GERMINAL. The Cabrita Reis collection, part of the EDP Foundation Art Collection, is the first big exhibition on Pedro Cabrita Reis’s collection, which was acquired by EDP Foundation in 2015. The exhibition covers a vast and significant array of works, focussing particularly on a reflection about the initial and founding moments of the careers of Portuguese artists – an approach which gave the exhibition its title – and whose careers have been cemented over time.
With a vast and solid representation of the 90s generation, but also including artists from earlier and later generations, Porto’s Municipal Gallery will now show a set of defining works by over 30 artists, which will reveal the visionary and attentive eye not of the artist, but the art collector Pedro Cabrita Reis.
As an artist and active player in the Portuguese art scene, Pedro Cabrita Reis has been following closely the work of young artists in whom he recognised artistic interest and potential. For over 30 years, he collected pieces with an “originating” quality, which he found in these artists’ first presentations and exhibitions, many of whom have solid and international careers today.
Porto’s Municipal Gallery created four areas which help to guide the visitor, which serve mainly as a pretext for moments of reflection and dialogue throughout the exhibition space. “The fractured subject” shows pieces related to the idea of post-modernism and definition of identity; in “Finding the Other” we see works which deal with gender identity questions and which have an anthropological quality; “The prevalence of technology” shows us how artists began to discover technology and use it in a more democratised manner, mostly through the use of video, sound and moving image; and, finally, “The legacy of images” refers to the historical tradition of images and representation. Despite this structuring of the exhibition, the goal is for the different areas to touch each other and to promote a dialogue between them; they are not meant to be self-contained, but rather dynamic.
Curated by Pedro Gadanho and Ana Anacleto, this is the fourth exhibition in a series of themed perspectives on the EDP Foundation Art Collection. For each edition of the cycle Perspectives, a guest curator and a museum curator propose a subject which is then translated into a series of works by Portuguese artists who form part of the collection. This sequence of curatorial choices presents the collection works of art as a live platform which offers various reflections and interpretations on the contemporary. Due to the particular nature of this collection, this exhibition will be curated, exceptionally, by two of the museum’s curators. It will be transferred to MAAT in June this year, in a slightly extended version, and it will occupy the two large galleries at the Power Station building.
EDP Foundation is one of Portugal’s main art patrons. It has been a patron of Porto’s Municipal Gallery since 2015, having pledged its support until 2020. It is also a Founding Patron of Serralves, an institution with whom it has maintained a continuous relationship of institutional and artistic cooperation. EDP Foundation is also one of Casa da Música’s Founders Council.
Participating artists:
Carlos Bunga, Rosa Carvalho, Nuno Cera, Vasco Costa, Pedro Gomes, Paulo Mendes, António Olaio, Rodrigo Oliveira, Noé Sendas, João Tabarra, Vasco Araújo, Rui Calçada Bastos, Rui Moreira, Francisco Queirós, Luís Nobre, Paula Soares, João Pedro Vale, Pedro Cabral Santo, João Paulo Feliciano, João Louro, Ana Pinto, Carlos Roque, Rui Toscano, Rui Valério, Paulo Brighenti, Hugo Canoilas, João Ferro Martins, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Sílvia Hestnes Ferreira, José Loureiro, Francisco Tropa, Joana Vasconcelos, Jorge Queiroz.
