They say that stories are formed partly from truth and partly from speculation. After his first encounter with the so-called “Goliath the giant”, fantasising about the possibility that it was related to a phallic and fertility cult, Francisco Martins Sarmento began to mobilise actions and studies about this discovery. Little by little, after the archaeologist’s death in 1899, the case lost momentum in archaeological debates. In 1929, the sculpture was transferred to the garden of the Sociedade Martins Sarmento (SMS), where it remained until 1996, when the SMS and Guimarães City Council decided to transfer it to the Alameda Mariano Felgueiras, at a roundabout where it can still be found today.

Through the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century the complexity of the case led to constant resignification. It was the subject of speculations and imprecise archaeological studies that, somehow, transcend it, as an anachronistic artifact that doesn’t just pertain to the field of archaeology, but also to the collective imagination of the surrounding Minho region, also extending to Galicia.

Always overshadowed by the doubts lingering over each reference. At the crossroads of several different accounts of this phenomenon, Colossus Complex is an exhibition that aims to delve in an undisciplined manner into the various layers of this story, those that have fuelled and also questioned the epic, shaping what the Colossus represents today.

Colossus Complex also points to a complexity that extends beyond the debate about the origin of this stone figure, ending in political and social aspects that reveal an entire series of historical problems, of which the Colossus is just the tip.

Ángel Calvo Ulloa

Guest curator