Ângela Ferreira (EN)

Ângela Ferreira
Mozambique, 1958. Lives and works in Portugal

Ângela Ferreira was born in Maputo, Mozambique, grew up in South Africa, and earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town.

Ferreira’s work is concerned with the ongoing impact of colonialism and postcolonialism on contemporary society, an in-depth investigation that she materializes into a concise and resonant formalization of ideas.

She represented Portugal at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 with a continuation of her research on the mechanisms through which European modernism has attempted—often unsuccessfully—to adapt to the realities of the African continent. This project was conceived based on the history of Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale.

Architecture also serves as a starting point for her extensive research into the erasure of colonial memory and the refusal of reparations. Additionally, her sculptural, sound, and video tributes constantly reference the economic, political, and cultural history of the African continent while reclaiming the work and image of unexpected figures such as Peter Blum, Carlos Cardoso, Ingrid Jonker, Jimi Hendrix, Jorge Ben Jor, Jorge dos Santos, Diego Rivera, and Miriam Makeba.

She has held solo and group exhibitions at MAAT, Lisbon; CGAC, Santiago de Compostela; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Culturgest, Lisbon; The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona; Bildmuseet, Umeå; Museu de Serralves, Porto; Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg; DePaul Art Museum – Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museu Berardo, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon; Stroom, The Hague; Stills, Edinburgh; ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art, Cape Town; Centro de Arte Moderna / Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; SKD – Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; Museu Nacional de Arte, Maputo; Oslo Museum, Oslo; and Parasol Unit, London.

She has participated in biennials in São Paulo, Lubumbashi, Gwangju, Taipei, and Bucharest, and represented the Portuguese Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Her work is part of important international collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; MACBA, Fundación ARCO, CGAC, and Fundación la Caixa in Spain; Fundação EDP, Fundação de Serralves, Coleção António Cachola, Coleção DGARTES, Culturgest, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, and Fundação PLMJ in Portugal; FRAC Rennes, France; and Market Gallery Foundation, South Africa.

Ângela Ferreira
Klutsis goes to Algeria
2023
Aluminum, iron, color print on Dibond, plexiglass, speaker, sound 00:01:33 loop
200 x 63 x 63 cm

Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 1)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
50 x 35,5 cm

Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 2)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
35,5 x 50 cm

Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 3)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
50 x 35,5 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 1)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
50 x 35,5 cm

Ângela Ferreira
Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 2)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
35,5 x 50 cm

Ângela Ferreira
Klutsis goes to Algeria (pastel 3)
2023
Dry pastel on Fabriano paper
50 x 35,5 cm

Ângela Ferreira. 2023. Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany

Ângela Ferreira
Remining JAG (Copper Vaults)
2017
MDF, iron, and drawings
114 x 114 x 130.8 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Study for Crouch-touch-pause-engage (2)
2020
Pastel on paper
33,5 x 43,5 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Study for Crouch-touch-pause-engage (acetate) 3
2020
Pastel, acetate, and adhesive tape on paper
59 x 79 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Study for Crouch-touch-pause-engage (acetate) 4
2020
Pastel, acetate, and adhesive tape on paper
59 x 79 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Study for Crouch-touch-pause-engage (9)
2020
Pastel on paper
33,5 x 43,5 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Study for Crouch-touch-pause-engage (15)
2020
Pastel on paper
33,5 x 43,5 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Mais pesado que o céu
2021

Inquiry

Installation:

Mais pesado que o céu (sculpture): Acrylic, molded plastic, and mercerized cotton thread, 60 x 60 x 180 cm.
Mais pesado que o céu (video): Color, sound, 8’33’’
Study for Mais pesado que o céu: Eleven drawings, graphite on Fabriano paper, 21 x 29 cm; five photocopies, digital print on paper, 21 x 29 cm.

Exhibitions:
-Mais pesado que o céu, Sismógrafo, Porto, 2021
-Realistic Manifesto (Gabo’s fundamental principles of constructivist practice), NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ,
2022

Video:
ÂNGELA FERREIRA. MANIFIESTO REALISTA / REALISTIC MANIFESTO

Ângela Ferreira. Manifiesto Realista (Principios fundamentales de la práctica constructivista de Naum Gabo). 2022. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Ângela Ferreira

Realistic Manifesto (Fundamental Principles of Naum Gabo’s Constructivist Practice)

In Realistic Manifesto, Ângela Ferreira highlights the concept of recycling through a complex set of interwoven forms.

