On the 50th anniversary of 25 April, we celebrate freedom and democracy and remember the episode that became known as the ‘Burial of the Museum’. On 10 June 1974, the artists’ protest outside the Museum led to the creation of the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC 1976-1980).
From next June, at the Soares dos Reis National Museum, the ‘Centro de Arte Contemporânea — Making Art Democratic’ exhibition will allow us to remember this and other historical records of the Contemporary Art Centre, the origin of the Serralves Foundation’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 1975, we witnessed the first manifestation of the desire to create the Contemporary Art Centre, through the exhibition ‘Levantamento da Arte do Século XX no Porto’ (Survey of 20th Century Art in Porto), which was held at the Soares dos Reis National Museum and showed the establishment of a partnership between the Museum and the group of intellectuals and artists who demanded the creation of an institutional space in Porto dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art.
This group included the art critic Fernando Pernes and the curator Etheline Rosas who, from 1976, directed the activities of the Contemporary Art Centre.
In four years, various cultural activities were organised and around 100 exhibitions were presented, including important retrospective exhibitions by artists such as António Pedro, Júlio dos Reis Pereira, Augusto Gomes, Júlio Resende, Alberto Carneiro and Ângelo de Sousa.
Photo credits @Manuel Magalhães