José de Guimarães created an unprecedented intervention for the Oriental Museum, a dialogue between the Kwok On collection of Asian folk art, his works and pieces from his private collection of Chinese art. The exhibition traces the universe of references of José de Guimarães, which is constructed by reference to the Other, distant or different, African or Asian. The dialogue between the objects of different origins reveals cultures marked by rituals, with meanings sometimes coincident, sometimes contradictory. 'A Museum of the Other World' is thus a reflection on the idea of a museum as a social construction, a place of representation of the Other, a space of alterity in permanent exchange with strangeness and familiarity, art and life, museum and world.
This reflection and dialogue continue in two commented visits and in a conversation with various voices, with guests from areas as diverse as curatorship, anthropology and architecture. Among others, the conversation will cover transcendence and ritual, alterity in art and beyond, material culture and representation of the Other, themes dear to museums and transversal to the work of José de Guimarães.