The 22nd edition of Cultura Portugal, which is usually held from September to December throughout Spain and Andorra, meets this year with the initiative “Portugal-Spain: 50 years of democracy”, a joint and transversal program agreed by the two countries to, until September 2025, celebrate and highlight the power and role of culture in the two democratization processes, which took place simultaneously.
This year’s edition of Cultura Portugal began this Thursday in Madrid with the exhibition of the painting “Self-portrait in a group”, by José de Almada Negreiros, at the Rainha Sofia Art Center, in a room that houses works by artists such as Salvador Dalí and adjacent to the one where Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” is permanently located.
“Museums are powerful instances of fight against inhumanity, war and the absurdity of violence” and Rainha Sofía was “the perfect place for the opening ceremony of a program that celebrates the Portuguese revolution, the 50th anniversary of April,” he said This Thursday the Minister of Culture of Portugal, Dalila Rodrigues, at the official start of Culture Portugal 2024, in Madrid.
Dalila Rodrigues highlighted that Rainha Sofía, where Almada Negreiros’ painting will be exhibited until January 6, is a museum with a “fundamental role on an Iberian scale” and that, founded after the end of the dictatorship in Spain, “rescued from I forget a Spanish avant-garde atrociously interrupted by the Spanish civil war (1936-1939).
Almada Negreiros (1893-1970) lived in Madrid between 1927 and the early 1930s, and was “a representative of artistic and cultural relations with Spain until the military coup of 1936,” highlighted the Portuguese minister.
“He left works in various places in the capital, in addition to collaborations in the press and scenographic projects,” said, for his part, the Minister of Culture of Spain, Ernest Urtasun, who was also at the Reina Sofía museum.
“The war and abandonment erased their mark in Madrid and imposed silence. This new return is full of meaning because it appeals to a shared memory between Spain and Portugal, because it reinforces a bond of friendship and because it tells us about that creativity that always prevails over wars, dictatorships and censorship,” added the minister.
Regarding Cultura Portugal, organized annually by the Portuguese embassy in Madrid and which this year reaches its 22nd edition, Ernest Urtasun maintained “that it has been transformed over the years into a space of confluence” of arts and thought.
“We need more spaces like this, we need this type of exchange and dialogue that Portugal proposes to us, to continue deepening this infallible bond that culture means for our countries,” defended the minister.
Dalila Rodrigues assured that the two governments share the desire to deepen relations at a cultural level through “not only exchange or exchange, but also joint projects between Portugal and Spain that will soon take shape,” giving news ahead of the Iberian summit. scheduled for this month. .
“No other area of human activity allows us to establish bilateral relations with equal intensity, with equal interest, with equal effectiveness, with equal beauty,” defended the minister.
The approximately 70 initiatives of Culture Portugal 2024 involve more than 200 artists and thinkers from different areas.
In addition to concerts, exhibitions, performances or debates, Portugal will be the guest country at several events in Spain over the coming months, including the Seville Film Festival, with a retrospective dedicated to April 25; the Eñe Festival of Madrid (literary) and the European Plots Series, from the National Library of Spain.
The complete program of Cultura Portugal 2024 can be consulted at https://culturaportugal-espana.es/.
Source: Observadora
