 |
| pictures courtesy of Sergio Flaquer Carreras |
Bem-Vindo, or in English, Welcome to José Meigalão's museum, an art environment along a bend in a road in the interior of the island of Madeira, about 7 km north-east of the coastal community of Madalena do Mar.
It is a voluminous, elongated creation with a variety of colorful elements, rising up some six to eight meters against a cliff, on top of which there are a number of residences.
The photo below gives a good idea of the current site (2022), and on Google Streetview one can see the creation as it was in June 2021.
Life and works
Meigalão was born in the early 1950s in Funchal, the capital of Madeira. After his primary school he followed a craft training. In that kind of work he could not find a job and like many others in Madeira, he emigrated with his wife, to Jersey, one of the Channel Islands.
Here he worked for about 48 years as a bricklayer and a house painter in the construction industry.
In 2017, as a pensioner, he returned to Madeira, where he settled in the village of Socorro, in a house located in the area above the cliff. His wife and children didn't join him, but stayed in Jersey.
Pretty soon, perhaps late 2017, but in any case early 2018, Meigalão started decorating the spot along the road below the cliff.
Initially, he wanted to pay tribute to two people, each famous in his own way, the well-known American singer Elvis Presley and the equally famous football player Ronaldo, who helped Portugal to a victory in the 2016 European Football Championship.The tributes consist of framed photos of Elvis and Ronaldo, all kinds of other attributes, such as framed documents, and, as far as Ronaldo is concerned, festive flags.These items are now getting somewhat jaded.
Decorations on the cliff
He then began to work the wall of the cliff, in such a way that a colorful ensemble of all kinds of sculpted creations of different sizes and qualities was created.
There is a referral to the Ten Commandments and a niche with statuettes of the Virgin Maria.
There are places with sculptures of many human heads in haut relief, elsewhere there are sculptures of animals, large ones such as a dinosaur, a large number of elephants and smaller ones that resemble goats or monkeys.
 |
| enlargement of a part of the image above right |
The sculptures of human heads often refer to local celebrities, such as Max Madeira, a fado singer (1918-1980) and Alberto João Jardim, who was president of the regional government from 1978 to 2015. As can be seen in the pictures around, these people often wear a cone-shaped cap, which is typical for Madeira
Because the rock wall as such also was painted in all kinds of colors, the sculptures at first did not jump out, but they sank into the rock wall, as it were, which meant that the entire cliff appeared as one cohesive creation.However, Meigalão spent a lot of time maintaining his creations and gradually got the hang of coloring individual creations so that they stood out more from their background.
The ground floor along the street
The ground floor of the art environment, located along the street, has also been filled in and expanded over the years.
In the center, between two red colored barrels and under an airy cover marked "Museu José Meigalão" is the entrance. To the left and right of those barrels are walls of stacked stones along the street, in front of which various panels have been set up.
 |
| the entrance |
The right part of the ground floor has been attractively transformed into a kind of garden with a lot of flower pots made of stacked car tires, that cover the entire space of the cliff from bottom to top. In the middle of the garden a staircase has been built consisting of reclining car tires.
The space at the bottom of the cliff also has a part dedicated to Meigalão's parents and the entire lower area is decorated with dozens of framed photos.
All together, the area is a bit messy and full of atmosphere at the same time.
Documentation
* Short review and pictures on website MapsUSnet
* Review by Daniel Bizeul, La transfiguration d'un monde décevant (The transfiguration of a disappointing world) on website lebazutvitamine
Videos
* Video (March 2021) by Frank Roland Seger (YouTube, 9'24")
* Video (September 2021) by No Paraiso by VB on Facebook
* Video (February 2022) by Serflac (YouTube), with a fragment about the site that starts at 1'49")
José Meigalão
Museu José Meigalão,
160 Estrada Eng. Teixeira de Sousa 9360,
Socorro, Madeira, Portugal
can be seen from the road,
visitors welcome
No comments:
Post a Comment