The exhibition publicly presents, for the first time, a group of leading artists from this particular collection.
A well-established gallery owner, Mário Teixeira da Silva has gathered, over fifty years, relevant works by 
Portuguese and international artists. The title chosen for the exhibition refers to the exhibited work “I don't know...”, by Jimmie Durham, and its enigmatic character is a link 
between this collection of works with a long chronology and different artistic typologies.

The exhibition is organized into four main axes and a Cabinet D’Amateur. 
The Idea and Experimentation nucleus brings together works by conceptual artists, 
such as Helena Almeida, Alberto Carneiro, Julião Sarmento, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hamish Fulton, 
Jochen Gerz, Christopher Wool. 
In Abstraction and Matter are works that question form, color and matter by authors such as Peter Halley, 
João Jacinto, Eduardo Vianna, Pedro Casqueiro, Jonathan Lasker, Franz Erhard Walther, Adriana Varejão 
or Allan McCollum. Landscape and Narrative brings together works that investigate the theme of natural space,
the treatment of interior spaces, architecture, narrative and sign figuration, as happens in works by 
creators such as Beatriz Milhazes, Paula Rego, Joaquim Rodrigo, Gonçalo Mabunda, Silva Porto, Candida Hofer, Wolfgang Tillmans. In the Corpo e Representação core, pieces that approach the representation of the body and its absence are collected, 
with artists such as Henrique Pousão, Zhang Huan, Thomas Ruff, Aurelia de Sousa, Lourdes Castro, Sue Williams,
Nan Goldin or Erwin Wurm. The route ends with an evocation of a Cabinet d’Amateur, 
in which works from the collector’s private environment are presented.

Exhibition context

Following the cycle “Colecionar Arte”, promoted by the direction of Os Amigos do Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea-Museu do Chiado, 
in which Mário Teixeira da Silva participated, in 2017, with moderation by Adelaide Duarte, the idea arose of exhibiting the collection that had never been shown in the country. 
The current management of MNAC cherished the proposal and managed to gather the conditions for this first public presentation of the Mário Teixeira da Silva collection, in Portugal.
Very diverse, in terms of the representation of authors and media used, the collection presents groups of works of great importance in the field of modern and contemporary art, 
both Portuguese and international. Also including elements of art known as tribal, it is also worth mentioning the important nucleus of photography.

About the collector

Mário Teixeira da Silva is an amateur collector and a compulsive reader. 
He makes his travels his “moments of freedom” to let himself be seduced by objects. 
It brought together a collection of international contemporary art, with an artistic spectrum that goes 
far beyond its gallery work. Graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of Porto, in 1975 he opens the Modulo-Centro Difusor de Arte, 
first in Porto, and later in Lisbon. This gallery, dedicated to new trends in contemporary art, maintains, until today, and for almost five decades, 
the same persistent and coherent line of work.

About the curator

Adelaide Duarte is a researcher at the Instituto de História da Arte and professor at the Department of History 
of Art at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. 
She coordinates the Post-Graduation in Art Market and Collecting at the same college. 
PhD in Museology and Cultural Heritage, her research focuses on the private collection of modern and contemporary art and on the functioning of the art system. 
She is vice-president of the association Os Amigos do Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea-Museu do Chiado.

Catalog

The exhibition will also feature a bilingual publication, carried out in partnership with Documenta.

In addition to texts by Emília Ferreira and Adelaide Duarte, 
the publication will also feature texts by Mário Teixeira da Silva, Sérgio Mah and João Pinharanda.
Curator guided tours

June 9th, Thursday, 5pm

July 1, Friday, 3pm

 
Other guided visits:

Appointments with the MNAC Educational Service via email: 
hildafrias@mnac.dgpc.pt