Sculpture for the body: Maria José Oliveira

Abstract

Maria José Oliveira has an extensive work which covers ceramics, painting, sculpture, objects and a core of work that ́s the object of this paper: Jewelry. This set of works has already been called as nonjewels by Cristina Filipe or were given the name of antijewelry by Sílvia Chicó. The name Textile jewelry is also known and it’s the title given to the exhibit displayed in 1988 in the Artefacto 3. Labeling this work is not, at all, the purpose of the present paper. This question was answered by post-modernism and the hybridization of the genres, but to clarify the boundaries that could give an identity about the typological features of these artifacts. Maria José’s work is difficult to define because drawing can be painting on paper or collage and painting is itself often tridimensional. Because the scale and the pieces presuppose a body which wear them, they can even be autonomous, it will be more appropriate to call this work as “sculpture for the body”, a classification that results from the thought of the twentieth century artistic avant-garde positions and the proclaimed death of the artistic disciplines.1