The official opening of the capital’s new cultural facility is scheduled for 6:00 PM, with the presence of the city’s mayor, Carlos Moedas. The event will feature a performance by artist Luísa Cunha titled ‘Along the road when I was young’, as announced by the Empresa de Gestão de Equipamentos e Animação Cultural (EGEAC – Lisboa Cultura).
The new Space for Contemporary Art Collection – Lisbon Culture, formerly known as Galeria da Avenida da Índia, under the artistic direction of Sara Antónia Matos and Pedro Faro, directors of the EGEAC Municipal Galleries, is inaugurated with an exhibition curated by both, showcasing works in various media from artists like Ana Jotta, Eduardo Batarda, Fernanda Fragateiro, Paulo Brighenti, among others.
The venue, which offers free admission from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM, is one of the five networked facilities belonging to the Municipal Galleries, along with the Pavilhão Branco, Galeria da Boavista, the Torreão Nascente of the Cordoaria Nacional, and Galeria Quadrum.
The inaugural exhibition is titled ‘Who Where/Quem/Onde’ and will be the first of the temporary exhibitions drawn from the city council’s collection, presenting art acquisitions made by the Lisbon City Council (CML) in 2024, along with works acquired in previous years, as stated by EGEAC – Lisboa Cultura.
The goal is “to showcase the breadth and conceptual and formal diversity of this contemporary art collection” of the CML, the curators announced a week ago in a text released about the inaugural exhibition.
Organized by aesthetic affinities and spatial relationships, this first exhibition takes its title from Vasco Araújo’s work, ‘Who Where #1’ (2011), inspired by one of Beckett’s last plays, ‘What Where’ (1984), “seeking to share the diversity and coexistence of themes in Portuguese contemporary art, inviting visitors to engage directly with the works of the Contemporary Art Collection – Lisbon Culture.”
The exhibition, open until September 7, also includes works by Inês d’Orey, Joana Escoval, Diana Policarpo, Isabel Cordovil, Belén Uriel, Carla Filipe, Daniel Schmidt, João Onofre, Dealmeida Esilva, Paulo Nozolino, Flávia Vieira, and Délio Jasse, among others.
In the text, the curators emphasized that “the set of works and authors presented reaffirms the CML’s intention to continue building and developing its collection, with a view to integrating other authors in the future and enhancing the representativeness of those featured.”
The curators added that “before any exhibition, it is necessary to catalogue, preserve, study, and systematize the works/collections, a set of tasks often overlooked, which falls upon the institutions, here undertaken by the Lisbon Museum.”
“In a time so marred by wars and conflicts, local, national, and global, museological structures have the important function of creating a space where issues can be brought to public debate and differences can be connected, where bridges between generational, geographical, and cultural divergences can be built,” the curators further emphasized.
