ISTANBUL.- Pera Museum now hosts the works of a unique artist who redefined figurative art. The exhibition Paula Rego: The Story of Stories introduces art enthusiasts in Istanbul to Rego's paintings with an unprecedented selection. Rego, who passed away at the age of 87 last June, held her last exhibition as part of a retrospective at Tate Britain showcasing her works from all the phases of her artistic practice. The works of Paula Rego, who was born in Portugal, studied art in London, and made a name for herself among the most significant European artists, were also featured in this year's Venice Biennale.
Immediately following the Tate Britain retrospective and the Venice Biennale, the works of Paula Rego now await their visitors at the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum in Istanbul. Curating paintings that blend innocence and experience with elusive messages and narratives, the exhibition entitled Paula Rego: The Story of Stories welcomes its audience to a magical space. Curated by Alistair Hicks, the exhibition includes the artist's oil, pastel, charcoal and acrylic paintings and installations. Offering a selection of Rego's early works from the 1960s that focus on both personal and social struggle, her large-scale paintings depicting single figures she created in the 1990s with striking narratives, and works consisting of layered scenes she produced after 2000, the exhibition will run until April 30, 2023.
A revolutionary with unlimited imagination
The exhibition’s title is an inspiration from the name of a museum in Cascais that is located along the coasts of Lisbon and that is home to Rego’s works: “House of Stories". Curator of the exhibition Alistair Hicks says, “Rego herself is a little house of stories,” and adds: “Rego's story begins with a girl born in a fascist state run by men. As a young woman, she was educated in the most arrogant and traditional art school in Britain. At an early age, she learned about authority and the pleasure of toppling it within the confines of her own world.”
An uncompromising Portuguese artist with an extraordinary imagination, Paula Rego revolutionized the way women were represented with her works, most of which highlight her personal nature, the socio-political context she feeds on and various themes such as oppression, authority and institutional violence.
Curator Alistair Hicks recalls a critic describing the artist’s first exhibition in Galeria de Arte Moderna in Lisbon as “animalistic, wicked, and amazingly shocking” and says, “Rego's work captures the repulsive relationship between sexuality and power with pinpoint accuracy.”
When Paula Rego was born, Portugal was ruled by dictator Salazar. This did not change for the 35 years of Rego’s life, and it had a significant impact on Rego and her Republican family. In one of her interviews, Rego said, “My favorite themes are power games and hierarchies” and added: I always want to turn things on their heads, to upset the established order, to change heroines and idiots. If the story is ‘given’, I take liberties with it to make it conform to my own experiences, and to be outrageous. At the same time as loving the stories I want to undermine them, like wanting to harm the person you love”
Alistair Hicks highlights the importance of Rego's reintroducing stories into the mainstream of art, interpreting it as "a pivotal feminist contribution”: “In 1952 when she was the youngest student at the Slade, Rego was only allowed to depict stories that were strictly forbidden by school rules, because her teachers thought that she was a 'stupid girl' and that only male students would produce serious work.”
This approach is a reflection of the prejudice against women in the world of arts and women in general. In most cultures in the early age, women were considered to be guardians of stories. It was their duty to pass stories down, and women's stories had long been dismissed as "gossip." Hicks says, “Banning stories was just one of the many ways men tried to prevent gender-equal artistic competition. Every story told and retold helps to prove how rich the world is when we deviate from the preordained paths. Rego may have been ordered to ‘Sit down!’ But nothing could control Rego's mind and the pen that followed it’s command.”
Since her childhood, Paula had grown with the stories told to her by the women around her, especially her grandmother and her aunt. As the exhibition curator Alistair Hicks puts it, she was fed by a sea of stories, and stories poured out from her paintings.
Hicks describes the atmosphere prevalent at Slade, University College London's art school, at the time Paula Rego enrolled as a young student at the age of 17. “The fifties had a complicated relationship with stories, as there was a shift from the doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’, from art’s obsession with absolute beauty, towards the ‘aesthetics of meaning’. Stories have long been a useful tool for depicting meaning. Francis Bacon saw it too, but due to the bigotry of his time, sought the greater magnificence of Greek myth. Rego reasserted the painting’s role of deception and narration, making an important contribution to feminism.”
Although Paula Rego described herself as a “kind of an old-fashioned feminist,” Alistair Hicks disagrees: “She was a modern, open-minded feminist with an endless supply of startling, conflicting stories. She opened up in the 1980s and learned to use her own weaknesses, fantasies, and frustrations. She walked on a path that took her to face depression and abortion.”
In the early 2000s, a series of paintings by Rego dealing with the issue of abortion was associated with the Portuguese referendum to legalize abortion. The paintings were used effectively in the campaign, which eventually led to the amendment of the law. The then-president of Portugal described the impact of Rego’s paintings on the result: “It was a great way of showing that we cannot keep this kind of thing.”
Supported by the British Consulate General in Istanbul, British Council, Embassy of Portugal in Ankara and the Camões Institute, the exhibition includes a selection from Rego's family and personal collections, as well as important art institutions like the British Council Arts Collection, Gulbenkian Foundation Collection, Casa Das Historias Collection, Ostrich Arts Ltd, Victoria Miro Gallery Collection and Leeds City Art Gallery.
Featuring an exhibition and catalogue design by PATTU, the Paula Rego: The Story of Stories exhibition will be on display at the fourth and fifth floor exhibition halls of the Pera Museum until April 30, 2023.
