Gulbenkian. Museum reopens with free entrance and celebration activities

Pto celebrate the seven decades of existence, which are completed on Saturday, day 18, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum will have free entry for nine days, from Saturday, day of the opening to the public of a new exhibition, after one and a half years of closing for works.

The museum’s renovation and requalification intervention – reconfigured with new windows, better lighting, optimized air conditioning and a deep restoration of the pieces – aimed to create a “harmonization of space, in a return to the original vision of the project”, indicates the foundation, in the presentation of the program.

Essentially, the general intervention of the works in the museum was carried out in order to “give their galleries better technical conditions to display their collection”, which will be seen again through the exhibition “Gulbenkian: 70 years on display”.

On Saturday, from 10:00 am, after the welcome of António Feijó, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Foundation, and Xavier F. Salomon, director of the Museum, will be made visits with mediators and engraving workshops with free entry upon registration.

On the same day, there is a concert by the Choir and Gulbenkian Orchestra, under the direction of Carlo Rizzi, with soprano Sonya Yoncheva. “Conceived to mark the 70th anniversary of the Foundation”, the concert makes “a journey through emblematic moments of the European operatic repertoire”, with works by Bizet, Puccini, Mascagni, Dvorák, Massenet, Gounod and Verdi.

Music, cinema, conferences, meetings, the launch of a study and a digital platform of free access over 70 years of support are also foreseen, in a series of initiatives that extend until December and also include the debut of works commissioned to composers, in the next season of music, conversations and the inaugural class of the newly formed Gulbenkian Institute of Advanced Studies, in November.

In a “agenda that celebrates the past and projects an open and contemporary vision of the future”, according to the foundation, there will also be the film cycle “Don’t Look Back”, in September, “which explores relations between music, culture and society”.

On Thursday, the exhibition “Gulbenkian, 70 years on display”, which combines 70 posters of the collection and other graphic materials of activities programmed or supported by the foundation services, in the areas of education, art and science, will be inaugurated.

Many of the posters were designed by artists such as Marcelino Vespeira, Sebastião Rodrigues, Alda Rosa, José Brandão, Jorge Silva, Vivó Eusébio and Change is Good, Ian Anderson (The Designers Republic) and Kiko Farkas. The exhibition stands until October 19.

In September, the film cycle begins with two period documentaries: “A Hard Day’s Night”, by Richard Lester, musical comedy accompanying John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, for 36 hours, at the peak of the ‘Beatlemania’; and “Don’t Look Back’ by D.A. Pennebaker, who names the cycle, and accompanies young Bob Dylan on a three-week tour across the UK in 1965.

The cycle will continue until the end of September, and includes Jonathan Demme’s “Last Waltz” by Martin Scorsese, with the final concert of The Band in 1976; Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense”, with the Talking Heads live, when they released “Speaking in Tongues” in 1983; Ahmir’s “Summer of Soul”, “Questlove” Thompson, a documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural festival designed to celebrate African-American culture and music and black pride, which became known for Harlem’s “Woodstock”; and Albert Magnoli’s “Purple Rain”, Prince’s film premiere, Oscar for Best Soundtrack in 1985.

Each film is commented on by an author, critic or publicist, such as Pedro Mexia, Isilda Sanches, Rui Miguel Abreu and Nuno Galopim.

In October, the celebrations enter the new Season of Music and the concerts of the Choir and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, already announced, with the premiere of works by composers such as Carlos Caires (“Celebration”), on 08, and Andreia Pinto Correia (“Deste mund’other”), on 21st, in a program that also includes the compositions “I find the voice”, by Luís Tinoco, and “Four songs”, by Joly Braga Santos.

On November 11, the inaugural conference of the Gulbenkian Institute for Advanced Studies will be held by historian David Nirenberg, director of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, who the next day will participate in a public conversation on the role of humanities in contemporary society.

On 20 and 21 November, the magazine Coloquio held the meeting “The Art of Criticism”, the first in the history of the magazine, with program still to be announced.

The celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the foundation end with the concerts of the Gulbenkian Orchestra on 10 and 11 December, where the work of Dutch composer Hawar Tawfiq “What Stays” will be premiered.