Large exhibition of art from Berlin organised by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre (MAC) and the Nationalgalerie (the National Gallery of Berlin), as part of the cultural exchange between the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Federal Republic of Germany. The transport and conservation work for the pieces exhibited was supported by the Berlin Museum.

The idea to hold the exhibition at the MAC arose from a visit by José de Azeredo Perdigão to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, where Werner Knopp, the Foundation’s president, and Dieter Honisch, director of the Nationalgalerie, suggested to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation president that an exhibition of Berlin artists be held in Lisbon, after first passing through Madrid.

Although the exhibition was not held in Madrid as initially planned, Arte em Berlim 1900 até hoje opened in Lisbon on 24 June 1989, remaining open to the public until 27 September, spread over the two floors of the MAC.

The exhibition, considered by Sommer Ribeiro to be “an exceptionally important project, since it is the largest German art exhibition ever held in Portugal”, played a significant role in disseminating modern German art, little known at the time in Portugal (Arte em Berlim. 1900 até hoje, 1989).

The exhibition was curated by Dieter Honisch, Dieter Appelt and Elke Ostländer and held as part of a partnership between the MAC and the Nationalgalerie that began during the Exposição-Diálogo in 1985. Despite its name, the exhibition did not aim to be “a historic panorama presented as a constant evolution”, as Dicker Honisch says in the text he wrote for the catalogue (Arte em Berlim. 1900 até hoje, 1989).

In fact, despite the historicist component that serves as the basis for the remaining body of the exhibition, the initiative sought to highlight more recent artistic production by showing the work of living Berlin-based artists. On this matter, the exhibition curator wrote that “the exhibition is closer to present day Berlin than the past”, and that the exhibition should be understood as “a provisional result of a search for reliable evidence of the current artistic context in the city, which was hoped to be closer to the truth than a definitive statement that could seem false” (ibid.).

To hold the exhibition, all the pieces in the modern art collection at the MAC needed to be removed and temporarily placed in the museum’s storerooms. Furthermore, the exhibition displayed some of the renovation work in the museum space, for which the museum had been closed between 11 and 25 July. At the end of the exhibition, and taking advantage of the MAC’s renovation, a new plan was drawn up for exhibiting the works in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s collection.

The layout of the exhibition was designed to welcome visitors with a video by artist Martin Rosz in the MAC’s entrance hall, followed by a historical section presented on the Lower Ground Floor. On the ground floor, visitors found informal art paintings and sculptures in the first room, followed by abstract paintings, also exhibited on the upper floor. Throughout the MAC’s main hall, sculptures by Michael Schoenholtz and Rainer Mang were displayed, along with paintings by Frank Badur and other artists.

The exhibition was very widely publicised in the Portuguese media, which highlighted that it was “not only the largest exhibition of German art in Portugal in recent years, but also the peak of cultural cooperation between Portugal and Germany this year” (“Arte em Berlim: 1900 até hoje”, Diário de Lisboa, 17 Aug. 1989).

However, not all the reviews were positive, as demonstrated by Alexandre Pomar’s article for the Expresso newspaper: “But ‘Arte em Berlim’ is dominated by the 1980s, in an exhaustive overview of artists from different post-war generations. And in that regard no-one saved us from the lack of interest of the vast majority of the pieces, or rather, the inevitable weariness when viewing the futile, academic and lifeless sequence of an archaic cultural practice, visual arts” (Pomar, Expresso, 12 Aug. 1989).

Another aspect that was criticised, this time by Chaké Matossian in the Semanário newspaper, was the division between the historical and contemporary parts of the selected pieces. “Like any boundary, the separation between historical and current only has a comforting educational value and is of little interest” (Matossian, Semanário, 29 Jul. 1989).

A short leaflet in English aimed at foreign visitors was printed for the exhibition and an exhibition newspaper was published containing some texts from the catalogue – “Introduction” and “Preface” – along with reproductions of some works and texts about them, and a timeline tracing the course of art in Berlin from 1900 to 1988.