“Following the same hiring model adopted for the Artistic Direction of the Museum of Contemporary Art MAC/CCB, an ‘open call’ will be launched for the selection of the new Artistic Direction of Performing Arts. Simultaneously, a new external competition will be opened for the position of Curator of the Architecture Center of the MAC/CCB,” stated the CCB in a communiqué released today.
These recruitments, “of an international scope, reinforce the institution’s mission and ambition to stimulate innovation and high-quality artistic programming, ensuring continuous dialogue between national and international creators.”
Starting Friday, information about the two competitions will be made available on the official CCB website, which “will remain open for two months.”
At the end of 2023, with the appointment of Francisca Carneiro Fernandes as president of the Board of Directors of the CCB, from which she was dismissed a year later, two organic units emerged within that institution: Performing Arts and Thought and MAC/CCB.
Aida Tavares was appointed artistic director of the first unit through direct recruitment in December 2023, while Nuria Enguita was chosen for the second by competition in March 2024. The museum opened in October 2023 without a director.
Aida Tavares stated to the newspaper Expresso that she was dismissed by the current president of CCB, Nuno Vassallo e Silva, and board member Madalena Reis, by phone at 5:00 pm today, “when the Minister of Culture [Dalila Rodrigues] already knew she wouldn’t remain” in the role within the new government, whose composition was announced today and whose ministers take office on Thursday.
Lusa attempted to contact Aida Tavares, but this was not possible at the time.
The CCB did not clarify whether the artistic director was dismissed.
In a statement released in the late afternoon by Dalila Rodrigues’s office, the current Minister of Culture declined any responsibility or interference in the CCB process.
Aida Tavares took office on December 15, 2023, at the invitation of Francisca Carneiro Fernandes, a hiring meant to accompany the institution’s new “strategic cycle.”
Francisca Carneiro Fernandes was appointed president of the CCB in December 2023 by the then Minister of Culture, Pedro Adão e Silva (PS), replacing Elísio Summavielle at the time.
On November 29, the cultural manager was dismissed from the position by then Minister of Culture Dalila Rodrigues (PSD/CDS-PP), who replaced her with historian Nuno Vasallo e Silva, a decision justified by the “need to impart new direction to the foundation’s management,” “to ensure” it provides “a national service, participating in a new cycle of Portuguese cultural life.”
Dalila Rodrigues was heard in parliament in December regarding the dismissal and accused her predecessor, Pedro Adão e Silva, of having conducted a “power grab” at the CCB, ensuring “that cronyism in that institution had come to an end.”
The minister’s statements led to various parties requesting hearings in parliament with several individuals linked to CCB, including Pedro Adão e Silva, Francisca Carneiro Fernandes, and Aida Tavares.
In February, Francisca Carneiro Fernandes denied in parliament that the hiring of programmer Aida Tavares as artistic director was an imposition by Pedro Adão e Silva.
Days earlier, Francisca Carneiro Fernandes’s predecessor, Elísio Summavielle, mentioned that Pedro Adão e Silva had suggested the hiring of Aida Tavares, a situation that was the culmination of a path of divergences with the previous government, leading him to decide to leave the CCB at the end of 2023, before the end of the last term.
Francisca Carneiro Fernandes justified the creation of the position with the belief that “any organization that programs performing arts must necessarily have a professional artistic direction,” stating that it wasn’t necessary to begin duties “to know that this position did not exist at the CCB.”
Regarding the “case, or small case” of Aida Tavares, Elísio Summavielle refrained from further comment, directing attention to the statements of board member Madalena Reis the previous week in the same parliamentary committee.
Madalena Reis explained that she voted against the hiring of Aida Tavares because she felt there was “no need for change.”
“There was a director of Performing Arts. It wasn’t exactly the same profile, but it had very similar functions. With that director, a program was built and shared with the board of directors,” she said.
Pedro Adão e Silva, the last to be heard in the series of hearings, argued that the accusations of “power grab” made by his successor, Dalila Rodrigues, were not substantiated.
For Pedro Adão e Silva, the minister of Culture’s statements were “totally groundless,” and occurred “for two reasons”: “To justify a dismissal she had no courage to assume” and to try to “hide the lost year for cultural policies that was her term.”
Pedro Adão e Silva interpreted the Minister of Culture’s statements as “a projection mechanism: whoever says so is who they are,” noting that the individuals appointed by Dalila Rodrigues to various positions all have “connections to the PSD.” “I did not make an appointment linked to the PS,” he said.
Additionally, “they are all people with the same profile as the minister,” who is a historian.
Meanwhile, the current chief curator of the Architecture Center of MAC/CCB, Mariana Pestana, selected for the position through an open competition in June 2023 and who began her duties on March 1 of the previous year, will leave the position at her own request, according to an official CCB source.
Mariana Pestana, who holds a degree in architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto and in Architectural Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, was supposed to occupy the position for a period of four years.
The Architecture Center of the CCB reopened on March 30. The space has been functioning as an exhibition area for the architecture discipline at the CCB and has also been equipped for workspaces, events, and discussions.
In the communiqué released today, the CCB mentions it is “developing an innovation program aimed at reinforcing its central positioning in the promotion of the arts, enhancing the diversity of programming, and promoting new talents, while consolidating its presence in national and international cultural circuits during the 2025-2027 triennium.”
The two competitions will be opened “to achieve these strategic objectives.”
