'Once we were heroes'

Today at 6:00 pm opens an exhibition by Catarina Vaz and Maria Salgado at Cascais Cultural Centre, in Portugal, you will want to see it, trust us.

www.catarinavaz.com

www.mariasalgado.tumblr.com

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) was a British photographer, whose subjects were the celebrities of the victorian era. She began photographing in a later age. Photography was her way of contacting writers, intellectuals, artists or scientists. Julia Cameron copyrighted, exhibited, and published her photographs and within some months, of starting, she sold prints to Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Some of her portraits are the only existing record of some historical figures. These records include personalities as John Everett Millais, Charles Darwin or Ellen Terry. One of the unusual characteristics of these portraits, for that time was the close crop around the subject's faces that are sometimes out of focus. The subjects appear with soft contours and is their look what gains the most intensity. 

Another part of her work are photographic illustrations that were often influenced from oil paintings or had as reference historical texts or Arthurian legends.

Margaret Cameron never built a commercial studio, also, she never made commissioned portraits. As she wrote:"I believe in other than mere conventional topographic photography—map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form."

"My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty."

Julia Margaret Cameron

Helmut Newton Retrospective

Helmut Newton's (Berlin, 1920 - 2004) images, made public on Vogue's pages, were provocative, sometimes shocking, through erotism, humour, violence, in order to reveal the world he lived in: money, luxury, fashion, power. His work builds a notion of liberty in a new and unique vision of the female body and the female herself, a modern, powerful, rich and sexually revolutionary woman.

At the Grand Palais you can now see a retrospective of the amazing photographer until 17 July.

Cindy Sherman retrospective

Cindy Sherman (USA, 1954) has been one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. Her work relies on the construction of identities and the nature of representation, strongly inspired by movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history. The major carachteristic of her work is that she develops these identitary images with her own figure, giving us a whole range of emotions through it, allowing the construction of an analisys of the woman's role in society, as well, although she does not consider her work as feminist.
"To create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite." (moma.org)
Right now you can see a great retrospective of her at the MoMA in NY, if you are there. If not, you can check it's wonderful website here.
If you're in Portugal you can see some of her works including the Untitled Film Stills, 1977–1980, with which Cindy Sherman achieved international recognition, in both the Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon and the Ellipse Foundation in Cascais.

If you are a portuguese reader and seek more information you should read this interview by Carlos Vidal.

We leave you some images in chronological order.

Untitled Film Stills, 1977–1980:

Untitled #85, 1981:

Untitled #89, 1981:

Untitled #132, 1984:

Untitled #183,1988:

Untitled #199, 1989:

Untitled #211,1989:

Untitled #228,1990:

Untitled #355, 2000:

Untitled #397, 2000:

Untitled #458, 2007:

Untitled, 2010:

Untitled #512, 2011: