LISBON.- Lisbon is part of the Modern and Contemporary Art map since the opening of Museu Colecção Berardo - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art - in June 2007. There would certainly be a great void if a museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art was missing in Lisbon. Such a space is now a reality presented to the international and Portuguese visitors who come to Lisbon in search of new cultural references. Presently counting with 900 works in its collection, the new Museum occupies the Exhibition Centre of the Centro Cultural de Belém (Cultural Centre of Belém) and follows an organized program, developed in a museological perspective, which allows the rotation between the several art movements that compose the Berardo Collection.

The Berardo Collection is internationally acclaimed as a significant art collection that, in addition to its valuable core of works of excellence, also allows us to accompany the main artistic movements of the 20th century. The representation of more than 70 artistic tendencies demonstrates the strong museological and didactic inclination of this collection, in itself an unquenchable source of creativity and innovation possibilities, not only through the richness of its contents but also because, not being a static collection (the new acquisitions will keep an updated status of authors and works), it allows different and state-of-the-art readings of contemporary art. In view of attracting a diversified public, the Museum also includes in its program the exchange of temporary exhibitions (in partnership with other national and international institutions), as well as other cultural activities such as conferences, thematic visits, publications, and other instruments for the promotion and diffusion of the Museum and modern and contemporary art in the Portuguese society, promoting creativity and the integration of Portuguese artists in the international scene.

In 2009, the Berardo Collection Museum will continue to offer to its visitors, not just a new route through the Berardo Collection but also a wide range of temporary exhibitions such as The Universal Archive - The condition of the Document and the Photographic utopia; - which addresses the mission and history of photography; Peter Kogler - the first exhibition in Portugal of this Austrian artist who had the privilege of being represented twice in Documenta in Kassel, and whose work is based on the architectural design of spaces that oscillate between fiction and reality, between painting and video, in a world of signs and ideograms. By the end of the year, other temporary exhibitions deserve attention, in particular, the retrospective exhibition of Portuguese architect Amâncio "Pancho" Guedes; and AMÁLIA, an independent heart, a major exhibition in homage to Amalia Rodrigues, the greatest portuguese Fado singer that left a mythical image never achieved by anyone. On the tenth anniversary of her death, the exhibition attempts to rethink Amália, through documents, paintings, films, among other objects.

RAÚL PEREZ
February 16 – April 12
Raúl Perez was born in Lovelhe (Minho) in 1944. He shows his work individually since 1972. In 1973 he joins the Group Phases (Paris). The aim of this exhibition is to gather and present a core of approximately seventy works, made between the 1970s and 90s, showing the path of work and Painter Raúl Perez. An exhibition that allows a vision of a universe plastic and aesthetic so unique.

UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE - The document and the utopic photography
March 9 - May 3
The history of photography is a hybrid medium and contradictory, but always related to the concept of the document, the testimony of historic representation. The loss of realism in the current discussions of digital photography, the "post-photography", is forgetting the traditional mission of photography: the construction of a universal file, an universal archive.

The photography of the nineteenth century, such as "Mission Héliographique", or the work of Charles Marville are the first major events of the photograph in ideals of modern culture. This exhibition tries to show the universal language of photography, with reference to the texts of August Sander in 1931.

The exhibition is composed of two main clusters. The first part is devoted to discussion of the document:

- The theme of the document, from Lewis Hine and Rodchenko, by Paul Strand and Doisneau.
- The concept of the photographic exhibition of lissitzky to "The Family of Man" (MOMA, 1955).
- Major projects, the "Mission Héliographique" from 1851 until the "Mission Dating" of the 1980s, through, among others, by August Sander.

BES Photo – 5nd Edition
March 12 – May 3
The BES Photo is an initiative of Banco Espírito Santo in partnership with the ‘Museu Colecção Berardo’, which aims to reward portuguese artists living in Portugal, having undergone an exhibition of photographic works in Portuguese territory. André Gomes, Edgar Martins and Luis Palma, are the 3 artists previously chosen by the selection panel of 3 curators and critics. The BES Photo prize culminates with the award given to the winner artist.

