Art and politics in the former "Portuguese Colonial Empire". The monument to Mouzinho de Albuquerque in Lourenço Marques

Abstract

In 1940, a monument to Mouzinho de Albuquerque is inaugurated in the former capital of the Portuguese Colony of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques. The result of a lenghty commissioning process, this homage to one of the main heroes of the colonial pantheon becomes a center-piece in the many political rituals which had become common-place during the 1930s. The concepts of aura and cult value are used to analyse its "traditionalist" aesthetics and the role it played in political spectacles, arguing that it obeys a strategy of representation of the public space as "Empire".

Keywords

• Public sculpture
• Mozambique
• Lourenço Marque
• Monument to Mouzinho de Albuquerque
• Estado Novo