CACE is inaugurated on July 1st and reveals backstage of the state collection

Athe end of 50 years, the CACE Centro represents “a historical landmark” for a collection created by the state in 1976 that, despite its relevance to contemporary portuguese art, went through long periods of dispersion and less institutional visibility, Lusa told the agency director and curator Sandra Vieira Jürgens.

“It is a place of visitable reserves that has for the first time gathered almost the entire collection in a building open to the public, to show the daily conservation of reserves, inventory, cataloguing and study of works”, said the person responsible in interview and guided visit to the Center, with Lusa.

Installed in a building previously belonging to the Ellipse Foundation, linked to the Portuguese Private Bank (BPP), and acquired by the State in the context of a process of insolvency of the financial institution, the space received adaptation works valued at around one million euros and began to concentrate a significant set of more than 3,200 works that currently make up CACE.

According to Sandra Vieira Jürgens, the new center is designed to be more than a storage spaceh “It’s a sharing space, a living and laboratory center that we want to share with the public,” Lusa said.

THE CACE The Centre has a large central room for educational activities, conferences and cultural programming, two temporary exhibition rooms and a black box dedicated to the presentation of multimedia works.

The responsible explained that visitors will be able to follow activities usually reserved behind the scenes of museological management, in a hybrid operating model that will combine specialized technical areas with cultural mediation activities and educational programs.

“The public can have access to what are the daily activities of the management of a collection, conservation, packaging, transportation, preparation and production of exhibitions, concessions and deposits, and still discover the works in the visiting reserves”, needed the curator, who manages a team of six professionals in the areas of curation, conservation and production.

The visits will be made by means of prior e-mail or telephone marking – contacts available at www.collection of thestate.pt – addressing both the general public and students, researchers and professionals in the sector.

“There is a very important technical part, but we want to develop the educational service. We want to receive the widest audience that wants to know the daily activity of a collection ", reiterated Sandra Vieira Jürgens.

For the director, the opening of the new center is the culmination of a process of institutional recovery and appreciation initiated in recent years. “The collection dates back to 1976 and was born much of the artists’ demand to have a collection that represented contemporary artistic production,” he recalled.

Over the decades, the collection was expanded with regular acquisitions, but suffered from a period of less activity, which lasted more than twenty years, recalled the art historian who leads a team composed by Ana Guimarães, Beatriz Hilário, David Teles Pereira, Maria de Lurdes Marrinhas, Alice Watt-Dalston and Diogo Torres in stage.

“ Several acquisitions were made until the year 2000 and from there the collection was very forgotten. It had many guardianships, and it was mainly from 2017 that a work of management and strategic vision was developed ", recalled.

The acquisitions were resumed in 2019, through an annual program that continues to be in force and that allowed the incorporation of dozens of new works by contemporary Portuguese artists.

On the day of the opening of the CACE On July 1, the public will be able to meet a double exhibition entitled “Dual Yes”, dedicated precisely to the acquisitions made between 2019 and 2025, organized by curators Filipa Rocha Nunes and Sofia Mountain.

The exhibition brings together 23 works on various media, from painting to sculpture and video, from artists like Ana Cardoso, Belén Uriel, Diogo Evangelista, Eugenia Mussa, Gabriel Abrantes, Inês Zenha, Joana Escoval, Leonor Antunes, Mané Pacheco, Nikolai Nekh, Paulo Mendes, Sara Graça, Susanne S. D. Themlitz and Von Calhau.

The inaugural program also includes a partnership with the National Dance Company, developed around a collection work, as well as the presentation of some works of the collection in the main room.

Despite the creation of the center to welcome the contemporary art collection of the state, the director stresses that the mission of CACE will continue to be based on the circulation of works throughout national and international territory.

“ The collection will continue to decentralize and be present throughout the territory. That's what she's for. It is a collection of all”, said Sandra Jürgens about the collection that, since 2023, was published in 16 exhibitions, of which 11 in Portugal and five abroad, passing through cities such as Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Shanghai.

The timetable for the coming months and until the beginning of 2028 provides for new presentations in Sines, the Azores and Viseu, followed by projects in 2027 in Évora — European Capital of Culture, Funchal and internationally in Paris.

In Sines, the exhibition “Summer Rain” will be presented at the Centre for Art in Sines, between July 11th and October 17th, and in the Azores will open “The Silence of the Festival”, on July 25th, in the Archipelago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas da Ribeira Grande, becoming clear until November 1st, while the show “Dear Friends” will be at the Museo Nacional Grano Vasco, in Viseu, between November 14th and February 14, 2027.

The exhibition “Summer Rain” can also be seen at the MUDAS — Museum of Contemporary Art of Madeira, from 18 May to 31 October 2027.

Between 23 January and 23 May next year, CACE will be present in Évora, in the National Museum Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, in the exhibition entitled “Recreio”, it is also expected for February the opening of “Sysmic”, an exhibition at the Center of Archaeology and Arts of Beja.

“DIY” will be another of the exhibitions planned under the CACE circulation program, which will be hosted at the José Malhoa Museum in Caldas da Rainha, between 18 September 2027 and 30 January 2028.

Internationally, the inauguration of “Cabinet d’Amateur, Démocratie et Culture” at the Fininco Foundation in Paris is already marked on 22 April 2027.

“After 50 years of the creation of the collection, the opening of the center is a very important milestone for us to be able to respond more effectively and more agilely to requests for the provision of works and to be present throughout the national territory”, the curator supported Lusa.

Jürgens also considers that the new building strengthens the operational capacity and international credibility of the collection “It is a great development, because it is a building that has all the conditions of security, environmental control and the most demanding international standards” for the conservation of the works of the acquis.

Currently, about 1,300 works are installed in CACE Center, keeping the rest in deposits and cores associated with partner institutions, such as Fundação de Serralves, localities, embassies, public bodies and cultural entities.

For the curator, the opening of the new space is mainly a new phase for the public collection of contemporary art, “with better conditions for its management”.

“ We want people to understand that a collection is not just what you see in an exhibition. There is a whole daily work of conservation, study, research and circulation of works that can now be known closely”.

THE CACE The Centre will operate from Monday to Friday, from 9:30 to 12:30, and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., with a prior appointment, and ends on weekends, national holidays, Lisbon city holiday, and 24 and 31 December.