Firstly, the artist literally recycles machines, furniture, and architectural structures from her everyday life that are no longer in good condition, such as woodworking tools, household gas appliances, laboratory tables, and anti-theft bars. Secondly, the works she constructs stem from her continuous study of Russian Constructivist art and its utopian and avant-garde proposals for the creation of political art in the early 20th century—particularly Naum Gabo (1890–1977), who sought perfection in the three-dimensional study of time, space, and line. The exhibition’s title references his manifesto, co-written with Antoine Pevsner, which was read at the opening of an exhibition with Gustav Klutsis in Moscow on August 5, 1920, and distributed as a poster.

Finally, the artist repurposes her own archive, reprinting old portraits of herself in her «sculptor’s uniform,» a worker’s overall. These are portraits taken in the courtyard of the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town around 1980, in which Ângela Ferreira depicts sign language with red plexiglass circles similar to those used in the new sculptures featured in this exhibition.

This series of pieces and the themes it addresses—workers’ movements, gas supplies, geographic lines, revolutions, prisons, and freedom—emerged during the artist’s stay in Chile. A trip to Punta Arenas in the Strait of Magellan, undertaken to research the legacy of circumnavigation, coincided with the early stages of the citizen uprising that led to Chile’s new constitution—moments reflected in the film Mais Pesado que o Céu (2021).

Through various references and this new approach to abstract sculpture via assemblage, the exhibition raises questions about contemporary European geopolitics.

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto (Burglar Bar)
2022
Painted iron, plexiglass, nylon cord, and steel cable
102 x 80 x 16 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto (Gas Water Heater), 2022
2022
Iron, copper, PVC, speaker, sound
180 x 110 x 140 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira. Manifiesto Realista (Principios fundamentales de la práctica constructivista de Naum Gabo). 2022. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto (self- portrait – performance at Michaelis circa 1981), 2022
2022
C-print on Alucolic
90 x 63 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto 2 (self- portrait – performance at Michaelis circa 1981), 2022
2022
C-print on Alucolic
90 x 63 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto 3 (self- portrait – performance at Michaelis circa 1981), 2022
2022
C-print on Alucolic
90 x 63 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Realistic Manifesto (Lathe), 2022
2022
Iron, MDF, Plexiglass, Aluminum, Bakelite
170 x 156 x 104 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira. Manifiesto Realista (Principios fundamentales de la práctica constructivista de Naum Gabo). 2022. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Ângela Ferreira. A Spontaneous Tour of Some Monuments of African Architecture. Hangar, Lisboa. 2021

Ângela Ferreira. O silêncio da terra. Visualidades (pós)coloniais intercetadas pelo Arquivo Diamang. 2021. Galería do Paço da UMinho, Portugal

Ângela Ferreira. Pretérito perfecto. 2020. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Pretérito perfecto

Ângela Ferreira, Grada Kilomba, and Rogelio López Cuenca.
Curator: Bruno Leitão.

The Pretérito Perfecto exhibition seeks to create a dialogue between the present moment and its preludes in the past.

The participating artists share a common understanding of art as a critical tool for research. Ângela Ferreira, Grada Kilomba, and Rogelio López Cuenca—hailing from different countries and addressing diverse contexts—develop practices that intersect and resonate with one another, investigating and reflecting on various moments in history. Throughout their respective careers, these artists have explored themes such as colonialism, states of exception, silencing, and other deeply ingrained structural issues in our societies. With their counter-hegemonic perspectives, they continue to push the boundaries of established narratives. Their work with memory, which treats the past as a moment in constant revision, creates disruptive forms and gives way to diverse formalizations that open new possibilities for seeing and understanding the world today.

Thus, multiple temporal layers coexist in this exhibition: references to Spain’s recent past through non-fiction, the reinterpretation of foundational European cultural classics, and tributes to various figures or utopian episodes in 20th-century history in Portugal, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries.

Pretérito Perfecto is, therefore, a title laden with irony—one that problematizes our relationship with history and suggests that we depend on its critical study to shed light on past events and their consequences in the present.

— Bruno Leitão

Ângela Ferreira. Pretérito perfecto. 2020. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Ângela Ferreira
Dalaba: Sol d’Exil Conakry
2019
Digital print on paper mounted on wall
66.5 x 100 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Dalaba: Sol d’Exil Telhado
2019
Pine and corrugated zinc sheet
Variable dimensions

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira. Pretérito perfecto. 2020. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ, Madrid

Ângela Ferreira
Dalaba: Sol d’Exil 5 Posters
2019
Photocopy on paper
60 x 40 cm

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira
Talk Tower for Diego Rivera
2017
Aluminum, wood, drawings, photocopies, speaker, sound, PVC
120 x 130 x 180.3 cm

