The Berardo Contemporary and Modern Art Collection is an outing not to be missed by all those who visit Lisboa. This important collection comprising 862 works of art by famous artists from the 20th century puts Lisboa firmly on the international art scene.

The current exhibit features 248 art works including pieces by Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol. The collection is divided into 7 main areas, featuring more than 70 artistic trends from the 20th century. Open to all visitors, this Museum is known for its creativity, innovation and dynamism. In August visitors from abroad can enjoy a general visit in English on Saturdays and Spanish on Sundays. There will also be a theme visit entitled Pop & Co, at 6pm, in English on Saturdays and Spanish on Sundays.

The Museum has organised another original visit called “Museum in a Suitcase”. Just like the artist Marcel Duchamp who claimed that all his artwork could be stored inside a suitcase, visitors can view the museum with a series of theme suitcases. A collection of experiences that appeal to one's senses and invite you to take a deeper look into the works on exhibit.

The collection

Autonomy

Women, models, have long been represented according to the vision and imagination of men. In parallel to Feminism, artists such as Helena Almeida, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman and Nan Goldin emancipated these images from male reasoning.

These artists deconstructed the illusion created by contemporary photography and its archetypes, offering a different and autonomous perspective.

Helena Almeida is the model in her own photographs, which establish a contrast between the physical reality of the female body and photographic illusion. This artist compares the imaginary universe of photography, with its time and lighting constraints with the perception of the female body. The off-camera figure of the subject, Almeida, shown in the grain of black and white photos, becomes a sculptural presence.

Through performances, Super 8mm films, drawings and sculptures, Cuban artist Ana Mendieta built an entire work around taboo, sacrifice and sexual violence inflicted on women. In her photographic work, Cindy Sherman has, since 1977, unassailably interpreted multiple female representations and identities. Her conceptual work, focusing on the appropriation of the inner self and selfportrait, reflects the entire universe of ghosts and archetypes of the female form presented in advertising, fashion, cinema, painting, history and sex. Her photographs represent images inside images of the real woman or the female image; models are subject to photographic clichés and mass media. The Berardo collection includes three works by Cindy Sherman.

This collection is complemented by a generous loan from Banco Espírito Santo (BES), which also owns the works by the Finnish artist Aino Kannisto, also exhibited. This exhibition also includes a room devoted to work developed by Pierre Coulibeuf, together with artist Marina Abramovic. Abramovic is one of the most representative from a generation of artists who, at the beginning of the 1970s, chose performance as their favoured means of expression.