Art on Display. Formas de expor 1949-69

About

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Gulbenkian Museum, this exhibition takes as its starting point the display solutions found for the opening of the Museum in 1969. It also recreates different exhibition design ideas created by Franco Albini and Franca Helg, Carlo Scarpa, Lina Bo Bardi, Aldo van Eyck and Alison and Peter Smithson in other countries.

This exhibition takes the museography of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum as its starting point, marking its 50th anniversary.

The Italian designer Franco Albini advised the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation on the most contemporary examples of good museum design. The museum, which opened in 1969, was strongly influenced by his background in contemporary Italian design, notably that of Carlo Scarpa.

The exhibition recreates some of the period’s classic solutions to the display of art, contrasting the stasis and fixity of 1950s’ design with some of the more playful and immersive designs, by Aldo van Eyck and the Smithsons, which had already emerged by the time the Museum opened.

This exhibition allows the viewer to experience these different ways of looking at and being with art. It is accompanied by archival photographs and drawings, revealing  display solutions conceived for the Museum.

The exhibition is an associate project of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2019. In 2020, it will also be held at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.

Curators: Penelope Curtis (Calouste Gulbenkian Museum) and Dirk van den Heuvel (Jaap Bakema Study Centre/Het Nieuwe Instituut)
In association with: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam