From the 13th of December 2024 to the 2nd of March 2025
Millennium bcp Gallery, in MNAC.
The curatorial concept of the ENQUANTO ISSO//MEANWHILE exhibition is based on praising contemplation, pause and deceleration in the creative process. Referring to moments of rest, procrastination and, in a move close to “I’d rather not do it”, the exhibition reveals how these states of suspension are part of the artistic journey. What remains to be done, the unfinished and the projects that live only in diaries take centre stage, without the pressure to finish them. Here, the studio is seen as a space of freedom and error, where time follows its own rhythm.
It celebrates, almost as a manifesto or revolutionary gesture, leisure, idleness and recreation as inseparable elements of creation, emphasising the artist’s action in its suspensions, detours and pauses.
Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro – Study of cats and self-portrait, 1989. Graffiti on art. Collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
Faced with a society of immediate consumption whose incessant production stifles experimentation and the creative development of ideas, the exhibition proposes an alternative, where repose reigns. Within this context, the act of not doing, and of allowing the unfinished to flow, acquires a poetic dimension in the artistic process.
It is from this free relationship with time that the meaning of the process is reformulated, emphasising the importance of contemplation in what sometimes escapes the inattentive eye or gets lost in the shadows of everyday life.
Abel Salazar – Inner scene, XX century. Oil on canvas. Millennium bcp Collection.
ENQUANTO ISSO//MEANWHILE stems from the research carried out by the students of the Master’s Degree in Curatorial Studies of Colégio das Artes of Universidade de Coimbra (College of Arts of the University of Coimbra), in curatorial residency at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea) (MNAC) (National Museum of Contemporary Art), as part of the partnership that also includes the UmbigoLAB Platform and the Millennium bcp Foundation, putting into dialogue a set of works from these collections, and including the production of artists represented on the online Platform, equating the museum as a living and speculative laboratory.
The exhibition “Enquanto Isso / Meanwhile” will be on show between:
• the 13th of December 2024
and
• the 2nd of March 2025
At the Millennium bcp Gallery, in MNAC.
Artur Loureiro – The Artist’s Rest, 1882. Oil on canvas. Collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
FUNDAÇÃO MILLENNIUM BCP (MILLENNIUM bcp FOUNDATION)
The Fundação Millennium bcp received a Medal of Cultural Merit in 2015, awarded by the President of the Republic, and has been a Honorary Member of the Order of Infante D. Henrique since 2018. Within the context of social solidarity policies and institutional cultural patronage, it defines itself as an agent for creating value in society. Its various areas of intervention include heritage restoration, support for architecture and the visual arts, music and social solidarity.
To this end, it endeavours to support various initiatives that align with Millennium bcp’s values and simultaneously meet some of the main needs identified in these three areas of activity – Culture, Science and Knowledge and Social Solidarity – in Portugal and in other countries where Millennium bcp operates.
The Fundação Millennium bcp‘s patronage relationship with the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea) (MNAC) (National Museum of Contemporary Art), has reached a new level with the opening of the new Millennium bcp Gallery on 21 June 2021 at this national museum.
In a unique and unprecedented relationship in Portugal, the Fundação Millennium bcp renovated a previously dilapidated space and gave the museum a new wing, increasing its exhibition space and contributing to the museum’s public reaffirmation in contemporary times.
Based on the dialogue between the MNAC and Millennium bcp collections and other national and international, public and private collections, this new space is a laboratory. The programme, which is the responsibility of MNAC, is curated in-house and/or by guest curators, and is always sponsored by Fundação Millennium bcp.
MUSEU NACIONAL DE ARTE CONTEMPORÂNEA (NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART)
The Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (MNAC), with its mission defined when it was created in 1911 and reaffirmed when it was reopened in 1994, with assumptions relating to the study of collections and their extension to the contemporary, continues to investigate and publicise Portuguese history and artistic creation from 1850 to the present day, enhancing knowledge of the contexts of creation and broadening the relationships between art, history, thought, science and everyday life.
In its activity, MNAC seeks to create conditions for dialogue between its own and other collections, both public and private, national and international, contributing to a deeper understanding of the national art scene and to the internationalisation of Portuguese art in the museum’s time spectrum and in the various areas of artistic expression of the works in its collection.
With an exhibition programme that is closely linked to the Education Service programme, the Museum aims to reach different audiences, of different age groups and different levels of artistic literacy, establishing itself as a space for learning about and reflecting on our 19th and 20th century artistic past, but also for critically welcoming contemporary artistic proposals, thus fully embracing its collection and the mission with which the Republic established it.
COLÉGIO DAS ARTES (COLLEGE OF THE ARTS)
The Colégio das Artes (College of Arts) is an organic unit of the University of Coimbra that operates in the field of contemporary art, in its relationship with architecture, cinema, curatorial work and the performing arts, from a transdisciplinary perspective. With a cross-cutting perspective on the various fields of knowledge that have been dedicated to the study and production of art, the Colégio das Artes is centred on the confluence of scientific research, the production of knowledge and creation itself, from a perspective of retrospection, that is, looking at the present and future of artistic practices from a knowledge of their history, aesthetic issues and the theoretical and critical reflection they have given rise to. Colégio das Artes seeks to establish itself as an institution that, operating in the area of knowledge about artistic practices, their research and even their creative practice, develops various forms of teaching, training and research in a multifaceted functional structure.
LABORATÓRIO DE CURADORIA (CURATORIAL LABORATORY)
Laboratório de Curadoria, part of the Master’s in Curatorial Studies at the Colégio das Artes, is an essayistic space for curatorial practice in a training context. Its core premises are experimentation and questioning, and it operates according to methodological dynamics of action and participation. In it, projects are conceived and developed that investigate and explore the concept of situ-ation, in which the direct contact of the various agents fosters a collaborative and collective process.
Together, guest artists, students, teachers, and various communities rehearse active pedagogies based on problem-oriented, project-based learning dynamics, simultaneously expanding the understanding of the exhibition space and the classroom itself. From the intersection of the two, the Laboratory is born and from it emerges a contact zone, a hybrid territory that is built on the interstice between artistic and curatorial practices and education. Alongside theoretical training, students find in the Laboratory a possibility for testing, problem-solving and implementing projects that articulate various types of knowledge and languages.
