rita Fabiana, and by the authors Connie Butler, Julia Bryan-Wilson and Taisa Palhares. The book also includes work by Portuguese women artists from CAM's collection, including Helena Almeida, Ana Hatherly, and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, curated by Antunes and exhibited at CAM alongside the artist's installation.
Born 1972 in Lisbon, Leonor Antunes lives and works in Berlin. Solo exhibitions were presented at CAPC (Bordeaux), Tensta konsthall (Stockholm), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museo Tamayo et Museo Experimental El Eco (Mexico), Pérez Art Museum (Miami), Kunsthalle Basel, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (Hamburg), Kunstverein Dusseldorf, Museu de Serralves (Porto), Museo Nacional Reina Sofia ( Madrid), Credac (Ivry-sur-Seine)... Her work has also been included in a number of international group exhibitions, including the 12th Sharjah Biennial, UAE, and the 8th Berlin Biennial, and has recently been exhibited in venues such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), CNEAI (Chatou), and MIT List Visual Arts Center (2012).
