The organization of this exhibition rose from a challenge made by Guido Burgada, Director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura – Lisbona [Italian Institute of Culture – Lisbon], to José de Azeredo Perdigão, President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG). Burgata informed Perdigão that “Portuguese artists and scholars” regularly asked the Italian Institute to organise an “exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture, particularly avant-garde,” and he requested the collaboration of the FCG in the Biennial of São Paulo, which would make a stopover in Lisbon on their way back to Italy (Letter from Guido Burgata to José de Azeredo Perdigão, 14 Jan. 1968, Gulbenkian Archives, SBA 15359). The proposal was accepted, integrating this event in the set of activities of the FCG that aimed to disseminate in a “broad and generalized manner the latest forms of aesthetic expression” (Arte Contemporânea Italiana, 1966).

Although initially planned to be arranged in the halls of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, the exhibition was eventually installed in the FCG Temporary Exhibitions Gallery, which consisted of a temporary pavilion in Palhavã, Lisbon.

Considering the number of works to be exhibited and the space constraints, the works of art were displayed on two different occasions. On the first (between 4 and 15 May), paintings and sculptures by the artists Alberto Burri, Carmelo Cappello, Pericle Fazzini, Giuseppe Mazzulo, Valeriano Trubbiani and Alberto Viani were displayed; on the second (between 18 and 29 May) paintings, drawings and engravings by Enrico Castellani, Leonardo Cremonini, Lucio del Pezzo, Sergio Romiti, Giacomo Soffiantino, Giuseppe Zigaina, Mario Schifano, Getulio Alviani, Giorgio Bompadre and Antonino Virduzzo were exhibited. It should be noted that the first assembly gave prominence to Burri's paintings, “because he is clearly the most important exhibitor, whose controversial work has more creative interest”. (Note by the Fine Arts Department, 26 Apr. 1966, Gulbenkian Archives, SBA 15359).

In the catalogue, Cesari Brandi, commissioner of the Italian representation at the Biennial of São Paulo, justifies the selection criteria for the works of art, based on the objective of “providing a general picture of contemporary art in Italy”:

“It is therefore natural that there should be no homogeneity between the works, inasmuch as they are indices of tendencies which are, sometimes, more opposed than divergent from each other. All in all, the selection had an anthological character and it was not made with a view to display solely avant-garde art” (Arte Italiana Contemporânea, 1966).

During the event, various lectures on Italian art, given by Cesare Brandi and José-Augusto França, were organised as exhibition cultural support activities.