Ernesto de Sousa

Biography

Ernesto de Sousa (Lisbon, April 18, 1921 – October 6, 1988) was one of the most complex and active figures of his time, a prolific multidisciplinary artist and an avid producer of synergies between generations of artists from both the first and the second half of the 20th century. Defending an experimental and free artistic expression, he dedicated himself to the study, promotion and practice of the arts, as well as to curatorship, critique and essay writing, photography, cinema and theater. During the 1960s he got in touch with the Fluxus movement and with the European neo-avant-garde, becoming friends with Robert Filliou and Wolf Vostell. This contact was significant to his recast of art as an experimental and participatory "open work", of which are examples the theatrical exercise Nós Não Estamos Algures (1969), the expanded film Almada, Um Nome de Guerra (1969-1972) and the mixed media Luíz Vaz 73, all collaborative pieces authored by him. During this decade and up until the 1980s, he organized courses, conferences and exhibitions on experimental film, video art, performance and happening, while promoting connections between the international neo-avant-garde and the Portuguese context. Ernesto de Sousa anticipated the Carnation Revolution (April 25th, 1974) and countered Portugal's peripheral position in Europe when he proposed to celebrate Robert Filliou's Anniversary of Art (Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra, 1974). The exhibition "Alternativa Zero" (Galeria Nacional de Arte Moderna, Lisbon, 1977) synthesized his project of creating a Portuguese avant-garde in aesthetic and ideologic dialogue with its international counterparts.