Mission and Goals

The Modern Art Centre aims to promote and study modern and contemporary art, paying special attention to Portuguese art, by exhibiting works from the permanent collection, organizing temporary exhibitions while simultaneously capturing and maintaining visitor loyalty by developing its interest in modern and contemporary art through activities in the field of education, promotion and leisure.

GENERAL PRESENTATION

The Modern Art Centre was founded in 1983, and carries the name of the first president of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Jorge Molder is its current director.

The art collection, whose acquisitions program began at the end of the 1950´s, contains the most representative Portuguese twentieth-century artists, as well as some foreign artists with whom the former were acquainted, dating mostly up to the 1950’s; a British Art collection; and a group of Armenian works of art.

The Modern Art Centre is committed to maintaining an acquisition program in order to improve what is already the largest collection of twentieth and twenty-first century Portuguese art as well as a diversified program of temporary exhibitions, taking place either in the Modern Art Centre building or in the foundation headquarters. These exhibitions aim to enhance the collection and to keep the public updated with last century’s most relevant national and international artistic production.

In addition to temporary exhibitions, the Modern Art Centre keeps part of its collection on permanent display, the remainder being presented in rotation exhibitions.
 
The education department of the Modern Art Centre allows for the discussion of issues relating to Visual Culture in contemporary society, History of Art and Aesthetics by developing initiatives connected to the collection and its exhibits.