Image: Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon
From 10 October 2026 to 8 February 2027, the exhibition will be on view in the Galeria Principal at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. ‘Pintar É Fácil. Faça Você Mesmo!’ [Painting Is Easy. Do It Yourself!] consists of works from the Fundação “la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection and was conceived by João Maria Gusmão.
Its stated subject is the alienation of labour power, the economy of leisure and their relationship to self-reflexive artistic poetics.
The exhibition begins with a 1989 photograph by Antoni Muntadas showing an advertisement for a building-supply shop painted on the façade of the same shop, with a paint bucket and the slogan ‘Pintar es fácil! Hágalo usted mismo’. That photograph provides the exhibition’s point of departure through an image in which the advertisement and the façade carrying it are directly connected.
The exhibition questions what art is, who produces it and for whom it is made, while reflecting ironically on the means of production and on the ideas of factory, product and consumer. Visitors are involved in reading the artworks through an approach resembling a ‘do it yourself’ recipe book.
The accompanying announcement identifies works by Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Doris Salcedo, Franz West, Cristina Iglesias, Ana Jotta and Jorge Queiroz among the artists represented, alongside others.
