The work of Hein Semke came home in June 2015, with a donation of part of its collection to the Museum of Portimão, and now, almost a year later, it shows itself for the first time, in an unprecedented exhibition.
The exhibition “Todos Somos Peixes”, by Hein Semke, opens on Saturday, May 21st, at 17 pm, bringing together a set of works by the German sculptor, born in Hamburg, living in Portugal since 00.
In 2015, twenty years after the death of Hein Semke, Teresa Balté, his wife, made three important donations from the artist's estate, one to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the others to the Tile Museum and the Museum of Portimão, which received a set of 359 works with a maritime theme, covering sculpture, ceramics, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, some of his working tools, as well as some publications and catalogues. This is what, after being investigated by the Portimonense Museum team, will now be shown in this exhibition.
José Gameiro, scientific director of the Portimão Museum, explained to Sul Informação that this exhibition has «everything to do with this year's theme of the International Day of Museums, which is “Museums and Cultural Landscapes”. Hein Semke's work, linked to the themes of the sea and fish, has to do with our cultural landscape».
Semke was passionate about Praia da Rocha, since 1969, when he started to frequent the beach resort. This happened more than 30 years after he left his native Germany, in the 30s of Hitler's heyday, exchanging it for Portugal, where his art, his way of being and his anarchist connections also did not win him friendships between those of the regime.
Last year, when donating, the Sul Informação he spoke with the artist's widow, the Portuguese poet Teresa Balté, who recounted that «from the spring of 1969, and at least until 1990, Hein Semke regularly spent one or more times a year in the apartment that my parents, the doctor António H. Balté and teacher Teresa Balté had them in the Miramar Building, in Praia da Rocha».
“Sometimes I took paper, brushes and watercolors and made small sketches, some of which, from the summer of 1969, I donated to the Museum of Portimão,” he added.
«Of his 34 artist books, the books “Fische – ja – Fische” (“The Little Book of Fishes”) and “Fische und Fische” (“Pisces and Fishes”), both from the summer of 1969, were perhaps inspired by recent stay in Praia da Rocha, naturally associated with the memory of previous seasons spent in Berlengas and Portinho da Arrábida, where he camped for long periods, and also in Salema, Mil Fontes and Porto Covo – always diving, observing the fauna and flora and associating with the activity of fishermen», said Teresa Balté.
It is all this wonderful world that will now be made known to the Algarve public, while in Lisbon, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Center for Modern Art, there is another exhibition, more biographical and retrospective, by the artist.
On a recent visit made by Grupos dos Amigos do Museu de Portimão to this exhibition in the capital, José Gameiro drew attention to a curiosity: that some of Hein Semke's works exhibited at the Gulbenkian are engravings made from the matrices that are now in the collection of the Museum of Portimão. That is, the copies are in Lisbon, the original in the Algarve.
But the opening of the Hein Semke exhibition is just a small part of everything that the Portimão Museum has organized to mark its 8th anniversary and also the International Day of Museums.
So, also for Saturday, May 21st, it is scheduled the 16th Photographic Race of Portimão. From 9:00 am to 20:00 pm, in a real marathon to collect images all over the county, the competitors in the Photographic Race will pass through the different checkpoints where they will receive an indication of the subjects to be photographed. Through its objectives, a renewed and updated look at the municipality's territory, the people, activities, experiences and aspects of cultural and natural heritage is expected.
From 10:00 am, at the Interpretation Center for Megalithic Monuments in Alcalar, an experimental archeology session will be held. After, from, in a workshop that took place a few weeks ago, the artist Sara Navarro and some aspiring artists have shaped ceramic pieces, made with prehistoric techniques, now it will be time to cook them over an open fire using the ancient technique of soenga.
In the same fire, Sara Navarro will also cook the collection of ceramic reproductions made from the originals discovered in Alcalar and used in the conservation, preparation and consumption of food in the Portuguese Chalcolithic, around 5000 years ago.
On Saturday, the anniversary of the Portimão Museum, the program for the youngest has its space and, from 16:00 pm to 17:00 pm, the “Maria Conserveiras” will be at the Educational Workshop to tell their stories about the factory and teach the participants from workshops to building very special cans.
The anniversary program ends at 18:30 pm, with a canned food tasting promoted by Docapesca.
The truth is that the Museum's anniversary celebrations even start a few days earlier, on Tuesday, May 17th. On that day, a table with 12 diners will be placed at the entrance of the Museum, prepared for the party.
It will not be the 12 apostles, but the 12 characters in the history of Portimão, from the prehistoric period of Alcalar (the Companion Neanderthal Man, for now, stay out…), through the Arab, the Roman, to Manuel Teixeira Gomes. It is about a dozen puppets made by the Museum team, «a different and fun way to celebrate the anniversary». O Sul Informação followed the finishing touches given to the costumes of the characters and guarantees that it will be a very well composed table.
“The idea is that, in addition to the workshops that will be held on Saturday, this birthday table will also be a motivation for families and for the youngest”, said José Gameiro.
International Museum Day, marked on May 18, with the theme “Museums and Cultural Landscapes”, is also part of the 8th anniversary celebrations. On that day, the Portimão Museum has free entry.
At 18 pm, in the Museum's Auditorium, “Canção da Rocha”, composed for the 00st Algarve Regional Congress in 1, will be heard, 1915 years later, by the voices of the choir of the Group of Schools Engº Nuno Mergulhão.
This is followed by the presentation of the books by Carlos Osório «Fonseca Dias – Vila Nova de Portimão Photographer» and «Francisco Oliveira – A Portimão Photographer», by Professor Maria João Raminhos Duarte.
«Given that the theme of the International Day of Museums this year is precisely “Museums and Cultural Landscapes”, and that one of the components of cultural landscapes and their transformation is documented by photography, these two books fit perfectly into ours. programming», José Gameiro explained to the Sul Informação. All the more so because the estate of Francisco Oliveira, which should be present at the launch of the book, was donated by the 97-year-old photographer to the Museu de Portimão, which preserves it and has already dedicated an exhibition to it.
“All this is part of our identity – and the commemorations of the 8th anniversary of the Museum, with all these different facets, end up forming a mosaic”, concluded the scientific director.
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