Review Paula Rego at Museum Folkwang | Berlin Art Link
Briefly

Paula Rego's 'Love' (1995) portrays a lone woman's ambiguous expression against a garnet backdrop, suggesting a depth of vulnerability and tension. The retrospective at Museum Folkwang showcases Rego's enduring ability to intertwine personal and political narratives, highlighting intimate stories of love and cruelty. Her work features a non-linear layout, allowing early sketches and monumental pastels to converse over time. Throughout her career, Rego has persistently addressed the legacy of Salazar's dictatorship, revealing how deeply ingrained societal narratives influence individual experiences.
Paula Rego's 'Love' (1995) stages a lone woman in ambiguous repose on a backdrop of velvety garnet. Fabric spills outward in all directions, appearing endless, as if reaching toward the edges of an empty world.
Paula Rego's greatest gift as an artist and storyteller may lie in her ability to reveal how the grandest political truths often reside in the smallest, most intimate stories of love and cruelty.
The retrospective in Essen resists a linear chronology, opting instead for a labyrinthine layout where early sketches, etchings and monumental pastels coexist and enter into diachronic conversations.
For nearly six decades, and from her earliest works onward, the artist has returned insistently to the legacy of António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship and its deeply ingrained chauvinistic rhetoric.
Read at Berlin Art Link
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