HELENA ALMEIDA, AN ARTIST WHO LIVES IN OUR MEMOIRS
Plastic artist and photographer, with 84 years and an ongoing exhibition at Helga de Alvear Art Gallery (Spain), Helena Almeida died this morning at her home in Sintra, Portugal. With an important number of works, the Portuguese artist was one of the most outstanding figures in European contemporary art.
Originally from Lisbon, Helena Almeida was born in 1934. Daughter of the renowned sculptor Leopoldo Almeida, the prolific artist manifested her art from photography, performance and drawing, among many other disciplines. Best known for her self-portraits -which, by the way, she did not define as photographs-, Almeida had recently inaugurated the exhibition Dentro de mim at Helga de Alvear Art Gallery.
Also, tomorrow (September 27), at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum (Madrid), the Coca Cola Contemporary Art Collection presents the collective exhibition Descubriendo un diálogo en el tiempo, which includes works by the recently deceased. This not only speaks of the importance of his work and presence in the contemporary art scene, but also, at the same time, it is a metaphor for his future: a character that already lives in memory.
A pioneer of feminism and preformmatic art, Almeida was characterized as one of the first artists to use her own body as an artistic object, mainly accusing the social stigmas imposed on the female body. Without a doubt, his death means a loss to the international art scene.
With a legacy of more than a hundred pieces, Helena Almeida now becomes established among the great names in the history of modern and contemporary art, reaching, in this way, the destiny of those who transcend and inhabit the memory of humanity.