PETER KOGLER
March 16 – May 31
This is the first exhibition in Portugal of Austrian artist Peter Kogler (n.1959). The art of Peter Kogler - which already had the very rare privilege of two presences in Documenta in Kassel - is the design of the architectural spaces between fiction and reality, between painting and video to large in a world of signs and ideogram. An endless transformation of symbols, images and digital spaces.

PANCHO GUEDES
May 18 – August 16
The architect Amâncio d’Alpoim Miranda Guedes, better known as Pancho Guedes (n.1925) is the author of Casal dos Olhos, in Eugaria, near Sintra. Studied in S. Tome and Principe, Guinea, Lisbon, Lourenço Marques (Maputo), Johannesburg and Oporto.

Much of his work is in Mozambique and date of the decades of 1950 and 1960. This exhibition presents an overview of the most striking production held in Maputo, as the building Leão que Ri.

PhotoEspaña09
June 8 – July 27
As the second edition of the Curator Sergio Mah, PhotoEspaña09 will result in a new collaboration between the Museu Colecção Berardo with this great photography Spanish festival.

ART DECO – Berardo Collection
June 15 – September 20
Besides the largest collection of art of the twentieth century existing in Portugal, the Berardo Collection is a ‘collection of collections’ wich brings together over the past years a number of important pieces of furniture and decorative arts representative of the "Art Deco" of the 1930s.

MIKAEL LEVIN - CRISTINA’S HISTORY
September 1 –November 1
This is the story of Cristina da Silva through Poland, Portugal and Guinea Bissau. Isuchaar, the great-grandfather of Cristina leaves Poland during the First World War. The grandmother of Cristina was born in Lisbon goes to Guinea in 1947, where Cristina born in 1973. The photographer Mikael Levin (b. 1954, New York) portrays the pilgrimage of this part of his family.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
September 10 – November 28
This exhibition will survey the dimension of time in graphic design, looking back as far as the early twentieth century. It will argue that the temporal has played a role not only in motion graphics but also in print, the development of each having had a strong influence on that of the other. Looking at still graphics, it will explore the way designers have evoked a sense of time and motion and have represented the passage of time, sometimes to the extent of imposing a certain temporal progression. It will start with early-modern experimental film and progress through the cinema and TV title sequences of the mid-to-late twentieth century, demonstrating that designers have long exploited the dimension of time. The exhibition will come up to date with a section dealing with the advent of the personal computer and beyond, exploring websites and games and highlighting the intelligent and beautiful ways designers have found to fill temporal space.

AMÁLIA
October 6 – February 1 (2010)
Amália Rodrigues 1920-1999) leaves a mythical image never achieved by anyone. On the tenth anniversary of her death, the exhibition attempts to rethink Amália, through documents, paintings, films, among other objects.

SILENCES
October 19 – January 8 (2010)
This exhibition is a personal choice of the well-known film producer Marin Karmitz (b. 1938, Bucharest), producer, among many others, Three-Color Krzysztof kieslowski, or for Paranoid Park Gus Van Sant. Take the word is the theme of the exhibition through the works of Christian Boltanski, Alberto Giacometti, Juan Muñoz, Ilya Kabakov, among others.

JUDITH BARRY
November 9 – January 8 (2010)
Judith Barry (USA n.1954 - lives and works in New York) is part of the "pioneers" of contemporary video art.

"In the digital age, video installation needs to be that much more spectacular - but how much can you get more spectacular than Nam June Paik's improbable light shows and Tony Oursler's nasty ghosts. Judith Barry finds a way with her third-part dramatic, part-Pictorial (or, if you would, picturesque) projections in rooms and objects. " (Excerpt from an article in the weekly magazine LA)