3 A4 drawings, 3 A3 drawings

Inquiry

Ângela Ferreira

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2023

Ângela Ferreira, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany

SAAL Neon, School of Arts – Catholic University of Portugal, Porto, Portugal

2022

Radio Voz da Liberdade, FRAC Art Center, Marseille, France

Realistic Manifesto (Gabo’s fundamental principles of constructivist practice), NF/Nieves Fernández, Madrid, Spain

2021

Heavier than the Sky, Sismógrafo, Porto, Portugal

Structures et gestes – Indépendance Cha Cha & #BucketSystemMustFall, Centre d’art Ygrec-Ensapc, Aubervilliers / Centre d’art de l’Abbaye de Maubuisson, Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, Paris, France

Talk Tower for Forough Farrokhzad, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden

A Spontaneous Tour of Some Monuments of African Architecture, Hangar – Center for Artistic Research, Lisbon

2020

Talk Tower for Forough Farrokhzad, Appleton Square, Lisbon

SENSO. Gallery for Lockdown Days: Mayday, 1987, with typographic intervention by João Bicker, Atelier do Corvo, Coimbra

2019

Poco a poco, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Dalaba: Sol d’Exile, Culturgest, Lisbon

Zip Zap Circus School, Festival Modell und Ruin – Bauhaus Centenary, Dessau, Germany

Dalaba: Sol d’Exile, Fidelidade Arte, Lisbon

2018

Pan African Unity Mural, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden

Pan African Unity Mural, MAAT, Lisbon

Demythologize That History and Put It to Rest, Palácio da Ajuda, Lisbon

Diamonds, Obelisk and Others, Lisbon

Permanent Contract, International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Santo Tirso

2017

Talk Tower for Ingrid Jonker, DIDAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Magical Land, Curatorship Lab, Coimbra

Zip Zap and Zumbi, DePaul Art Museum – Chicago Architecture Biennial, USA

Talk Tower for Ingrid Jonker, Appleton Square, Lisbon

South Facing, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa

2016

Boca, Centre Régional de la Photographie, Douchy-les-Mines, France

Underground Cinemas & Towering Radios, Galeria da Índia, Lisbon

Wattle and Daub, Old School, Lisbon

Re-signification, College of Arts, Coimbra

2015

A Tendency to Forget, Berardo Museum – Belém Cultural Center, Lisbon

Messy Colonialism, Wild Decolonization, MACO, Mexico City / Open Plan, SP-Arte, São Paulo

Independance Cha Cha, Galeria do Parque, Vila Nova da Barquinha

Monuments in Reverse, CAAA, Guimarães

2014

Independance Cha Cha, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon

Revolutionary Traces, Stroom, The Hague

2013

Entrer dans la Mine, Lubumbashi Biennale, Congo

Political Cameras, Stills, Edinburgh

2012

Stone Free, Marlborough Contemporary, London

2011

Carlos Cardoso – Straight to the Point & Peter Blum Cape Sonnets, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Carlos Cardoso – Direto ao Assunto, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon

2010

Double Lecture, Carpe Diem, Lisbon

Werdmuller Centre and Other Works, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

2008

Hard Rain Show, Berardo Museum – CCB, Lisbon / La Criée, Rennes

For Mozambique, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

2007

Maison Tropicale, Portuguese Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale

2003

In No Place, National Museum of Contemporary Art – Chiado Museum, Lisbon

2002

Zip Zap Circus School, temporary public art, ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art, Cape Town

1999

Casa Maputo: An Intimate Portrait, Serralves Museum, Porto

1990

Ângela Ferreira, Modern Art Center – Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025

Onde terá segura a curta vida?, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France

2024

Abril Vermelho, Visual Arts Center, Coimbra

2021

Free State of Barackia, Berlin

Autumn/Winter Collection, EGEAC, Lisbon

Art in São Bento – AA Collection, Lisbon

Witness, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami

A Day in Utopia, Familistère de Guise, Dunkirk

The Silence of the Earth, Braga

100 Years, 100 Artists, Gare Marítima de Alcântara, Lisbon

Drawing in the Norlinda and José Lima Collection, Aveiro

2020

Pretérito Perfecto, with Grada Kilomba and Rogelio López Cuenca, NF/ NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ, Madrid

1 Million Roses for Angela Davis, SKD – Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden

2019–2008
(Multiple exhibitions at CGAC, Kadist, SESC Pinheiros, MACBA, Calvert 22, MAAT, Bienal de São Paulo, and more – full list available upon request)

Awards

2016

Loop Award, Barcelona

2015

Novo Banco Photo Prize, Lisbon

2006

Dr. Gustavo Cordeiro Ramos Prize, National Academy of Fine Arts, Lisbon

2003

Honorary Research Associate, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town

1997

Finalist, União Latina Prize, União Latina Foundation, Lisbon

1995