Art and Culture

We feel the need to continue a collective memory that unites all Portuguese in the world, and we know that, both culture and art, are intrinsic tools in building and maintaining any identity, indispensable to connecting Portuguese and Portuguese-descendant communities.

In this sense, FLAD has an unquestionable historical role, with regard to the valorization and dissemination of Portuguese culture and art, both in Portuguese territory and in the international cultural space, particularly in the United States of America.

For this reason, we work to be one of the main incubators of Portuguese art and culture, by collaborating with a high number of initiatives that secure the presence of our culture in the USA, allowing exchanges between artists, intellectuals and researchers of the two countries, as well as the financing of significant institutions in the sector, such as Árpád Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation (FASVS), Serralves Foundation and Culturgest.

FLAD’s contemporary art collection, which has about 1000 works of art from Portuguese artists, is a unique collection, which brings together, since 1986, a set of works that represent Portuguese contemporary production of the 80s, 90s and from the beginning of the 21st century.

The collection, by having an important role for the study of contemporary Portuguese art, is a fundamental space in the creation and reinforcement of networks with renowned institutions, such as Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Drawing Center in New York, the museums that are a part of the structure of the Secretariat of State for Culture (exhibitions in the museums of Évora and Caldas da Rainha), the Generalitat de Catalunya in Spain, the Serralves Foundation, the Culturgest, Nogueira da Silva Museum of Minho University, the Arpad Szenes–Vieira da Silva Foundation,  Côa Valley Museum, and museums under the tutelage of the Regional Directorate of Culture/Regional Government of the Azores.

Currently, the collection is going through a process of reinterpretation and revitalization, in an exercise to redefine its mission, whose public presentation will take place during 2020, the same year that FLAD fulfills 35 years in promoting Portuguese culture around the world.