Ar.Co - Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual will celebrate 50 years of activity with an exhibition of 60 works by different artists, some of them unpublished, in various supports, and a documentary installation, to be inaugurated on March 7th, in Lisbon.
Entitled 'I-II-III-IV-V five decades of Ar.Co - Center for Art and Visual Communication', the exhibition will be on display until May 27 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado (MNAC-MC), indicated to the Lusa agency a source of the direction of that entity.
The six dozen works - from the Ar.Co collection, and from other invited artists - were selected by cultural personalities, and include 47 artists who used drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, ceramics, jewellery, arts as supports graphics and video, indicated Ana Bustorff Martinho, from the art center's development office.
Ana Haterly, Fernando Calhau, Lourdes Castro, João Onofre, Pedro Barateiro, Rui Chafes, Augusto Alves da Silva, Francisco Tropa, João Queiroz, Susanne SD Themlitz, Tereza Seabra, Jorge Molder, Alberto Chissano and Lúcia Abdenur are among the selected artists.
As part of this celebration, a group of artists was invited to carry out original interventions of their own, and a documentary installation was created on the 50th anniversary of the school, curated by the artist and curator Diogo Pinto.
Comprising entirely of works donated by their authors, the Ar.Co Art Collection currently brings together close to 800 pieces in the areas of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, jewellery, illustration/BD, ceramics, installation and video/cinema representing more than 230 Portuguese and foreign artists, specified the same source to Lusa.
Under protocols undergoing renovation, the Visual Arts and Ceramics sections of the collection are deposited in the form of long-term loans, respectively at the National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado, and at the National Tile Museum , according to the entity.
Created in 1973 as an independent art school dedicated to experimentation, training and dissemination of arts and crafts and visual communication disciplines, Ar.Co is constituted as a non-profit cultural association of public utility.
The idea of setting up an Art Collection at Ar.Co "was born from the realization that works of undeniable artistic interest accumulated in the school's archives, offered over time by their authors, usually for fundraising", recalls a text from the direction, on the ephemeris.
"Bearing in mind the statutory imperative of disclosure, a project to develop this estate took shape in 1995. From the first contacts - not just with some artists linked to the school, but also with others whose work aroused interest - the results surpassed all expectations. expectations", having been recognized as a project of cultural interest by the Ministry of Culture.
Ar.Co's main training areas are drawing, painting, photography, jewellery, ceramics, engraving/screen printing, illustration/comics, cinema/moving image, History and Art Theory, individual and multi-disciplinary projects.
The exhibition that celebrates the school's 50th anniversary - about which a catalog will be created - opens on March 7th, at 6:30 pm, at the MNAC-MC.