The Eugénio de Almeida family’s connection to the city of Lisbon sets the tone for the new exhibition at the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation Art and Culture Center in Évora, which opens on Saturday.
Entitled “In the time of slow days. Casa e Parque de Santa Gertrudes”, the exhibition, released today by the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation (FEA), in a statement, is part of the program of celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the institution.
The exhibition “reveals the connection and proximity of the Eugénio de Almeida family to the city of Lisbon, through an artistic approach to the Casa de Santa Gertrudes and the surrounding park”, he stressed.
According to the FEA, the exhibition, curated by Susana Lourenço Marques, includes photographs and videos by Paulo Catrica, Rita Barros and Virgílio Ferreira and a sound dramaturgy by Tiago Schwäbl.
“The images, collected between 2017 and 2019, fix the memory of a concrete time in the life of the House and the Park of Santa Gertrudes, but the exhibition uses several archives that contextualize the many appropriations that this emblematic place had throughout the 19th and 20th centuries”, he pointed out.
The archive photographs, according to the FEA, recall the installation of Lisbon’s first zoo, the velodrome, the hippodrome, ballooning events or the hosting of the Lisbon Popular Fair.
Tiago Schwäbl’s sound dramaturgy seeks to revive the “micro-narratives related to the many experiences of the park and the house”, he said.
Cited in the statement, the exhibition’s curator, Susana Lourenço Marques, emphasizes that the exhibition is “a unique opportunity to get to know intimately a place that is still mysterious to Lisboners”.
With free admission, the exhibition can be visited until November 19 this year, from Tuesday to Sunday, between 10:00 and 13:00 and 14:00 and 19:00.
The Art and Culture Center “is a space dedicated to the promotion of artistic and cultural actions” that focuses on a “multidisciplinary, formative and inclusive programming” through exhibitions “with a special focus on contemporary art”, explained the foundation.
A first portion of the Santa Gertrudes Park, bordering the current Avenida de Berna, was acquired in 1957 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, allowing the installation of the headquarters building, the Museum, the Garden and, later, the Modern Art Center, which is now under expansion works for another portion of the park, bordering Avenida Marquês de Fronteira.
