Until September, the Centro de Arte Oliva will be exhibiting 200 works from the Norlinda and José Lima Collection that have never been exhibited since it was established and deposited in São João da Madeira, bringing together in "Descuradas" authors such as Graça Morais and Arpad Szenes.
The exhibition of this cultural equipment in the district of Aveiro thus includes works by 50 artists of various nationalities, including Alexandre 'Vhils' Fed up, Álvaro Lapa, Arthur Cruzeiro Seixas, Francis Smith, José de Guimarães, Miquel Barcelo, Pedro Proença and Rui Chafes, in a selection that intends to enhance "the remains" of the aforementioned modern art collection.
Sara and André are the curators responsible for these choices and, in statements to Lusa, explain: "Aesthetically, we looked for inspiration in the collection itself, trying to build a 'display' that could be engaging, powerful, coherent and original; conceptually, it interested us the idea of working with the 'remnants', with what would have 'supposedly less value' for the curators who previously worked with the collection".
For the curators of the "Descuradas" exhibition, this represents "an absolute vote of confidence" in the Norlinda Collection, which, having started to be constituted in 1980 by two individuals from São João da Madeira, currently brings together more than 1,200 works - "300 to 400" of which have not been exhibited since they were acquired for the purpose - and it is, according to Oliva, "one of the largest private art collections in the country", comprising around 250 Portuguese and 230 foreign artists.