Rui Sanches (Lisbon, Portugal, 1954) has developed a distinctive body of work in the panorama of Portuguese sculpture since the early 1980s. His artistic practice, anchored in intersecting dialogues with art history, architecture and the human body, questions the core assumptions that underpin classical painting and contemporary sculpture, as he investigates phenomena of perception that challenge the viewer’s gaze and incites movement.

Rui Sanches: line and shape, body and engine examines different moments of continuity and rupture in the artist’s career and establishes various points of contact between his work in sculpture and drawing. Conceived for Centro Cultural de Lagos, the exhibition brings together a group of works from the Serralves Collection and from important collections on deposit at the Foundation covering a period of three decades, including works from the 1980s that are directly related to classical and neoclassical painting themes, and works from the following decades that reveal an abstract approach to the body and to the human scale, establishing a relationship of proximity with the viewer.

The collections on long-term loans at Serralves shown in this exhibition include the Portuguese State Contemporary Art Collection (CACE), Luso-American Development Foundation Collection (FLAD), Coleção Leal Rios Foundation, Peter Meeker Collection and a Private Collection.

This exhibition, coordinated by Carlos Magalhães, is part of the Serralves Collection Touring Exhibition Programme, which aims to make the Foundation’s collection accessible to different audiences across the country.

Production: Fundação de Serralves — Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto