“The Millennium bcp Gallery is once again opening its doors to art, artists and the public, in a new space, located in Lisbon, in Chiado, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC). The public and private sectors joined for the benefit of Culture to make this original project possible, in which a National Museum welcomes a private Gallery within its premises. This will allow a expository complementarity between the Millennium bcp painting collection and the Museum’s collection, which thus embark on a common path, allowing the public to enjoy, in a single space, a wider program of exhibitions.
The project materialized through the signing of a protocol between Millennium bcp, the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Culture and the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, for the allocation of a wing of the MNAC building. This wing was closed and was fully restored by Millennium bcp, thus creating another art space to visit, where the Millennium bcp Foundation returns to the Shared Art program, with the holding of exhibitions with various themes and also sharing of works from the Millennium bcp collection.
The exhibition “The way to the light because it goes through the light”, a title that, according to João Biscainho, curator of the exhibition, was taken from a 1980 poem by Alberto de Lacerda and handwritten that same year by Vieira da Silva, inaugurates the new space and explores the relationship between art and the brain, presenting works of art created from the scientific knowledge of the neuroscience.
There are 61 pieces, including installations, paintings, drawings, engravings, collages, photographs, videos, sound compositions, which explore the cognitive systems of the human brain in the face of art and the dialogue established between the artistic work and its observer.
This exhibition will also have a publication, with unpublished research texts by the curator and the neuroscientist Semir Zeki.
António Monteiro
Chairman of the Millennium bcp Foundation”
Inaugural Exhibition of the Millennium bcp Gallery:
“The way to the light because it goes through the light”
From June 22 to November 14, 2021
“The exhibition “O Caminho para a Luz porque Passa pela Luz” […], inaugurates a new space at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Millennium bcp Gallery.
Based on the collections of Millennium bcp and MNAC, together with works from other national and foreign collections, this exhibition presents a selection of works of modern and contemporary art that awaken in the viewer an awareness of the aesthetic experience and the perceptive act as brain construction.
“The way to the light because it goes through the light” forms two investigation lines. One works with the different forms of representation and spatial composition such as strategies for the observation of mental, sound or literary spaces, but also as prototypes of the notion of virtual reality. The other expands the more traditional languages of representation, based on the knowledge of the neuroscience, presenting works that induce the spectator to certain mental states or sensations. In other cases, it is the artists and spectators who substantiate the works based on their own brain electrical activity as a poetic, sound or visual language.”
Extract from the presentation text of João Biscainho, Curator of the Exhibition
Millennium bcp Gallery
Rua Serpa Pinto 4
1200-444 Lisboa
