Contemporary colonial painting: From the Solitude of the Metropole to a Horizon of Possibilities

The purpose of this book is to study the relation between Portuguese colonial art, especially painting, and political power in the contemporary context. The subtlety of suggestions and the complexity of relations that stem from the power of art and the art of power mean that the history of colonial art’s journey is not a univocal narrative but a series of heterogeneous and inter-relational products that emerged in multifarious ways from the metropole and also the overseas possessions. Hence Pintura Colonial Contemporânea [Contemporary Colonial Painting] sets out Da Solidão da Metrópole a um Horizonte de Possibilidades [From the Solitude of the Metropole to a Horizon of Possibilities] in the context of the colonial coming-and-going within a hybrid genealogy formed and developed in antonymic mirrors in which art and travel each needed the other in order to define themselves.